TRADING ECONOMICS | ArcGIS Pro

ArcGIS Pro is Esri’s professional desktop GIS application for spatial analysis, cartography, and data management. It supports the OGC API – Features standard, which means you can connect directly to the Trading Economics Geospatial API and load economic indicators, market data, and trade flows as live map layers inside your ArcGIS projects.

Adding Layers in ArcGIS Pro

Trading Economics serves GeoJSON through the OGC API – Features standard. ArcGIS Pro can consume this via an OGC API connection or by adding GeoJSON data directly from a URL.

Method 1 — OGC API – Features Connection (recommended)

This registers the Trading Economics service as a server connection, letting you browse all available collections from the Catalog pane.

  1. In the Catalog pane, right-click Servers → New OGC API Server.
  2. Set Server URL to: http://localhost:8080/gis
  3. Click OK. The connection appears under Servers.
  4. Expand the connection to see all available collections.
  5. Right-click a collection → Add To Current Map.

Method 2 — Add Data from URL

Use this when you already know the specific endpoint and filters you need. You can append any query parameters from the Indicators, Markets, FRED, or COMTRADE endpoint pages directly in the URL.

  1. On the Map tab, click Add Data → Data From Path.
  2. Paste the full URL (e.g. http://localhost:8080/gis/collections/indicators/gdp/items?countries=China,Germany).
  3. Click Add.

Styling

Once a Trading Economics layer is loaded, ArcGIS Pro renders it with a default single-symbol style. The sections below show how to create meaningful visualizations — colour-coding countries by indicator value (choropleth) or scaling trade-flow lines by volume.

Choropleth — Graduated Colors

A choropleth map shades each country or region according to its indicator value, making it easy to spot patterns at a glance — for example, which countries have the highest GDP or the steepest inflation.

  1. Select the layer in the Contents pane.
  2. On the Feature Layer contextual tab, click Symbology → Graduated Colors.
  3. Set Field to the indicator (e.g. gdp_value, inflation_rate_value, bond_yield).
  4. Choose a Color scheme (e.g. yellow-to-red for intensity).
  5. Set Method to Natural Breaks (Jenks) and pick the number of classes.
  6. Click Apply.

Trade Flow Line Width (data-driven)

Comtrade trade-flow layers are rendered as lines connecting exporter and importer countries. Scaling line width by trade value makes major trade corridors stand out immediately.

  1. Open the Symbology pane for the line layer.
  2. Choose Graduated Symbols or Proportional Symbols.
  3. Set Field to trade_value.
  4. Configure the minimum and maximum symbol sizes (e.g. 0.5 to 5 pt).
  5. Click Apply.

Alternatively, use an Arcade expression on the line symbol’s width property for finer control:

// Scale trade_value to a line width between 0.5 and 5 pt
var minVal = 0;
var maxVal = 1000000000;
return 0.5 + 4.5 * (($feature.trade_value - minVal) / (maxVal - minVal));

Time Slider

Several Trading Economics endpoints support historical ranges via yearFrom and yearTo query parameters. When you load multi-year data, each feature carries a date field that ArcGIS Pro can use to animate changes over time — watch GDP shift across continents, track rising unemployment, or see trade flows evolve year by year.

# Example: population data across 10 years
http://localhost:8080/gis/collections/indicators/population/items?yearFrom=2015&yearTo=2025

Enable time on the layer:

  1. Right-click the layer → Properties → Time.
  2. Set Layer Time to Each feature has a single time field.
  3. Set Time Field to date.
  4. Set Time Extent — Start: 2015, End: 2025.
  5. Click OK.

Animate:

  1. The Time Slider appears automatically at the top of the map view.
  2. Set Time Span to 1 Year.
  3. Click Play to step through the data year by year.