GIS Day Blog

Did you spend GIS Day in a K-12 classroom? The Esri Ed Team is evaluating resources to assist GIS professionals who go into K-12 classrooms. Take this survey and share your experience and needs with the Ed Team: https://arcg.is/1XPLyP1

As we officially wrap-up the GIS Day 2025 efforts, the GIS Day team has a message regarding the GIS Day Personal Use Licenses:

Hello,

Thank you so much for your interest in the GIS Day Personal Use License. We truly appreciate your enthusiasm for GIS Day and for exploring Esri tools.

We wanted to let you know that the GIS Day Personal Use License offer is no longer available, as it has passed its expiration date. Unfortunately, we’re unable to extend or reactivate licenses once they have expired.

We’re grateful for your understanding and for your continued support of GIS Day. 

For information on other Esri products please visit https://www.esri.com/en-us/store/overview. 

Warm regards,

The GIS Day Team

GIS Day is only a couple of days away. If you are still looking for ideas for your classroom, here are some to consider.

The 26th annual GIS Day is set to take place on November 19th, 2025! Learn about this global celebration and find fun, rewarding ideas about how you can participate.

Join me for my annual GIS Day Live Webcast, where I will celebrate, discuss, and illustrate what people around the world are doing with Geographic Information Systems.  This webcast will include geo-songs, geo-quizzes, the definition of and impact of GIS to build a better world, and much more.  Yes, it will be recorded and published for those who wish to dig deeper into the links I share, or who are not able to join me in the live webcast. 

The 25th Anniversary of GIS Day is set to take place on November 20th, 2024! Learn more about this milestone event and find fun, rewarding ideas about how you can participate.

On November 20, 2024, the world will come together to celebrate the 25th anniversary of GIS Day, an international event that highlights the power of geographic information system (GIS) technology.

Your involvement is key to our collective effort in demonstrating the power of GIS. By working together, we can showcase how spatial data creates meaningful impacts across diverse sectors.

Here are resources and inspiration for hosting a GIS Day event and registering it.

After a quarter century after GIS Day began in 1999, GIS Day is still here.  In fact, GIS is more important than ever to our society because of challenges our societies face and for other reasons outlined in this article.  This article also explains how you can participate in a GIS Day event or host a GIS Day event in your own organization to help others understand the value of spatial thinking, mapping, and spatial analysis to their community and to society as a whole.  The contents of this essay are also available in this video.

Last week I shared 15 inspiring stories from GIS Day 2018.  These were a joy to write and I hope, for you to read.  Here are 15 more inspiring GIS Day stories from all around the world.  Even with that set and this week's new set of 15, I am just touching the tip of the iceberg, so I invite you to examine the events listed on the GIS Day map as well as this story map. 

Thank you to everyone who celebrated GIS Day in 2018.  I invite you to share your experiences and continue the celebration by sending in your GIS Day memories to gisday@esri.com, share your event on this story map, or share in the GIS Day group on GeoNet.  A total of 1,201 events were held globally.  Here are just a few of the many stories coming in from government agencies, universities, schools, nonprofit organizations, and private companies that clearly demonstrate how GIS is making a positive difference all around the world.