Map Layers: Finding Public ArcGIS Services

1. What you're looking for

The ArcGIS Feature/Map Service map layer draws any public ArcGIS service on the tracking map — and government agencies, research institutions, and mapping authorities worldwide publish thousands of them, free to use. This guide shows you how to find the services relevant to your industry and operation, and how to check one before adding it to GSatTrack.

A usable service URL ends in /FeatureServer or /MapServer, for example:

https://apps.fs.usda.gov/arcx/rest/services/EDW/EDW_SurfaceOwnership_01/MapServer

The test is simple: paste the URL into a browser. A public service shows an "ArcGIS REST Services Directory" page — no sign-in, with the service's layers listed. If the page asks for credentials or returns an error, the service isn't public; keep looking.

Tip: A URL pointing at one specific layer (ending in /FeatureServer/0 or /MapServer/3) works too — the map layer form converts it to the service root and pre-selects that layer for you.

2. Start with the big catalogs

Three catalogs cover most needs:

ArcGIS Living Atlas — livingatlas.arcgis.com. Esri's curated collection of authoritative layers. Search a topic, filter to Feature layer or Map image layer, and copy the URL from any item's details page.
ArcGIS Hub — hub.arcgis.com. Searches thousands of open-data sites published by governments and organizations worldwide. Open a dataset and look for its service URL (labelled GeoService or under View API Resources).
Data.gov — catalog.data.gov. The U.S. federal data catalog, which also indexes state and local data. Dataset pages list an ArcGIS GeoServices REST API (or "Esri REST") resource that links straight to the service.

3. Starting points by industry

You know your operating picture — the boundaries, hazards, and infrastructure that matter around your assets. These publishers are proven starting points (all verified public as of August 2026):

Maritime — Fishing, Merchant Shipping, Leisure

MarineCadastre — marinecadastre.gov. U.S. offshore planning data: shipping lanes and fairways, anchorage areas, maritime boundaries, offshore infrastructure.
NOAA Office for Coastal Management — coast.noaa.gov/arcgis/rest/services. Browse the MarineCadastre folder, plus coastal flood exposure and sea-level-rise layers.
BOEM — gis.boem.gov/arcgis/rest/services. Offshore lease blocks and energy areas in the BOEM_BSEE folder.

Emergency Response

National Interagency Fire Center — data-nifc.opendata.arcgis.com. Live wildland-fire incident locations and perimeters.
National Weather Service — mapservices.weather.noaa.gov/eventdriven/rest/services. Watches, warnings, and advisories in the WWA folder, plus radar and hydrologic layers.
FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer — hazards.fema.gov/arcgis/rest/services. Flood hazard zones and base flood elevations nationwide.

Energy, Oil, Gas, Utilities, Mining

EIA U.S. Energy Atlas — atlas.eia.gov. Power plants, pipelines, transmission lines, and the rest of the U.S. energy infrastructure picture.
BOEM (above) for offshore energy.
State geological surveys and oil & gas commissions — most publish well, permit, and pipeline layers; search "your state oil and gas GIS".

Forestry, Agriculture, Land Management

USDA Forest Service — apps.fs.usda.gov/arcx/rest/services. The EDW (Enterprise Data Warehouse) folder holds over a hundred services: grazing allotments (EDW_RangeManagement_01), land ownership (EDW_SurfaceOwnership_01), trails, roads, fire occurrence and perimeters, timber activities, and more.
Bureau of Land Management — search "BLM" on ArcGIS Hub for public-land and land-status layers.

Government — Boundaries, Law Enforcement, Public Transportation

U.S. Census TIGERweb — tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services. Every legal and statistical boundary in the United States, plus demographic layers.
City and county open-data portals — jurisdiction boundaries, districts, address points; search "your city or county GIS open data".

Transportation and Fleet Management

State departments of transportation — road conditions, truck routes, mile markers, traffic cameras; search "your state DOT GIS open data".

Aerospace and Aviation

FAA aeronautical data — search "FAA" on ArcGIS Hub for airspace boundaries, airports, and UAS facility maps.

Outside the United States

The same pattern holds worldwide: national mapping agencies, environment ministries, and meteorological services publish ArcGIS services through their own open-data portals. Search ArcGIS Hub or "country or agency open data GIS", and remember the Living Atlas carries global datasets — world boundaries, weather, live satellite feeds — alongside its U.S. content.

4. Found one service? Browse the publisher's whole catalog

This is the highest-yield technique in the guide. Every ArcGIS server publishes a browsable catalog at its /rest/services root — so one discovered URL unlocks everything its publisher offers.

Trim any service URL back to /rest/services and open it in a browser:

https://apps.fs.usda.gov/arcx/rest/services/EDW/EDW_RangeManagement_01/MapServer
                                          ↓ trim to
https://apps.fs.usda.gov/arcx/rest/services

The directory page lists folders and services; click through them just like a file explorer. In the Forest Service example, finding a single grazing-allotment service this way reveals its EDW folder's hundred-plus siblings — land ownership, wildfire history, trails, recreation sites — each one ready to paste into the map layer form.

5. Search the web directly

Services Directory pages are indexed by search engines, so you can search for service URLs themselves. Two patterns work well:

inurl:rest/services plus a topic — e.g. inurl:rest/services wildfire perimeters
An agency name plus "rest services" — e.g. "environment agency" rest services flood

Use this to find a first foothold on an unfamiliar publisher, then apply Section 4 to browse the rest of their catalog.

6. Check a service before you add it

A one-minute check saves configuration dead ends:

It opens in a browser without a sign-in and shows the Services Directory page.
The page header says MapServer or FeatureServer. Both work — the map layer form detects the type and pre-selects the right rendering mode.
Its layers are listed on the page, so you can see what you'll be able to draw.

Then paste the URL into Manage › Map Layers and let the live preview confirm the rest — it draws the service exactly as the tracking map will. If a national-scale dataset shows far more than you need, the Data filter option scopes it to your region (for example, one forest, one state, or status = 'ACTIVE'); see the ArcGIS Feature/Map Service page for the full form walkthrough.

7. Good citizenship

Check the terms of use on the dataset or portal page. Most government data is public domain or requires simple attribution, but the publisher's terms govern.
Availability belongs to the publisher. Public services go down for maintenance, move hosts, and occasionally retire. If a layer that worked for months stops drawing, re-find the current URL with the techniques above and update the map layer.
Prefer https:// URLs — browsers block insecure map content on a secure page.

Quick reference

What works: any public URL ending in /FeatureServer or /MapServer (single-layer URLs auto-convert).
Catalogs: ArcGIS Living Atlas, ArcGIS Hub, Data.gov.
By industry: see Section 3 for verified starting points — maritime, emergency response, energy, forestry and land management, government boundaries, transportation, aviation.
Highest yield: trim any found URL back to /rest/services and browse the publisher's entire catalog.
Web search: inurl:rest/services plus a topic keyword.
The test: it opens in a browser without a sign-in; then the live preview in Manage › Map Layers confirms how it draws.
Caveats: respect the publisher's terms of use; third-party services can move or retire.