Need to generate ids to connect points and polygons

Question

I have a simple question as I am just getting my head into GIS.

I am trying to compare the demographics of charter schools to traditional public schools. I have universe listings (lat,long) of US public schools in a vector layer with additional layers that include separate listings of

1. independent charter schools (not part of a school district) and
2. district linked (tabular district/school links) charter schools.

I want to compare the charters to comparable local schools, but this requires exploring multiple matches- district public schools to charter schools in the same districts and then compare schools in a 10 mile buffer of each charter school. Since the independent charters are not linked to a district I would like to use QGIS to connect points to the polygons they are in.

What I cannot figure out is, after I have the schools in a shapefile, how can I generate new ID's to nest 1) charters within the district geographic areas (polygons) and a second id for each charter school that includes all the traditional public schools within the 10 m buffer?

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If I am understanding your situation correctly, it sounds like you want to do a spatial join with the points to the polygons. This can be preformed in QGIS from the properties window (in version 1.8.0). In that window there is a tab called Join. This is where you would perform a spatial join.