How to split a country's shapefile into various regions

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06-27-2022 09:59 AM
FaisalBaig
New Contributor

Hi there! 

I am using ArcMap 10.8. I have a shapefile of a country (administrative boundary) but I want to work on different geomorphological regions in that country. The problem is I don't have a shapefile for those regions. Can I edit the country's shapefile to add regions by using any editing tool or so? 

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KamillePreto
Occasional Contributor II

You could do like Dan suggested. I'm unfamiliar off-hand if you could modify what you already have into multiple regions without ruining the outer boundary.

How I just did this (to create snow districts) within our County boundary, was created a new Feature Layer (I'm using Pro), but you could do a shapefile in ArcMap. Then I drew in rough boundaries for those new districts within the county boundary. Then when the rough draft was done, I went back in and use the "Reshape" tool which helps to match the county boundary so you don't have to do all of that manually.

There may be an easier way, but that's what I did.

Another thought, you may be able to take the copy like Dan suggested and use the Split tool to roughly slice the county into those new regions, then go ahead and modify each geometry manually from there. That way you don't have to use the reshape tool to match the boundary.

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DanPatterson
MVP Esteemed Contributor

make a copy first then use the copy for editing


... sort of retired...
FaisalBaig
New Contributor

Thanks for the response. I can edit it but I want separate shapefiles for each region so I could color them separately. But the edit only draws lines to delineate the regions onto country's shapefile and not saves them as separate shapefile.

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KamillePreto
Occasional Contributor II

You could do like Dan suggested. I'm unfamiliar off-hand if you could modify what you already have into multiple regions without ruining the outer boundary.

How I just did this (to create snow districts) within our County boundary, was created a new Feature Layer (I'm using Pro), but you could do a shapefile in ArcMap. Then I drew in rough boundaries for those new districts within the county boundary. Then when the rough draft was done, I went back in and use the "Reshape" tool which helps to match the county boundary so you don't have to do all of that manually.

There may be an easier way, but that's what I did.

Another thought, you may be able to take the copy like Dan suggested and use the Split tool to roughly slice the county into those new regions, then go ahead and modify each geometry manually from there. That way you don't have to use the reshape tool to match the boundary.

DanaNolan
Occasional Contributor III

Also, look into adding a topology with the rule(s) Country must be covered by regions and possibly Regions must not have gaps and Regions must not overlap. This will make editing and aligning easier and cleaner in the future.

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