ESRI BIS

What ESRI BIS does

ESRI BIS refers to the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, the curated global content platform operated by Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.), a privately held GIS software company headquartered in Redlands, California. The platform functions as Esri's central repository of geographic information, providing ready-to-use maps, data layers, applications, and 3D scenes that users access directly through ArcGIS Online Map Viewer and ArcGIS Pro. Its customer base spans federal, state, and local government agencies, environmental and conservation organizations, utilities and infrastructure operators, commercial enterprises across banking, insurance, real estate, retail, telecom, and manufacturing, and academic institutions. Primary use cases include disaster response and situational awareness, environmental monitoring, water resource planning, land cover analysis, and general location intelligence.

The technical architecture combines first-party datasets (HydroSHEDS 2.0 hydrology for the Americas, 40 years of NLCD land cover data at 30-meter resolution, Global Biodiversity and Conservation Hexagons, USGS Historical Topographic Maps) with exclusive third-party integrations (Mapillary's 3+ billion crowdsourced street-level images, Google Photorealistic 3D Basemap in preview, iNaturalist citizen-science observations). On top of this content base, Esri ships an extensive app portfolio — including Wildfire Aware, Hurricane Aware, Air Quality Aware, Drought Aware, Sea Ice Aware, Water Balance App (with NASA), Disaster Imagery Explorer, Landsat/Sentinel-1/Sentinel-2 explorers, Historical Topo Map Explorer, and Esri Maps for Public Policy — plus tooling such as Community Maps Editor and the ArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor.

Commercially, Living Atlas is not sold as a standalone SKU; access is bundled with ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro subscriptions on annual contracts, with tiered pricing by organizational size and usage. Premium content (e.g., Google Photorealistic 3D Basemap sessions) is monetized transactionally through the Esri Store. Distribution combines self-service product-led growth (Map Viewer, desktop Pro), e-commerce, and Esri's enterprise field sales team, supported by content marketing (ArcGIS Blog, industry blogs), community engagement (GeoNet), and event-driven demand generation (Esri User Conference).

Name

ESRI BIS

Legal name

Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.

Website

https://livingatlas.arcgis.com

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Short description

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is Esri's curated global repository of geographic content — maps, data layers, and applications — bundled with ArcGIS Online and Pro subscriptions and serving government, environmental, commercial, and academic users with disaster response and spatial analytics use cases.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Software

NAICS

Surveying and Mapping (except Geophysical) Services (54137), Surveying and Mapping (except Geophysical) Services (541370), Geophysical Surveying and Mapping Services (54136)

akta.pro primary industry

GIS & Spatial Data Management Platforms (BPAMANAK)

akta.pro secondary industries

Location Intelligence, Analytics & Geospatial BI (BPAMANAE), Satellite Imagery & Remote Sensing Geospatial Platforms (BPAMANAM), Mapping & Basemap Platforms (Tiles/SDKs) (BPAMANAB), Remote Sensing & Earth Observation Analytics (Satellite/UAV/LiDAR, Image Processing) (EUAHAKAD), Geospatial Data Management & Enterprise GIS (Geodatabases, Web GIS, Spatial Analytics) (EUAHAKAC)

Keywords

• Geographic information systems
• GIS platform
• Spatial data layers
• Geospatial analytics
• Interactive mapping software

Headquarters

HQ city

Redlands

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. ArcGIS Platform Subscription: ArcGIS Living Atlas is part of the broader Esri ArcGIS platform. Access to content is provided through ArcGIS Online subscriptions and ArcGIS Pro licenses, which follow a subscription-based commercial model with tiered pricing based on usage and organizational needs.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is a curated geospatial content platform providing ready-to-use maps, data layers, and applications that support GIS work. It functions as the central content repository for the ArcGIS platform, integrating geographic content from Esri and thousands of partner organizations. Access is delivered through ArcGIS Online cloud subscriptions and ArcGIS Pro desktop licenses, with specialized applications covering environmental monitoring, disaster response, land cover analysis, satellite imagery, and public policy mapping.

Product overview

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is a comprehensive GIS content platform operated by Esri. It functions as the foremost collection of geographic information globally, comprising ready-to-use maps, data layers, and applications. The platform provides both content consumption (through the Living Atlas browse interface) and specialized applications including environmental monitoring apps (Water Balance App, Wildfire Aware, Air Quality Aware, Hurricane Aware, Drought Aware, Sea Ice Aware), satellite imagery explorers (Sentinel-2, Landsat, NLCD Land Cover), and utility tools (Vector Tile Style Editor, Community Maps Editor, SSURGO Downloader). Integration with third-party data sources (Mapillary street imagery, Google 3D Basemap, iNaturalist, HydroSHEDS) extends the platform's coverage. The content is designed to be combined with ArcGIS Online Map Viewer and ArcGIS Pro for creating custom maps and applications.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Water Balance App: Application that shows how water balance is changing over time on Earth
• Wildfire Aware
• Air Quality Aware
• Hurricane Aware
• Drought Aware
• Sentinel-2 Land Cover Explorer
• NLCD Land Cover Explorer
• Landsat Explorer
• Sentinel-2 Explorer
• Sentinel-1 Explorer
• Disaster Imagery Explorer
• World Imagery Wayback App
• Historical Topo Map Explorer
• UnemploymentPulse
• Live Feeds Status
• U.S. Vessel Traffic
• Sea Ice Aware
• ArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor
• Community Maps Editor
• Esri Maps for Public Policy
• Ecological Marine Unit (EMU) Explorer
• SSURGO Downloader
• EcoExplorer

