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Dissolve Boundaries (Standard Feature Analysis Tools)

Summary

Finds polygons that overlap or share a common boundary and merges them together to form a single polygon.

You can control which boundaries are merged by specifying a field. For example, if you have a layer of counties and each county has a State_Name field, you can dissolve boundaries using the State_Name field. Adjacent counties will be merged together if they have the same value for State_Name. The end result is a layer of state boundaries.

Illustration

Dissolve Boundaries tool illustration

Usage

  • There are two methods for dissolving boundaries: overlapping or adjacent areas and field value.

  • This tool has the option to calculate statistics on numerical fields for areas that are being dissolved together. The statistics include sum, average, minimum, maximum, and standard deviation. Each time a field and statistic is entered, a new row will be added to the tool pane so more than one statistic can be calculated at once.

Parameters

Label Explanation Data type

Input Layer

The layer containing polygon features that will be dissolved or combined.

Feature Set

Output Name

The name of the output layer that will be created on your portal.

String

Dissolve Fields

(Optional)

One or more fields from the input layer that control which polygons will be merged. If you don't provide a value, polygons that share a common border (that is, they are adjacent) or polygon areas that overlap will be dissolved into one polygon.

If you do provide a value, polygons that share a common border and contain the same value in one or more fields will be dissolved. For example, if you have a layer of counties and each county has a State_Name attribute, you can dissolve boundaries using the State_Name attribute. Adjacent counties will be merged together if they have the same value for State_Name. The end result is a layer of state boundaries. If two or more fields are provided, the values in those fields must be the same for the boundary to be dissolved.

Field

Summary Fields

(Optional)

A list of field names and statistical summary type that will be calculated for all points within each polygon. The count of points within each polygon is always returned.

Value table columns:

  • Field—Fields on which statistics will be calculated.

  • Type—Statistics that will be calculated on specified fields.

    • Sum—The total value will be calculated.

    • Minimum—The smallest value will be identified.

    • Maximum—The largest value will be identified.

    • Mean—The average or mean value will be calculated.

    • Standard deviation—The standard deviation will be calculated.

Value Table

Derived output

Label Explanation Data type

Output

The output polygon layer with dissolved boundaries.

Feature Set

Environments

Extent

Licensing information

  • Basic: Requires your account in ArcGIS Enterprise to have the Perform Analysis privilege
  • Standard: Requires your account in ArcGIS Enterprise to have the Perform Analysis privilege
  • Advanced: Requires your account in ArcGIS Enterprise to have the Perform Analysis privilege