[GIS] Error using pip install for arcpy: “Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement arcpy….”

arcpypython-2.7

In my command line I typed

python -m pip install arcpy

to install arcpy. I got this error message in return:

"Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement arcpy (from versions: )
No matching distribution found for arcpy"

I'm using python 2.7. What to do?

Best Answer

arcpy ships with Esri's ArcGIS software package. It is neither free nor open source and, even if you were able to obtain it without an ArcGIS license, you would not be able to use it as it has a built-in license checker.

If you do have an ArcGIS license, but are trying to use arcpy in a Python environment other than the Esri default, I would recommend doing so with Anaconda, using a setup like the one described here. Edit: arcpy can now be installed directly in any Anaconda environment with conda install -c esri arcpy (and yes, it still requires an ArcGIS license).

If you don't have an ArcGIS license, there are several free and/or open source alternatives available, which other users here know much more about than I do.

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