Below is a quick rundown of the tools available in the web map! The first new thing you may notice is the ability to search from in the splash window that appears. This hopefully reduces the number of clicks people will need to get to their information. There's the same search bar in the upper left once you click out of the splash screen. The Query tool has existed in this form on the sub-maps, but now it is here with all the layers. I want to highlight "Search by Legal Description" as a nifty way to find parcels associated with a specific subdivision. I also want to highlight the "find tax parcels/addresses within specified distance" queries. Those let you select every tax parcel or address within a feature you draw (a point, line, or polygon). This is good for finding what properties within a distance need to be notified of something. That can then be exported as an Excel table (csv). This can also help you identify whether something falls within certain setbacks. The Basemaps is the same as it was before. I haven't gotten the Virginia Geographic Information Network imagery from 2017 and 2021 to successfully appear here, but you can find that in the map layers at the bottom. We have a lot of data layers! I currently have the default as every group expanded out, so you can scroll and see all the layers, but you can go through and click to collapse any groups you don't want expanded. Okay, the select tool is super cool, and lets you really dive into some fun GIS attribute querying! As an example, you can select all the FEMA Flood Zones that are AO, then select all the tax parcels that are affected by (intersect) those AO zones! These results can also be exported into an Excel table. A great deal of GIS analysis is possible just using Select by Attributes and Select by Location, so this tool really ramps up the power of the web map so it can do some of what the desktop GIS software can do! Continuing our tour of the tools, we come to the coordinates tool. This one also existed already in the sub-maps, but is now with all the layers. Unfortunately, the tool is a little annoying, and won't retain my defaults. You have to click the little plus sign target thing, then you can click on the map to get the coordinates. The coordinate system defaults to WGS 1984 Web Mercator (the same thing Google Maps uses), but much of our data uses NAD 1983 State Plane Virginia South, so you can click the dropdown arrow to the right to select either one. Exciting news related to this: in 2026 they are releasing the new coordinate system on which they've been working! It should make the data in GIS more closely align with features in reality, but you will not need to change any of the ways you interact with the data. The next tool is the Elevation Profile tool. It's very nifty! You can draw a profile to see how the elevation changes, and as you move your cursor along the graph, it shows where along your transect you are! It helps explain some of the floodplain and sea level rise boundaries. You know the measure tool well, but this one retains the defaults in feet and acres, which is very exciting! No more having to change the units every time you want to measure (unless you want other than feet and acres). The draw tool is our penultimate stop on the tour! It is largely the same as what existed on the old public web map, so I shan't delve into it here. When you draw a feature now though, it appears in the layers tab (until you close the map), which can let you toggle the drawing on and off to work with what is beneath it. It can help as you plan in where you might want to put new constructions. The print tool is also largely the same, but I've been finding the tool in this new Experience Builder format is less buggy than the one in the retired Web App Builder that made the old Public Web Map.

This data was updated May 2, 2023

Land use is a type of conservation measure wherein a portion of the county taxes on the property are deferred for as long as the land is maintained in the agreed upon state. If activities that are not permitted occur, then the landowner is responsible for five years' worth of the deferred taxes, as well as any applicable fees.There are 1,387 parcels in land use, but only 1,372 parcels identified in the GIS layer as land use. The remaining 15 are likely the result of tax parcel changes that have not yet been updated in the tax parcel web layer.

The zoning classification defined at the parcel level, but typically managed in larger units.

Here is a brief description of each of the field names LegalDescr: the legal description of the parcelZoning: The zoning code for the parcel. Note: there are slight differences in zoning codes within the Town of Tappahannock compared to the rest of the county.TotalParc: Total Parcel Value as appraised in the Commissioner of the RevenueTotalImp: The value of all the improvements in the parcel, as appraised in the Commissioner of the RevenueTotalLand: The value of the land in the parcel, as appraised in the Commissioner of the RevenueLegalAcre: Legal AcreageGISAcres: The acreage as calculated in ArcGIS Pro’s Calculate Geometry toolOwnerName: This is the name of the first owner listed. CoOwner_Fi: This is the name of the second owner listed.Address: This is the 9-1-1 address for the property. If no 9-1-1 address has been assigned, the property will have an address of 0 Road Name. If multiple addresses are on the property, only one of them is listed here.PrimaryUse: This is a designation of whether data is Residential (R), Vacant (V), Commercial (C), or has a Mobile Home (T), as well as an indication of the relative size of the property.TaxJoinGIS: This field enables the parcel data to work with Vision's web map (which you can access from the property card) TaxLookup: This field has all spaces removed to allow for easy searching of parcels within the webmapWebLink: This navigates to the property data card in Vision, the data portal for the Commissioner of the Revenue. The home page for that portal is https://gis.vgsi.com/essexva/Search.aspxPID: This is a number that is one of the ways data can be searched in Vision. GISJoin: This is a field that has the leading and trailing spaces removed to enable the joining of data within GISTaxLabel: This field has only one space between each portion of the tax map to allow for more convenient labelling on the map Notes: Any special information needed for the parcel, including whether a parcel is split zoned or in the Historic Overlay Zone. Mailing Add: The street address portion of the mailing address for the property ownerMailingCit: The city portion of the mailing address for the property ownerMailingSta: The state portion of the mailing address for the property ownerMailingZip: The zip code of the mailing address for the property owner