Products and services

• ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World

Quantifiable outcome

• Access to 3+ billion street-level view images from Mapillary's crowdsourced datasets
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

AI capability4 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• GooglecoreTechnology or Integration · 1 June 2026Google provides the Photorealistic 3D Basemap to ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro (Preview). This high-resolution, photorealistic 3D foundation adds significant visual detail to ArcGIS mapping and analysis capabilities.
• MapillarycoreTechnology or IntegrationMapillary provides street-level imagery to ArcGIS Living Atlas, offering access to more than 3 billion crowdsourced street-level view images that grow daily. This publicly available imagery layer integrates immersive, street-level oriented imagery views into ArcGIS mapping workflows.
• HydroSHEDS ConsortiumcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEsri and global partners released HydroSHEDS 2.0 providing high-resolution hydrologic data for North, Central, and South America. This data improves water resource planning capabilities within the ArcGIS Living Atlas environment.
• iNaturalistcoreTechnology or IntegrationiNaturalist provides global citizen science species observations integrated into ArcGIS Living Atlas. The service contains enhancements that provide more iNaturalist attributes directly within ArcGIS workflows for biodiversity monitoring.
• Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) ConsortiumcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMRLC Consortium provides NLCD (National Land Cover Database) Land Cover data to ArcGIS Living Atlas. The data offers consistent, yearly snapshots of land cover use and change for the lower-48 United States from 1985 to 2024 at 30-meter resolution.
• NASAminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerNASA collaborated with Esri to create the Water Balance App, which allows users to click anywhere on Earth to see how water balance is changing over time. This application leverages NASA data within the ArcGIS Living Atlas ecosystem.
• USGS (United States Geological Survey)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUSGS provides Historical Topo Map Explorer content for ArcGIS Living Atlas, enabling access to historical topographic maps for historical analysis and change detection within ArcGIS mapping applications.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• CARTO: CARTO is a cloud-native location intelligence and spatial analytics platform for developers and enterprises. Directly comparable as a GIS-adjacent SaaS offering spatial analytics, basemaps, and location data APIs to enterprise customers.
• Mapbox: Mapbox is a leading location data and mapping platform serving developers and enterprises with basemaps, geospatial services, and visualization APIs. Highly comparable as a developer-focused geospatial content and platform company, with Mapillary (now part of the broader Mapbox ecosystem) as a direct content partner to Living Atlas.

Emerging players

• Planet Labs: Planet operates a large constellation of Earth observation satellites producing daily global imagery, and exposes content via APIs and tools. Comparable as a satellite imagery and remote sensing data provider competing in the same upstream stack as Living Atlas's Sentinel-2 / Landsat / Mapillary content.
• Foursquare / Foursquare Places API: Foursquare provides location data, points-of-interest, and geospatial APIs for enterprise and developer use cases. Comparable as an alternative location data and location intelligence platform serving similar commercial and analytics segments.
• Sinergise (Sentinel Hub): Sinergise operates Sentinel Hub, a cloud-based platform for satellite imagery (Sentinel, Landsat, Planet) and Earth observation analytics. Directly comparable in processing and distributing Sentinel/Landsat and other earth observation content via APIs and web apps to enterprise and government users.

Broad incumbents

• TomTom: TomTom sells map content, location services, and geospatial APIs for automotive, enterprise, and government markets. Comparable as a large-scale location data and mapping platform with similar geographic content and enterprise distribution.
• Hexagon Geospatial: Hexagon Geospatial provides enterprise GIS, remote sensing, and location intelligence software (Power Portfolio, ERDAS IMAGINE) to government and commercial markets. Comparable as a broader incumbent in enterprise geospatial software offering overlapping content, analytics, and imagery workflows.
• HERE Technologies: HERE provides enterprise location data, mapping, and geospatial APIs used across logistics, automotive, and public-sector markets. Comparable as a global location data and platform provider serving government and commercial segments analogous to Living Atlas customers.
• Maxar Technologies: Maxar provides high-resolution satellite imagery and geospatial analytics to defense, intelligence, and commercial customers. Comparable as an enterprise satellite imagery and Earth observation data provider serving overlapping government and commercial use cases.
• Google (Google Maps Platform / Google Earth Engine): Google's Maps Platform and Earth Engine provide massive geospatial content and satellite imagery APIs at global scale, including the Photorealistic 3D Basemap licensed into ArcGIS Living Atlas. Directly comparable in geospatial data distribution and developer-platform orientation.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about ESRI BIS