geodesic area=0 for a shapefile

Question

Hello,

I use arcgis pro. I'm looking at the census block map shapefile that I downloaded from the census website (area1.png). I would like to compute the geodesic areas of the polygons. The attribute table of the shapefile looks like this (area2.png). I created a new field called "area", right-clicked, clicked "Calculate Geometry", and picked "area (geodesic)" under "property". However, all the entries under the field "area" turned out to be zero. I was wondering whether anyone could help me understand why. Thank you.

area1.png

area2.png

danretired · Answer

Cant blame the Friday glitches at least 😉

zhongying_gan · Answer

Hello. I just tried "Add Geometry Attributes" again and it suddenly worked. I don't know why this morning it didn't work for several times but suddenly worked in the afternoon. I didn't change a thing.

zhongying_gan · Answer

Hello. Thank you for replying. I tried "Add Geometry Attributes", but still ended up with 0 for the geodesic area when I used the shapefile, and ended up with <Null> for the geodesic area when I used a feature layer in geodatabase. I have tried different units, including square miles, square feet, and square kilometers. The results were the same. I was wondering whether you have any thoughts on this. Thank you.