{"id":171291,"date":"2010-08-12T18:52:50","date_gmt":"2010-08-12T18:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=171291"},"modified":"2018-12-18T11:54:37","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T19:54:37","slug":"merging-multiple-shapefiles-into-a-single-shapefile","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-desktop\/mapping\/merging-multiple-shapefiles-into-a-single-shapefile","title":{"rendered":"Merging multiple shapefiles into a single shapefile"},"author":4331,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[22941],"tags":[38411,29661],"industry":[],"product":[36991],"class_list":["post-171291","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mapping","tag-mapping-center","tag-shapefiles","product-arcgis-desktop"],"acf":{"short_description":"I have multiple shapefiles of underwater forms (coral reef, outcrop, sandflat, etc) that I would like to combine into a single shapefile.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p><strong>Question<\/strong>: I have multiple shapefiles of underwater forms (coral reef, outcrop, sandflat, etc) that I would like to combine into a single shapefile. This would make the data easier to manage and I would use a column in the attribute table to delineate each form, rather than have each be in a separate shapefile. How would I go about doing this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Answer:<\/strong>\u00a0First, all the data have to be of the same type (e.g., polygon).\u00a0 Then you can use the\u00a0<a title=\"ArcGIS Online Help: Merge\" href=\"http:\/\/help.arcgis.com\/en\/arcgisdesktop\/10.0\/help\/index.html#\/\/001700000055000000.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Merge<\/a>\u00a0tool (ArcToolbox -&gt; Data Management toolbox -&gt; General toolset) to combines your multiple input datasets of the same data type into a single, new output dataset. You could also use\u00a0<a title=\"ArcGIS Online Help: Append\" href=\"http:\/\/help.arcgis.com\/en\/arcgisdesktop\/10.0\/help\/index.html#\/\/001700000050000000.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Append<\/a>, but the Merge tool has the advantage that it creates a new dataset from all the combined data. In contrast, Append appends multiple input datasets into an existing target dataset.<\/p>\n<p><em>Formerly a Mapping Center Ask a Cartographer\u00a0 Q &amp; A.<\/em><\/p>\n"}],"authors":[{"ID":4331,"user_firstname":"Aileen","user_lastname":"Buckley","nickname":"Aileen Buckley","user_nicename":"abuckley","display_name":"Aileen Buckley","user_email":"abuckley@esri.com","user_url":"","user_registered":"2018-03-02 00:15:57","user_description":"Dr. Aileen Buckley is a cartographer researcher and Senior Principal GIS Engineer at Esri. I'm on the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World Team, making, writing, and talking about maps. I'm also involved in a number of cartographic societies and association, and I'm the chair of the ICA Ethics in Cartography Commission.","user_avatar":"<img data-del=\"avatar\" src='https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Aileen.jpg' class='avatar pp-user-avatar avatar-96 photo ' height='96' width='96'\/>"}],"related_articles":"","card_image":false,"wide_image":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Merging multiple shapefiles into a single shapefile<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-desktop\/mapping\/merging-multiple-shapefiles-into-a-single-shapefile\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" 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