Hello welcome to my Free GIS Tutorial for Beginners. In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to create a new Shapefile on ArcGIS 10.6. In most cases, you will need to create your own shapefile from the scratch. Another example is you may want to digitize/vectorize existing image.
In the following example, I will create a new shapefile and then digitize an image. First, you may want to have a look at my other tutorial How to georeference an image on ArcGIS.
Create a New Shapefile on ArcMap 10.6
Actually, there are several ways to create a new shapefile. But for me, the following steps are the easiest.
- Open the Catalog
- Right-click on a folder where you want to save the new shapefile
- Click New >> Shapefile
![](https://freegistutorial.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/new-shapefile-1.png)
- Give a name for the new shapefile and choose the feature type. ArcGIS supports Point, Polyline, Polygon, Multipoint and Multipatch feature.
![](https://freegistutorial.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/new-shapefile-2.png)
- Set the Coordinate System. Click Edit and then choose the correct coordinate system for the new shapefile
![](https://freegistutorial.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/new-shapefile-3.png)
Click OK and your new shapefile is ready. Watch the following animated picture to see how to create a new shapefile.
![](https://freegistutorial.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/create-a-new-shapefile-1024x576.gif)
Thanks for reading this article. Please leave us message if there are questions. I hope you enjoy this tutorial and see you next time.