What is the ArcGIS API for Python?

The ArcGIS API for Python is a Python package designed to work with web GIS. It allows you to work directly with data hosted on ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise. Previously you have been using ArcPy, which is excellent for desktop work, but has limited capabilities when working with hosted data. The ArcGIS API for Python provides tool to do many of the same functions that ArcPy does such as create maps, geocode, manage data, and geoprocessing but within your ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise account. In addition to this you can manage your organizations web GIS data by managing users, groups, and items. It is important to note that while all of the examples you will work through are within ArcGIS Pro Notebooks, you don’t have to work through ArcGIS Pro. You could install a stand-alone environment with conda and access everything through a Jupyter Notebook environment. This book will not cover that as it is focused on working with Python within...