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GIS Portfolio Projects

Goal: Build a portfolio of real GIS work. These 7 projects are sequenced from beginner-friendly to advanced. Pick 3 and ship them.

→ Read first: Portfolio Projects (roadmap).

Why these 7?

Each project teaches a different category of GIS skill, and each has a clear portfolio value for entry-level GIS roles:

# Project Skills Hiring signal
1 Population Choropleth Cartography, normalization, classification "Can make a clean thematic map"
2 Transit Desert Buffers, joins, demographic analysis "Can answer access questions"
3 Food Desert Network analysis basics, USDA criteria "Can apply a standard methodology"
4 Emergency Response Service areas, OD matrix, optimization "Can run real network analysis"
5 Migration & Housing Time-series, change detection "Can tell a temporal story"
6 Site Suitability Raster reclass, weighted overlay "Can do multi-criteria decision modeling"
7 Environmental Risk Floodplain, vulnerability, mixed data "Can integrate vector + raster"

Each project page has

  • Goal — the one-line question
  • Data needed — sources and links
  • Tools used — ArcGIS Pro tools and SQL
  • Step-by-step workflow — the exact sequence
  • Skills learned — what to put on your resume
  • Portfolio value — why this one impresses a hiring manager

How to ship one

For every project:

  1. Open a GitHub repo named after the project (e.g., transit-desert-atl).
  2. README.md with the question, data, methods, and a hero map embedded.
  3. Folder structure: 
    project/
├── data/                # raw inputs
├── outputs/             # exported maps and shapefiles
├── notebooks/           # Jupyter or Python scripts
├── docs/                # write-up
└── README.md
  4. Hero map as PNG (300 dpi).
  5. Story Map or Dashboard in ArcGIS Online for the interactive version.
  6. Link all of it in your portfolio Hub.
flowchart LR
    A[1. Population<br/>Choropleth]:::beg --> B[2. Transit<br/>Desert]:::beg
    B --> C[Pick one<br/>advanced]:::adv

    classDef beg fill:#ecfdf5,stroke:#10b981,color:#065f46
    classDef adv fill:#fef2f2,stroke:#ef4444,color:#991b1b

Beginner combo (Project 1 + 2 + 6): Choropleth + Transit Desert + Site Suitability. Covers cartography, vector analysis, and raster decision modeling. Strong, balanced portfolio.

Get started

→ Start with Population Choropleth Map. Easiest to ship, teaches the most.