Converting Zipcodes to Polygons

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02-03-2016 05:48 AM
HilaryZainabou
New Contributor

Greetings,

I have two files I am trying to join so that I can look at some program data by zipcode. I have found a csv file of zipcode with lat/long and I have a data file with zipcodes only.

I uploaded my zipcode w/ lat/long file to Arc Online with the intention of joining my data file to it so that I could create visualizations. Unfortunately, the zipcode lat/long file renders as point data only and does not create polygons.

I would really appreciate some assistance in figuring out what I am doing wrong. I also have Arc Desktop on my computer. I had intended to upload my zipcode w/ lat/long files to Arc online so that I could convert to a .shp file for use on my desktop.

Any assistance would be supper helpful. I have attached the zipcode w/ lat/long files.

Please help!

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8 Replies
DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus

search using .... zip code shapefile u.s.

https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=8d2012a2016e484dafaac0451f9aea24

plus more

Then you should be able to join attributes to it if it is in the correct form

HilaryZainabou
New Contributor

Thanks for your reply Dan. I downloaded and opened the file in Arc Desktop then added my data file and joined the tables. My initial goal is to create a chloropleth map. Looking at the new table all looks good, but when I go to edit the layer it gives me an error. I feel like I am missing something so simple. It has been some time since I worked with the Dekstop version.

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DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus

convert your csv file to a shapefile or a featureclass... simply right-click on the layer, then data, export data and specify your type and filename at the bottom

LukeSturtevant
Occasional Contributor III

It looks like you are attempting to edit the csv table. Export it to a geodatabase table from the attribute table menu:

Then it will have assigned OIDs and you should be able to edit it.

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LukeSturtevant
Occasional Contributor III

I'm a little confused as to how you would attempt to create polygon's from that CSV you uploaded. Some of the entries only have a single LAT\LONG entry so you would only have a single point for that entry. Each zip code entry needs to have 3 or more LAT\LONG entries to make a polygon.

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DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus

it appears from the records that the csv file contains multiple points with the same coordinates...all you need is one point in a point file to join it to a polygon file using a common key field...which I presume is the postal code.. and hoping that they are in the exact same format and level of detail

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LukeSturtevant
Occasional Contributor III

Oh okay I misunderstood what Hilary was looking to do with the CSV file she uploaded. I thought she was attempting to create polygons from the lat\long points in the csv. Maybe she is attempting to generate a point feature class from the CSV and use a spatial join​ with one-to-many join operation on an existing polygon feature?

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DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus

Is suspect it may have been a polygon file in csv format... sort of useless... hence the link amongst many, that allows you to download polygon geometry.  That is why I wondered about the duplicate records,  I suspect that each polygon point has the same attributes for each point.

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