On Wednesday, June 2^nd, the Arkansas GIS Board approved the publication of a layer that depicts the best available Municipal Ward boundaries.  This work represents the first time Municipal Wards have been published on the platform.   The data was developed by extracting wards from election precinct lines or obtaining a copy of the wards from city GIS staff in some of the individual cities. The ward lines are coincident with exterior Municipal Boundary lines.

When new annexations are recorded, City officials include the listing of city services to be provided to the annexed area and the assignment of that territory to the appropriate Ward.  The GIS Office workflow going forward will allow Municipal Wards to be updated at the same time that Municipal Boundaries are updated, when applicable.  The attribute table for the Ward data includes the city name, FIPS Code, municipal classification, ward name, ward code, and a revision date. Currently, this data represents the Wards in 84 of Arkansas’ 501 incorporated municipalities. If your city has wards that are not defined in this dataset, please contact us at 501-682-2767 or communication@arkansasgisoffice.org.