beginner here: need help creating map from csv with no spatial data

[EmmaHolt]

hey y'all. I have ArcGIS pro thru my university and for my capstone project in one of my classes, we want to make a series of storymaps which show certain geospatial overlays such as climate vulnerability, climate awareness, and voter registration and compare them to one another. 

however I have only taken one course with ArcGIS and am very new to this. I have no idea how to use the .csv data we have (which has no longitude and latitude) to create a map. I am really open to whatever advice anyone has. for example, one of the .csv data files i have has one column with states, and then by state has a column with number registered republicans for example, and then another column with % of total pop that is republicans, etc. i really don't even know where to start with this. any help will be appreciated. 

my end goal is to create a map of the US which shows political affiliation by county. i am open to using the Esri living atlas as well if anyone has any good recs on maps I can use from there. 

[OscarHur]

On the top, Map icon, click on "Add data" and "Data", select your csv file.

Your csv file would appear on Contents panel.  Right click on the csv file and click "Geocode Table" and follow the instructions.

[HeatherSmith]

Hi @EmmaHolt ,

The answer from @OscarHur above is correct - you can geocode your csv table. For more detailed instructions for geocoding, try one fo these tutorials:

• Convert a list of historic places into a map in ArcGIS Pro
• Convert a list of historic places into a map in ArcGIS Online

Geocoding will create point data, and if you are mapping states, you may prefer polygons instead. For that, you can join your csv table to a spatial layer representing states. Try one of these tutorials to learn how to join:

• Join tabular data to a spatial layer in ArcGIS Pro
• Join a table to a feature layer in ArcGIS Online   (If you don't know how to get the table into ArcGIS Online, see the geocoding tutorials above)

For a spatial layer to join with, I recommend USA Census States from ArcGIS Living Atlas. (You can find this in ArcGIS Pro by searching in the Catalog pane > Portal tab > Living Atlas tab).