DigitalGlobe, a global provider of earth imagery and geospatial analysis, announced that Esri has licensed the rights for DigitalGlobe’s Global Basemap imagery layer. The announcement was made at the Esri International User Conference, in San Diego, California.

The imagery layer will be integrated into Esri’s existing imagery basemap in ArcGIS Online, Esri’s cloud-based mapping and collaborative content management system. Later this year, ArcGIS users will be able to use the imagery in their web maps and easily share the results with other users online. In addition ArcGIS for Desktop users can leverage the same ArcGIS Online service to use the high quality data in their desktop applications.

“This agreement with DigitalGlobe will help us provide our users with significantly better imagery coverage globally,” said Jack Dangermond, Esri president. “We are excited because DigitalGlobe will provide every user with access to an additional 100 million square kilometers (km2) of very high quality imagery, spanning multiple resolutions.”

“We’re excited to establish this new, expanded relationship with Esri,” stated Jeffrey R. Tarr, president and chief executive officer at DigitalGlobe. “Combining our unrivaled imagery with the leading performance of ArcGIS Online will enable end-users to significantly improve workflow efficiency and effectiveness. We look forward to helping Esri continue delivering a world-class experience to their customers now and for many years to come.”

Integration of the Global Basemap imagery layer into ArcGIS Online’s imagery basemap is on-going and will be released in late 2012.