{"id":172471,"date":"2010-10-11T18:44:57","date_gmt":"2010-10-11T18:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=172471"},"modified":"2018-12-18T11:54:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T19:54:36","slug":"joining-two-separate-polygons","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-desktop\/mapping\/joining-two-separate-polygons","title":{"rendered":"Joining Two Separate Polygons"},"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],"industry":[],"product":[36991],"class_list":["post-172471","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mapping","tag-mapping-center","product-arcgis-desktop"],"acf":{"short_description":"I need to join two distinct polygons in a layer so they are considered one attribute.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p><strong>Question: \u00a0<\/strong>I need to join two distinct polygons in a layer so they are considered one attribute. The 2 polygons are simple non contiguous parcels of land that need to be treated as one parcel. In desktop help, I found the following instructions (I could not find any other reference to joining polygons):<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSelect the polygon graphics on the map you want to join. Click Drawing on the Draw toolbar, point to Graphic Operations, and click the method you want to use. The graphics are joined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This did not work. After pointing to \u201cGraphic Operations\u201d, the Methods, including \u201cUnion\u201d were not selectable.<\/p>\n<p>Please help.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Answer:<\/strong>\u00a0It sounds like\u00a0you want to do what we call \u201cmerge\u201d \u2013 this will make the two features one feature. I am providing you steps below with links to online help.<\/p>\n<p>1) You first need to add the\u00a0<a title=\"Adding the Editor toolbar\" href=\"http:\/\/help.arcgis.com\/en\/arcgisdesktop\/10.0\/help\/index.html#\/Adding_the_Editor_toolbar\/001t0000000p000000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Editor toolbar<\/a>\u00a0to your ArcMap session.<\/p>\n<p>2) After adding your feature class to ArcMap,\u00a0<a title=\"Starting an edit session (Start Editing)\" href=\"http:\/\/help.arcgis.com\/en\/arcgisdesktop\/10.0\/help\/index.html#\/Starting_an_edit_session_Start_Editing\/001t0000000r000000\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">start the edit session<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>3) Select the polygons you want to merge (hold the Shift key while selecting the features so that you can select more than one), click the drop down arrow next to \u201cEditor\u201d on the Editor toolbar and click\u00a0<a title=\"Merging features in the same layer\" href=\"http:\/\/help.arcgis.com\/en\/arcgisdesktop\/10.0\/help\/index.html#\/Merging_features_in_the_same_layer\/001t0000007q000000\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Merge<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>4)\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/help.arcgis.com\/en\/arcgisdesktop\/10.0\/help\/index.html#\/Stopping_an_edit_session_Stop_Editing\/001t0000000s000000\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Save your edits<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This will merge your two non-contiguous parcels into one.\u00a0 In the process of merging, you will be asked to select the polygon that has the attributes that you want to assign to the newly merged feature.<\/p>\n<p>Hope this helps!<\/p>\n<p><em>Formerly a Mapping Center Ask a Cartographer \u00a0Q &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>Joining Two Separate Polygons<\/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\/joining-two-separate-polygons\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Joining 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