If you have the PLTS extension, you can add as a surround element a United States Geological Survey (USGS)-style declination diagram. (Figure from Map Use, courtesy of Esri Press.) Declination diagram showing relations among true, grid, and magnetic north reference lines on the Madison West, Wisconsin, USGS 1:24,000 quadrangle. Is there a tool available that I don’t know about in ArcGIS Desktop to do this? If not, what would the best procedure be to create this map element?”įirst, here is a short excerpt from Map Use, Sixth Edition about these map elements:Ī declination diagram is ‘…a diagram that shows the angular relationship, represented by prongs, among grid, magnetic, and true norths…Notice that the true, magnetic, and grid north reference lines are marked at the top with a star, the letters “MN” and an arrow, and the letters “GN”, respectively’, as shown in figure 1 (taken from the Madison West, Wisconsin, USGS 1:24,000 quad.)įigure 1. “I have a need to create a declination diagram for a map I am creating in ArcInfo (9.3.1). We got a question on Ask a Cartographer the other day about declination diagrams:

Magnetic north arcgis 10.3