Spatial Join - One Join Feature to Multiple Target Features

Question

I want to join a set of target features (polygons) to a set of join features (points). The polygons can, and do, overlap. I want the join features to be counted (joined) to as many target features as they intersect. For example, in the picture below the green feature should get a join count of 4, the red feature should get a join count of 5 and the orange feature should get a join count of 3. What selections are necessary to script this?

Answer 1

There are no special selections required to perform this operation, and a Spatial Join will do it in one step rather than intersect/summary stats. Target Features circles and Join Features points, keep all other settings default (including one-to-one join operation and intersect match option). The resulting table will have a column called Join Count, which tells you the number of points that were joined to each circle. It does not matter how many circles a point falls in, it will be counted once for each.

Answer 2

Use intersect, output type = points. Count number of points - summary statistics using polygons unique id