The Electric_service_area feature class contains information about electric utility service areas in the State of Virginia. This data contains a set of polygon features clipped to the Virginia Base Mapping Project (VBMP) state boundary reference layer. The data set includes 2,428 features divided spatially by 30 electric service providers throughout the state. The maps also include hyperlinks to viewable authorization certificates containing a text document that notes the service type (electric, natural gas, water) and the geographic area that the utility has been authorized to serve. The data was created by first georeferencing digitally scanned versions of 1:24,000 USGS quadrangle (quad) maps which contained hand-drawn electric service area boundaries prepared by the SCC. Using heads up digitizing, the georeferenced maps were then cut from the polygon features of a USGS quad index. The data was then clipped to only include Essex County.

Flood hazard areas identified on the Flood Insurance Rate Map are identified as a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). SFHA are defined as the area that will be inundated by the flood event having a 1-percent chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year. The 1-percent annual chance flood is also referred to as the base flood or 100-year flood. SFHAs are labeled as Zone A, Zone AO, Zone AH, Zones A1-A30, Zone AE, Zone A99, Zone AR, Zone AR/AE, Zone AR/AO, Zone AR/A1-A30, Zone AR/A, Zone V, Zone VE, and Zones V1-V30. Moderate flood hazard areas, labeled Zone B or Zone X (shaded) are also shown on the FIRM, and are the areas between the limits of the base flood and the 0.2-percent-annual-chance (or 500-year) flood. The areas of minimal flood hazard, which are the areas outside the SFHA and higher than the elevation of the 0.2-percent-annual-chance flood, are labeled Zone C or Zone X (unshaded). (https://www.fema.gov/glossary/flood-zones)Data obtained from FEMA Flood Map Service Center, Product ID NFHL_51_20230211 for the full state of Virginia, then cropped to Essex County, VA. The "Latest Study Effective Date" for the data is 02/09/2023. (https://msc.fema.gov/portal/advanceSearch#searchresultsanchor)

Tax map index for Essex County, Virginia.

View the Land Use Plan Map!

Locate your voting district and current local, state, and federal representatives!

The 10 foot contour intervals were created in QGIS from the LiDAR DEM provided by the Virginia Geographic Information Network from Flight Year 2021

The locations presented on the map are the public access points to waterways that existed in Essex County, VA in April 2023. SiteName: the name of the location, generally the street or stream on which it is locatedSwimmable: Whether or not the site permits swimmingBoatLaunch: Which types of boats, if any, can be launched from that location. The Canoe/Kayak designation also includes standup paddleboardsFishable: Whether or not the site permits fishingNotes: Any special characteristics about the siteParking: Whether there is roadside parking, designated parking spaces, or no parking available at the siteBathroomSituation: Whether full bathrooms, portapotties, or no bathrooms are present at the siteFee required: While none of the sites require a fee, this field was maintained so the public would be reassured that it was true for each locationEach location has an attached picture of the water access point

These are the 9-1-1 addresses in Essex County, Virginia as of October 27, 2025

Fire Stations in Essex County, Virginia.

Download the elevation certificate (everyone will need this)

Identify where in Essex County you can access the rivers to fish, swim, and boat!

The Magisterial District boundaries were obtained by pulling the district designation for each tax parcel from the records in the Commissioner of the Revenue database. Those boundaries were then traced to remove the gaps present from roads separating tax parcels, as well as to bring the boundaries to the edge of the county, where necessary.

View different measures of government aid given to each Census Block Group in Essex County! Maps of population, median income, SNAP benefits, public healthcare usage, and unemployment are provided in this map series.

The Educational Facilities in Essex County, Virginia layer was created by performing a Google Search of "Schools in Essex County, VA", and selecting each result that had a functioning website. The website requirement was a way to verify that they were still in operation. The search was performed on March 1, 2023.

View land cover maps for each year from 2008 to 2023, as well as a graph showing the acreage of each land cover type each year. These land cover maps were created using data from the US Department of Agriculture National Statistics Service Cropland Data Layers (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Research_and_Science/Cropland/Release/index.php).