Shapefile Colors based on attributes?

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03-31-2014 10:56 AM
GregSullivan1
New Contributor
Hello,
I have what I think should be a very easy to solve problem but I am struggling. I currently have a shapefile with descriptions of land use cover as one of the columns in the Attribute table. My entire shapefile comes up as one color/shade and I want to make the colors different depending on the type of Land Cover. I have around 1500 features but only 14 different types of land use. Does anyone know how I could do this?
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JoshuaChisholm
Occasional Contributor III
Hello Greg,

If I'm understanding you correctly, you just need to use layer symbology.

  1. Double-click the desired layer in the Table Of Contents

  2. Go to the "Symbology" tab

  3. Under "Show:", Select "Categories" then "Unique Values"

  4. The "Value Field" should be set to the field you want to symbolize by ('land use cover' in your case)

*Note, a layer's symbology information is stored in the map document (MXD), not the shapefile/geodatadase. Only the data (spatial and attributes) are stored in the shapefile/geodatabase.

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JoshuaChisholm
Occasional Contributor III
Hello Greg,

If I'm understanding you correctly, you just need to use layer symbology.

  1. Double-click the desired layer in the Table Of Contents

  2. Go to the "Symbology" tab

  3. Under "Show:", Select "Categories" then "Unique Values"

  4. The "Value Field" should be set to the field you want to symbolize by ('land use cover' in your case)

*Note, a layer's symbology information is stored in the map document (MXD), not the shapefile/geodatadase. Only the data (spatial and attributes) are stored in the shapefile/geodatabase.
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GregSullivan1
New Contributor
Thanks, this was exactly what I was looking for!
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