Spatial Relate

The spatial relate tool can be used to copy attribute data from polygon features onto point features that fall within the boundary of the polygon. For example, if you had a point based address layer, and a polygon based zip code layer, you could copy the zip code values from each polygon onto all the address points that fall within each polygon.

Steps To Perform A Spatial Relate

Click on the destination point layer in the legend to select it. Click on the Start Editing button on the Editing toolbar to put this layer into edit mode. If the destination layer is not in edit mode you will not be able to perform a spatial relate. Click on the Tools menu. Click on the Geoprocessing option. The Geoprocessing dialog will be displayed. Click on the Spatial Relate tab. Select the source layer from the Layer To Assign Data From drop-down list. This layer must contain polygon geometries. Select the destination layer from the Layer To Assign Data To drop-down list. This layer must contain point geometries. Select the From field. This is the field in the source data that will be copied. Select the To field. This is the field in the destination data that will populated with the copied data. To copy the data to a new field choose the <New Field> option. Click the All Records option to perform the operation for all features, or click the Selected Records option to perform the operation on only the selected features. Click the Commit button to complete the operation.