ezesri

A lightweight Python package for extracting data from Esri REST API endpoints.

Features

• Multiple export formats: Export to GeoJSON, Shapefile, CSV, File Geodatabase, and GeoDataFrame.
• Robust extraction: Automatically handles Esri's pagination.
• Filtering: Filter data by bounding box or attribute query.
• Bulk exports: Download all layers from a MapServer or FeatureServer.
• Simple CLI: An easy-to-use command-line interface for all features.
• Human-readable metadata: Get a clean summary of layer metadata.

Installation

pip install ezesri

Usage

Python library

You can use ezesri as a library to integrate with your Python scripts.

import ezesri

# URL for a public Esri feature layer, e.g. City of Los Angeles boundaries: 
# https://services5.arcgis.com/VAb1qw880ksyBtIL/ArcGIS/rest/services/City_Boundary_of_Los_Angeles_(new)/FeatureServer/0
url = "your_esri_layer_url_here"

# Get layer metadata
metadata = ezesri.get_metadata(url)
print(ezesri.summarize_metadata(metadata))

# Extract layer to a GeoDataFrame
gdf = ezesri.extract_layer(url)
print(gdf.head())

Command-line interface

ezesri also provides a command-line tool for quick data extraction.

Fetch metadata

Get a clean, human-readable summary of a layer's metadata.

ezesri metadata <YOUR_ESRI_LAYER_URL>

To get the raw JSON output, use the --json flag:

ezesri metadata <YOUR_ESRI_LAYER_URL> --json

Fetch layer data

You can fetch a layer and save it to a file in various formats.

• GeoJSON

  ezesri fetch <YOUR_ESRI_LAYER_URL> --format geojson --out output.geojson

• Shapefile

  ezesri fetch <YOUR_ESRI_LAYER_URL> --format shapefile --out output.shp

• CSV (geometry is dropped)

  ezesri fetch <YOUR_ESRI_LAYER_URL> --format csv --out output.csv

• File Geodatabase

  ezesri fetch <YOUR_ESRI_LAYER_URL> --format gdb --out output.gdb

You can also filter by a bounding box (in WGS84 coordinates):

ezesri fetch <URL> --bbox <xmin,ymin,xmax,ymax> --format geojson --out <FILE>

Or, use a more advanced spatial filter with a GeoJSON object:

ezesri fetch <URL> --geometry '{"type": "Polygon", ...}' --format geojson --out <FILE>

Bulk-fetch all layers from a service

You can discover and export all layers from a MapServer or FeatureServer to a specified directory.

ezesri bulk-fetch <YOUR_ESRI_SERVICE_URL> <YOUR_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY> --format gdb

CLI command aliases

To make the CLI easier to use, the following aliases are available for common options:

• --out: --output
• --format: --fmt
• --spatial-rel: --srs

Examples

For a detailed, real-world example of using ezesri to acquire, process, and visualize data, see the scripts in the examples/ directory:

• examples/palm_springs_fetch.py: Demonstrates how to use ezesri to download data from multiple Esri feature layers, merge them based on a common attribute, and save the result as a GeoJSON file.
• examples/palm_springs_pools_map.py: Shows how to load the prepared data, perform analysis to identify residential properties, and create a final map visualizing the results with matplotlib.

To run these examples, you will first need to install the required dependencies:

pip install geopandas matplotlib

Then, you can run the scripts directly:

python examples/palm_springs_fetch.py
python examples/palm_springs_pools_map.py

Testing

This project uses pytest for unit testing. For details on how to run the test suite, please see the testing guide.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a pull request or open an issue to discuss your ideas.