How to delete Polygons within a bigger polygon?

[NataliaGutierrez2]

Hello,

I am working with a parcel shapefile of an entire state. I need to remove all of the building polygons falling inside the bigger parcel polygon. These are not donut holes but instead separate polygons.

I can't erase each polygon manually because I am working with the entire state dataset.

What geoprocessing tool should I use?

I have attached an image below:

Thank you!

[DanPatterson_Retired]

select by location using 'completely contain'. I think!... been a long time, since I tried this.  same file as target and source

[NataliaGutierrez2]

Thank you Dan, it worked! 

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Glad it worked out Natalia

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

If you have the polygons attributed such as to distinguish the ones you want to remove (buildings) from the larger parcel, one could go into edit mode, do a Select By Attribute to just pick the buildings, then hit the Delete button on your keyboard (or alternately in the attribute table hit the X icon that represents "Delete Selected".  Or as a safer route, instead do a Select By Attribute for the non-buildings (don't go into Edit Mode) and then export as a new feature class.

The tricky part will be if the polygons are not differentiated.

Using Select By Attributes—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 

Chris Donohue, GISP

[NataliaGutierrez2]

Chris, thank you for your answer. This could have helped but I don't have any attribute data other than the parcel ID so I do not have a way to identify which are buildings and which are not.

[NataliaGutierrez2]

Dan, now that I am trying it out in a bigger dataset that includes all of the parcels from a county this method is not working. It seems as if it did not recognize the polygons completely within another polygon.

Should I do something else instead?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

'completely contain' wasn't that the one that worked before??

[NataliaGutierrez2]

Yes, I was using 'Completely Within' but I was trying it on specific parcels on a separate mxd, but when I tried it on the mxd that contains all of the county parcels it did not work.

It seems as if it does not recognize the parcels that are within another one.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

try 'Contains Clementini'