You can access context-specific online help throughout Web Soil Survey, by clicking the following question-mark icon: . This opens up help for the particular feature or group of features where the icon is located. When you open a help item, the question-mark icon turns upside-down as the following upside-down question-mark icon shows: . To close the help item, you can click the upside-down question-mark icon, or click the Close button at the upper right of the open help item, represented by the following Close button icon: .

Many help items are divided into sections, which can be opened and closed. To open a closed section, click the following plus-sign icon: , and to close an open section, click the following minus-sign icon: .

If you need additional assistance, click the Contact Us link in the navigation bar, click the email link soilshotline@lin.usda.gov, and we’ll be glad to help you.

Use the Search panel, in the upper left corner of each tab in Web Soil Survey. Enter keywords or phrases, and use the Advanced Search options if needed, and click Search.

The search results are links that navigate to the places in Web Soil Survey that match your search items.

For more information, click the following question-mark icon in the Search panel: .

Web Soil Survey provides data update notifications via RSS. To use the RSS Feed, click on the Subscribe link located beneath the USDA logo in the upper-left corner of Web Soil Survey.

Click on a link in the Subscribe to RSS Feeds window to choose either All States and Territories or a particular state. What you see next depends on the browser you're using.

In Internet Explorer, this displays a new page which shows information about the updates for the state you chose and links Subscribe to this feed and Learn more about feeds. At this point you are only viewing feeds and you may sort them by date or title, but you have not yet subscribed to the feed.

To subscribe, click Subscribe to this feed and get a pop-up window where you can choose options, then click Subscribe. You should see a message “You’ve successfully subscribed to this feed!”. You may wish to adjust the RSS Feed Properties and may do so by clicking on View feed properties located on the right-side of the page. The Feed Properties allow you to control the update schedule or how often your computer checks the feed for new updates.

Repeat the RSS Feeds Subscription process for each state/territory you are interested in (unless you subscribed to All States and Territories).

You may review your RSS Feeds any time by opening Internet Explorer and going to Favorites and Feeds.

You may subscribe to Web Soil Survey in GovDelivery by clicking the following link: GovDelivery. The updates are specific to the application and/or web page and are not to be confused with RSS Feeds. RSS Feeds are explained in the FAQ “How can I get notifications of soil data updates?”.

A yearly refresh of the official soil survey database (spatial and tabular) will take place on October 1 of each year. The adoption of a regular refresh rate is to allow internal and external users to better coordinate updates of official soils data in support of their activities. Official soil survey information may be updated on a more frequent than annual basis under the following exceptions: 1) Completion of an initial survey or an update survey 2) Completion of a survey under a reimbursable agreement 3) Updated information for a particular survey or set of surveys may be posted if necessary to correct a severe error discovered in the database where this error is adversely impacting either internal or external customers 4) Other extenuating circumstances. The annual refresh will refresh all surveys which were updated during the year. See also FAQs “How can I get notifications of soil data updates?” and “How can I find out when soil data was last updated?”

Click on “Download Soils Data” tab. Select a State. Select a County (optional). Enter a date (optional) in “Only show Soil Survey Areas updated since…”. In the list of surveys, look at the dates in the Version column and look at the date in the “Download Link”.

Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO) documentation including table names, columns, user guides and other documentation are available at the following link: SSURGO Documentation.

If the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser is used, it must be version 11. To see which IE version you are using, navigate to the Help menu and then choose About Internet Explorer. If you are using an older version, please upgrade to version 11. A download is available on Microsoft's Internet Explorer website.

Here are some basic instructions to get started using Web Soil Survey:

1. On the left side of the screen in the Quick Navigation panel, click on one of the selection methods. For example, open State/County, select your state and county, and click View.
2. After the map image is updated, click the Zoom In tool represented by the following icon: . Then click and drag a rectangle on the map to zoom to an area. Zoom in as close as you need to so you can see streets and landmarks you recognize.
3. After the map image is updated, click the AOI Rectangle tool represented by the following icon: .
4. Click and drag a rectangle around the area of the map you wish to set as your Area of Interest.
5. The application will create the AOI you have specified. Now you can navigate to the Soil Map or Soil Data Explorer tabs and start getting soil information.

If the area you are interested in is not rectangular, you can use the AOI Polygon tool represented by the following icon: . Click points on the map to define your AOI. For the final point, Double-click or while holding down the Control key on the keyboard, click the left mouse button.

You can do this in two different ways. Once you’ve created your AOI:

1. On the Area of Interest (AOI) tab, save your AOI using Export AOI and then choose the option Export AOI as Zipped Shapefile. After the zipped shapefile is saved to your local machine, go back into Web Soil Survey and choose Import AOI and then choose the option Create AOI from Zipped Shapefile.  For the zipped shapefile input, use the zipped shapefile you just saved to your local machine.
2. Open the Link control, and save the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) displayed there or bookmark it for later use.
3. Note: Multi-part AOI information will not be shown in the link.

See New Features (version 2.3) at the following link for details: New Features (version 2.3).

You can do this in two different ways:

1. On the Area of Interest (AOI) tab, use Import AOI and then choose the option Create AOI from Shapefile.
2. On the Area of Interest (AOI) tab, use Import AOI and then choose the option Create AOI from Zipped Shapefile.

To stop in the middle of drawing an AOI and start over, when using the AOI Rectangle tool, press the Esc key without releasing the mouse button.

To start over when using the AOI Polygon tool, just press the Esc key.

To delete an AOI after drawing it, click the Clear AOI button in the Area of Interest Properties panel.

