Hello all,
I don't know if such beginner's questions are wanted here (if not, please delete!), but I have a (hopefully simple) question: In the context of a seminar paper I work as an absolute beginner with GIS. I would like to represent for a whole country all large cities as well as the in each case adjacent cities. What is the easiest way to do this?
I have a dataset with all cities of the country including information about the number of inhabitants and other indicators and trends I want to look at. So the idea is to automatically identify cities adjacent to certain large cities.
(I would like to investigate if there is a correlation between certain trends in cities and the surrounding cities. For example, I'd like to examine whether population trends in cities adjacent to fast-growing large cities are similar or opposite to trends in the large city. I would like to conduct similar analyses with other socio-economic/demographic indicators).
Thanks and have a nice evening (and please excuse my bad English)!
To start with, beginners questions are always welcome, and your English needs no apologies!
Adjacent is a relative term in the context of GIS. It could mean that two cities share a border. Or it could mean that two cities are within a certain distance and are considered adjacent.
Either way, take a look at Select By Location this tool allows you to specify how you want to define adjacent.
Joe is right, adjacent is a relative term in the context of GIS. To give you another tool that can be useful for projects like the one you are working one; you can use the Buffer tool to define a distance around the city you are looking at. For example you could set a buffer of 30 miles around your cities, this can be done with point or polygon data. You can then use the buffer as a selection method using the select by location tool that Joe mentioned, to select cities that are within the buffer you created.
Thiessen polygons can help visualize and identify "neighbors" (it assumes no barriers though)