USA Wetlands

Wetlands are areas where water is present at or near the surface of the soil during at least part of the year. Wetlands provide habitat for many species of plants and animals that are adapted to living in wet habitats. Wetlands form characteristic soils, absorb pollutants and excess nutrients from aquatic systems, help buffer the effects of high flows, and recharge groundwater. Data on the distribution and type of wetland play an important role in land use planning and several federal and state laws require that wetlands be considered during the planning process. The National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) was designed to assist land managers in wetland conservation efforts. The NWI is managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Dataset Summary Phenomenon Mapped: Wetlands Geographic Extent: 50 United States plus Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Palmyra Atoll, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands Projection: Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere Visible Scale: This layer preforms well between scales of 1:350,000 to 1:1,000. An imagery layer created from this dataset is also available which you can also use to quickly draw wetlands at smaller scales. Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Update Frequency: Annual Data Vintage: April, 2026 Publication Date: April, 2026 This layer was created from the April, 2026 version of the NWI. The features were converted from multi-part to a single part using the Multipart To Singlepart tool. Features with more than 50,000 vertices were split with the Dice tool. The Repair Geometry tool was run on the features, using the OGC option. The layer is published with a related table that contains text fields created by Esri for use in the layer's pop-up. Fields in the table are: Popup Header - this field contains a text string that is used to create the header in the default pop-up System Text - this field contains a text string that is used to create the system description text in the default pop-up Class Text - this field contains a text string that is used to create the class description text in the default pop-up Modifier Text - this field contains a text string that is used to create the modifier description text in the default pop-up Species Text - this field contains a text string that is used to create the species description text in the default pop-up Codes, names, and text fields were derived from the publication Classification of Wetlands and Deepwater Habitats of the United States. What can you do with this layer? Start by reading this blog on using the USA Wetlands layer. Feature layers work throughout the ArcGIS system. Generally your work flow with feature layers will begin in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Pro. Below are just a few of the things you can do with a feature service in Online and Pro. Read more in our Wetlands of the United States blog. ArcGIS Online Add this layer to a map in the map viewer. The layer is limited to scales of 1:350,000 or larger but an imagery layer created from the same data can be used at smaller scales to produce a webmap that displays across the full scale range. The layer or a map containing it can be used in an application. Change the layer’s transparency and set its visibility range. Open the layer’s attribute table and make selections and apply filters. Selections made in the map or table are reflected in the other. Center on selection allows you to zoom to features selected in the map or table and show selected records allows you to view the selected records in the table. Change the layer’s style and filter the data. For example, you could set a filter for System Name = 'Palustrine' to create a map of palustrine wetlands only. Add labels and set their properties. Customize the pop-up. ArcGIS Pro Add this layer to a 2d or 3d map. Use as an input to geoprocessing. For example, copy features allows you to select then export portions of the data to a new feature class. Change the symbology and the attribute field used to symbolize the data. Open table and make interactive selections with the map. Modify the pop-ups. Apply Definition Queries to create sub-sets of the layer. This layer is part of the Living Atlas of the World that provides an easy way to explore the landscape layers and many other beautiful and authoritative maps on hundreds of topics. Questions? Please leave a comment below if you have a question about this layer, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.