XY coordinates and data frame correct but points are displayed in the wrong location.

[GeorginaAllen]

Some background; I am working on a university project which includes data from GPS collars on Red Deer in the Netherlands. There are around 21,000 data points for 4 GPS collars (so 84,000 total data points). But I am have issues displaying them on the map. The points should be displayed in the Netherlands (close to Eindhoven) but instead they are being displayed either in the ocean near Nigeria or in the Red Sea.

I am using decimal coordinates (to 6 decimal places) and I have triple checked that the data frame and the layers are in WGS1984. I have used the simple "Display XY data" option from the drop down menu on the table of contents, I have used the "Make XY event layer" tool, and I have tried the "Project" tool on a shapefile made with the coordinates.

I have also saved the original excel workbook with the coordinates in the Excel 97-2003 format.

I am really lost about how to solve this! Is it possible that there could be a problem with the excel file?

Many thanks

[SimonKettle]

It sounds like you might have gone through most of these checks but have a look at this blog post on the subject:

https://community.esri.com/groups/coordinate-reference-systems/blog/2018/12/12/checklist-adding-coor...

[GeorginaAllen]

Thanks Simon, I've run through this checklist but unfortunately am still ending up with the same (incorrect) result.

[rachelg_esri]

Hello Georgina!

Is there any chance you could share the Excel file?

There are a number of factors that come into play when importing data from external sources, especially Excel files. Sometimes CSVs are a bit more cooperative (as long as you don't have data that has commas, such as a text field or single-field address entries that have commas between street, city, and state). But taking a look at the data would help us do some testing to find out why you're seeing what you're seeing.

Just off the top of my head, there could be invalid characters in the headers, spaces somewhere (leading or trailing, both in headers and in the data), or something similar triggering the issue. If you import the data as just a table (let's say, into a file geodatabase), do you see the same data you did in Excel or does anything change? Sometimes seeing this intermediary table helps recognize problems.

If you need to, you can give some falsified data, as long as it reproduces the issue.

Keep us posted!

Best regards,

Rachel

Esri Support Services

[MelitaKennedy]

Offshore by Nigeria sounds like "null island". That occurs when data values are latitude-longitude but has been defined with a projected coordinate system like Web Mercator or has an "unknown" coordinate system but data values are lat-lon. A Red Sea location sounds almost like a swapping of the easting (X) and northing (Y) values. 

Melita

[GeorginaAllen]

Yes, this does sound highly possible! How would you recommend addressing this problem? It should be in a Mercator projection.

[MelitaKennedy · Accepted solution]

Hi Georgina, 

When you import the original points, you need to make sure their coordinate system is set to 4326, WGS 1984. Confirm that they're showing up in the correct location. Now...

1. If not already done, change the data frame's coordinate system to 3857, Web Mercator (or whatever coordinate system you want to data to end up in).

2. Right-click the layer and choose data, export data.

3. In that dialog, select the "use data frame's coordinate system".

4. Fill out the rest of the dialog. OK the dialog.

5. You should now have a shapefile or feature class that's been reprojected from lat-lon to Web Mercator.

Melita

[GeorginaAllen]

Yes! This has worked! Thank you very much

When choosing the coordinate system when using "display XY data", I also selected the polygon shapefile layer onto which they were overlain.

Many thanks!

[MichelleWilliamsERM]

I revisit this post when I get stuck, and I'd like to add my workflow so it's here next time. 

• I bring in a CSV - that I export to a table
• Opened a new MAP tab inside my project, so I know it's clean
• Brought the table into the new MAP
• Exported to WGS (like you suggested)

AND Vola it's perfect!

Thank you everyone.