Counting overlapping polygons from one Shapefile using ArcGIS Desktop

Question

I have a shapefile with 16,400 polygons. Each polygon shows the expansion of a bird species for the whole world.

Now I have to count the overlapping polygons. I tried it with union and dissolve (count the union), but the union is not working for so many polygons.

Then I tried to clip continents, but this is also not working because of the huge number of polygons. Moreover I tried this method , also without success.

Therefore I'm asking you I there is a way to count overlapping polygons if 16400 polygons are in one shapefile?

I'm working with 10.0 and can work with 10.2. An ArcPy solution is also wonderful.

At the moment I am thinking about creating a fishnet and iterate over the rows of the shp with the 16400 polygons and write 1 to a value field of a fishnet cell if the polygon is in this cell and than take the next row (polygon) and if this is also in the fishnet cell count +1.

But I don't know if this is a good solution and how to realize it. Or I have to learn R to use this approach.

The result: It should be a shape where you have new polygons out of the overlapping ones and a field where the overlaps are counted.

So in the end there should be a shapefile where you can see how many bird species are found at the same place.

Answer 1

I would recommend using the Count Overlapping Features (Analysis) tool.

Generates planarized overlapping features from the input features. The count of overlapping features is written to the output features.

Answer 2

A very simple method is:

1. Union the shapefile with itself;
2. Convert multipart output to single part;
3. Use the spatial join tool to count overlaps (use the ARE_IDENTICAL_TO match option);
4. Symbolize using the join_count field.

Answer 3

Using arcpy geometry tokens, you could try something like this:

import os
import arcpy

arcpy.env.workspace = r"" #path to workspace
arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = 1

polygon_fc = r"" #path to polygon fc

base = [row for row in arcpy.da.SearchCursor(polygon_fc,["OID@","SHAPE@"])]
compare = base

overlaps_stats = {}

for b in base:
    for c in compare:
        if b[1].overlaps(c[1]):
            #print "{0} overlaps {1}".format(b[0],c[0])
            if overlap_stats.has_key(b[0]):
                overlap_stats[b[0]].append(c[0])
            else:
                overlap_stats[b[0]] = [c[0]]

for key,value in overlap_stats.iteritems():
    print "Polygon {0}:  Overlaps: {1}.".format(key,len(value))

For the sample data above, the code will return the following overlap counts:

The code as is will only return counts for polygons that have at least one overlap.

Answer 4

I guess you've tried this method: Counting and rasterizing polygon overlaps in ArcGIS Desktop?

16,400 polygons isn't that many. However, one potential solution is to simply do a regular Spatial Join. In the ArcMap toolbox, > Analysis Tools -> Overlap -> Spatial Join.

Set both the target and join features to the same dataset and specify an output. Leave the rest of the settings.

After a few moments you should get back a shapefile that contains a "join count" column. Subtract 1 from this (as obviously each feature should intersect itself), and that should be the number of "overlaps "(actually intersects) for each polygon.

I just performed it on

Answer 5

I downloaded and tried the "Count Overlapping Polygons" tool. It might work, but it takes an awfully long time (probably because file size, but my input FC only had < 5,000 records).

While I was waiting for that tool to run , I opened up another ArcMap window and it only took a couple quick steps to get what I wanted.

1. Spatial Join - using the same feature class as Target and Join Features and selecting the "Join One to Many" option.
2. Dissolve - using the output from the last step. Use the "TARGET_FID" as the dissolve field and for the statistics you can either SUM the "Join_Count" field or COUNT the "JOIN_FID" field.
3. In the output file from from step 2, use field calculator subtract 1 from the stats field ("SUM_Join_Count", or "COUNT_JOIN_FID") - since each feature intersects itself.

I suggest using this method over the "Count Overlapping Polygon" tool. I started running the COP tool ~ 5 min before starting this Join->Dissolve method and it gave me the result with enough time to write this up before the "Count Overlapping Polygon" tool had even finished.