To see all available information on a map data layer:

1. Zoom the map to a scale where the layer you are interested in is visible.
2. Open the Legend tab.
3. Right click the name of the layer to pop-up the context menu.
4. Click View Layer Descriptions.
5. All available information about the source of the data layer is displayed. In some cases, the source of the data layer is not known, and No descriptions available is displayed.

To get the date of the aerial photography for a particular spot:

1. Click the Identify tool on the map tool bar.
2. Then click on the map. In the Identify panel below the map, for the “Aerial Photography” layer, you will see the dates that the imagery was made at the spot you clicked.

The aerial photography date(s) are also included on the Legend page of printable maps.

A side effect using Quick Maps is that you cannot directly "copy" the map image from your browser to paste it into a different application. Should you need to do this, disable "Quick Maps" (via the "Prefernces" link at the top of the page). Then you will be able to "copy" the complete map image.

Please try refreshing your browser window. The topographic map data may be temporarily unavailable due to network or service difficulties. In addition, there may be no data available where you are looking.

Is the "Topographic Map" background layer turned on in the Legend?

You may occasionally see one or more missing regions in the background if network traffic is congested or if the photographic images are not immediately available from our provider (Microsoft Bing). Refreshing your browser window should improve the picture (it may be necessary to refresh several times, each time should increase the coverage).

Is the "Aerial Photography" background layer turned on in the Legend?

Here are some basic instructions to get soil data from Web Soil Survey:

1. First, create an area of interest (AOI). (See “How do I select the area for which I want to get soil information?” above.)
2. Then, click the Soil Map tab.
3. You will see the Soil Map for your AOI. Click the Printable Version button, and press View to create a Portable Document Format (PDF) file that you can download or print. For additional help, press the question-mark icon in the Printable Version form, represented by the following icon: .
4. Then, click the Soil Data Explorer tab.

5. The Soil Data Explorer tab contains five inner tabs:

   • Intro to Soils
   • Suitabilities and Limitations for Use
   • Soil Properties and Qualities
   • Ecological Site Assessment
   • Soil Reports

   The default inner tab is Suitabilities and Limitations for Use. On the left side of this tab are a number of “Folders”, which you can click to open.

6. Open a folder, for example Recreational Development.
7. The folders contain one or more interpretive themes. Each has a form that you can fill out to get “Soil Ratings” (on the other inner tabs, other kinds of soil data are available). You can accept the defaults, or you can set the options as you wish. Click one of the interpretive themes, for example, Playgrounds, to open it.
8. You can click View Description to see a description of this rating.
9. Click View Rating to run the rating and view the data map and/or tables.
10. Click the Printable Version button, and press View to create a Portable Document Format (PDF) file of the soil rating map and/or tables that you can download or print.
11. Help for the Suitabilities and Limitations for Use tab, and for all the inner tabs, is available by clicking the question-mark icon at the upper right of the folder panel, represented by the following icon: .

Define your area of interest, then navigate to the Soil Map tab. On the left side, find the desired soil map unit in the Map Unit Legend. Click on the map unit name to display the description for that map unit in a dialog. The Map Unit Description dialog also contains a Printable Version button.

You can also view and print a report containing all Map Unit Descriptions for your AOI. Navigate to the Soil Data Explorer tab, then the Soil Reports inner tab. On the left side, in the AOI Inventory folder, view the Map Unit Description report.

You can print or save soils data on a page-by-page basis using the Printable Version feature.

You can also add maps and data to a “Shopping Cart” for inclusion in a single Custom Soil Resource Report. It’s an easy way to get one polished report containing all relevant information for your area of interest. Any custom report you create on your Shopping Cart is free of charge — we just used the well-known internet shopping analogy for collecting and ordering your information.

To try out this feature, define your area of interest (AOI), and navigate to the Shopping Cart tab. In the Table of Contents panel, notice several report items available by default: Cover, Preface, Contents, How Soil Surveys Are Made, Soil Map, Map Unit Legend, Map Unit Descriptions, and References. You can preview items in your Shopping Cart by clicking the item’s title in the Table of Contents. To make the preview go away, click the title again.

You can add additional information to your report as desired. From the inner tabs of the Soil Data Explorer tab, view information and then click Add to Shopping Cart. In this way, you can assemble a report customized to your needs.

When you have collected all the data you want in your report, press the Check Out button and choose Get Now or Download Later. Larger reports are only available for Download Later.

The Order Processor normally runs a Download Later order once per day. If it gets an error, it does not run it again until the next day. The Order Processor is configured to run its queue all day long, so if the queue contains reports that had errors yesterday, it runs them again the next morning. It will run each order a maximum of three times, and once an order has failed three times, it gives up.

More subtle differences may be seen in width of linear features, size of symbols and size of text. These are associated with differences in scale and resolution. Differences in color, especially of linear features, may also be present. These are artifacts of creation of the printable maps inside of a Portable Document Format (PDF) document.

Printable Version Options provides a Map Scale selector. If no soil map unit labels appear, setting Map Scale to 1:50,000 or larger may solve the problem.

For very large AOIs, 1:50,000 may not be an option. A smaller AOI may solve the problem.

How can I get soil tabular and spatial data in a database format?

This data is available in various forms, depending on your needs:

Notes:

To utilize this data, you will need:

• For the spatial data, ArcGIS or other software that can read shapefiles.
• For the tabular data, Microsoft Access.
• To use the spatial data in conjunction with the tabular data, use the Soil Data Viewer application at the following link: Soil Data Viewer.
• For a Soil Data Mart backup copy, Microsoft SQL Server.