ArcGIS can determine the location of addresses, for instance if you have a spreadsheet with "clean" address data. ArcGIS will create a point at the location of each address.
Local Address Locator Fiies
We have address locators on the S: drive (scratch drive) available from the 12 computers in the Data and Visualization Services computer lab. The latest is also available for download:
Download zipped archive of Esri's 2019 USA Address Locator files (USA_LocalComposite is probably best for detailed address data)
There are some older ready-to-go locator files included in the Esri Data & Maps product, under Streetmap North America. These can be downloaded to the computer that you're using.
You can also make your own address locator from some layers of streets or similar GIS layers.
ArcGIS Online World Geocoding Service
You will also be able to connect to the ArcGIS Online Geocoding service if you get an ArcGIS Online account.
You can plot your data that has coordinate information (latitude/longitude or any other coordinate system) into ArcGIS. The program plots the locations as points on your map. Online help.
VERY IMPORTANT: In the Add XY dialog box, look at the coordinate system that ArcGIS is assuming your data is in before you click through to create your points. The default will be whatever your data frame is in. For instance, if your data frame uses NAD83 State Plane North Carolina Feet, then ArcGIS assumes your tabular coordinates are in feet, not degrees. If these are really Longitude (X) and Latitude (Y) coordinates in degrees, you must change your coordinate system to unprojected (geographic) coordinates, typically WGS84 (the last choice under Geographic...World).
The plotted points are just pointing back to your tabular data; they don't represent a new layer. If you then need to use tools on the point layer, such as a Spatial Join (see other box), then you will first need to export it as a feature class (e.g., shapefile). Online help.
Users frequently want to determine the geographic areas that each point in their point data falls within (e.g., which Census tract or block group each is in, which police precinct each is in, which school attendence zone each is in). This allows associating, with each point, data that is aggregated by such polygon features (the geographic identifier, such as the name of the Census tract, for example, and any other variables in that layer's attribute data).
This can be done using a Join procedure based on location (Spatial Join), which associates all the attributes of a join feature (e.g., a polygon) to each of the target features (e.g., each point) that is within it.
