To complete this recipe, all you need to do is ensure that you have ArcGIS Pro installed, access to a license, and the data for the book downloaded and installed. This recipe does not even require you to have completed the previous recipes, though it might help provide a better understanding of what you are doing.  

You have just created your first new project in ArcGIS Pro using the Blank template. This created a new bare bones project. This project contains the minimum number of items you will find in a project. You can now begin to explore your new project.

You should have noticed that your new project contains a single custom toolbox and file geodatabase that has the same name as your project. These were automatically created by ArcGIS Pro when you created the new project. You should have also noticed that several styles and locators were also automatically connected by default.

There are three basic types of geodatabase: personal, file, and SDE. ArcGIS Pro only supports file and SDE geodatabases. It does not support the personal geodatabase. To learn more about geodatabases, go to http://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/help/data/geodatabases/overview/what-is-a-geodatabase-.htm.

This new project is missing several key elements that you will need to perform any GIS work. First, it is missing a map. Second, if you expand the geodatabase that is connected to the project, you will notice it is empty. So, you also need data.  Now you will connect to an existing geodatabase and then add a map.

You just added a connection to the Trippville GIS geodatabase you have been using in the other recipes. In those, the database connection had already been established. Now you know how it was done. Once you added the connection, you then added it to your favorites and set it so it will automatically be added to any new projects you create.

You still need to add a map. You could do this the same way you did in the previous recipe. However, in this one you will import the Map File you created in the last recipe.

A familiar-looking map should now be added to your project. It contains all the layers that you created in the last recipe along with the symbology and properties you configured.

In this recipe, you created your first new project. You used the Blank template, which creates a very basic project for ArcGIS Pro. Projects created with the Blank template include connections to a custom toolbox and geodatabase that have the same name as the project, along with several styles and locators. The toolbox and geodatabase are automatically created by ArcGIS Pro when you create the new project. They are both empty and are intended for you to save project-specific items to them. However, in most cases, your organization will already have an established GIS database.

Once you created your project, you added a connection to an existing geodatabase, Trippville_GIS. This database contains the GIS data for the City of Trippville that you used in other recipes. This is actually the primary database that you will use in the remainder of this book. So, you added it to your favorites and set it to automatically be added to all new projects you create.  

After you established a connection to the primary geodatabase, you imported a new map. This new map was based on a Map file you created in a previous recipe. The new map was added with layers already added and their properties configured, saving you a lot of effort.

In the last recipe, you created a new project using the Blank template. As you saw, this template automatically created the project structure including a project geodatabase, custom toolbox, and more. The blank template is not the only one included with ArcGIS Pro. There are several others you can use when creating a new project. Let's take a quick look at them.