Document: Creating a New Personal Geodatabase with Point, Line and Polygon Feature Classes in ArcGIS
Created: 1/30/02 (Tom Evans)

This document describes how to create a new Personal Geodatabase in ArcGIS with point, line and polygon Feature Classes in it. Conceptually, this involves the following steps:

1) Create the new Personal Geodatabase
2) Create a template Feature Class in this new Geodatabase
3) Define the coordinate system, projection, datum and geographic extent for the template Feature Class
4) Create subsequent new Features Classes, using template Feature Class to set the coordinate system, project, datum and geographic extent

Explicit instructions:

Create New Personal Geodatabase

1) Navigate to a particular folder in ArcCatalog within which the new Geodatabase will reside.
2) Right-click in the main window and select New : Personal Geodatabase
3) Rename the Personal Geodatabase

Create Template (First) Feature Class

4) Double-click on this new Geodatabase (to enter it so you can create Features Classes within it)
5) In the main window, right-click and select New : Feature Class
6) Enter the name for this new Feature Class (e.g. forest, roads, lakes), no alias name is necessary, click Next
7) Keep the Default tab selected for Configuration Keyword and click Next

Set coordinate system, map projection, datum and geographic extent for template Feature Class

8) Click Geometry (under Data Type) in top table
9) Click the ellipses (i.e. the "...") to the right of Spatial Reference | Unknown in the bottom table (Field Properties)
10) Click the Select button and choose the coordinate system/projection/datum. In the case of Lab 1 this is set by selecting Projected Coordinate Systems : UTM : NAD 1927 : NAD1927UTMZone16N.prj then click Add. Important - do not Click Ok yet, if you do then your feature class will not have the correct geographic extent set...
11) Now click the X/Y Domain tab and set the MinX, MaxX, MinY and MaxY coordinates for the geographic extent of the new Feature Class.
12) Click Ok to return to the "New Feature Class" dialog box.
13) Now you will set the type of feature (e.g. point, line, polygon). Under the Field Properties table, the value for Geometry Type should come up as Polygon as default. If you want your template to be a line or point feature then left-click on the word Polygon and select the type you want.
14) Click Finish to save these settings for the template Feature Class

Create other new Features Classes using the template settings to grab the coordinate

15) Right-click in the main ArcCatalog window (should still be within the Geodatabase and you should see the new Feature Class you just created) and select New Feature Class. Set the name and take the default for Configuration Keyword.
16)
17) Navigate to and select the template Feature Class you created above, click Add
18) Click Geometry (under Data Type) in top table
19) Click the ellipses (i.e. the "...") to the right of Spatial Reference | Unknown in the bottom table (Field Properties)
20) Click Import (instead of Select as you did the first time), Navigate to and select the template features class you made above, Click Add.
21) Verify that the coordinate system and X/Y Domain are set as you want them
22) Click Ok, then make sure you set the correct Geometry Type (point, line, polygon) for this new feature class
23) Click Finish and repeat for as many new Feature Classes you want to create

At this point you can add these Feature Classes (including the template) to an ArcMap session and start adding features. Note, the template can (and probably will be) a feature class that you add features to, that is the template does not remain an empty Feature Class but becomes one of your data layers for the project. I use the term "template" only to indicate that this first Feature Class created (e.g. forest) is used as a source for setting the coordinate system/projection/datum/extent for the other Feature Classes. But after you add features to these Feature Classes you can still use them as templates in this way. And once you create the second Features Class using the steps above, you can use the second feature class as a source for the system/projection/datum/extent for the third and fourth Feature Classes and so on.