Area missing in polygon (Shapefile)

Question

I'm working with ArcGIS and the following image is showing the polygons that I have in my shapefile. The seleted polygon should actually be this selected one + the blank area right below it.

This blank area has no attribute related to it. I mean, it isn't a polygon. It is just a hole in my shapefile.

Eventually, how do I use this shape to be part of my selected polygon?

I forgot to mention, but I have many holes like this in my shapefile. I'm wondering if there is a faster way of filling these holes than digitizing all those individual polygons!

Answer 1

Depend what means 'many holes', but if it's not hundreds/thousands you can always use Auto Complete polygon tool. All you have to do is start edit session, select the tool, draw the line across a hole and merge created polygons to required polygon. It is better than digitising and Trace but still semi manual…
see screenshots:

Select Auto complete tool and Draw a line across the hole Double click to finish Select polygon you want to merge newly created polygons and use Merge tool (under edit toolbar)

Answer 2

You can start editing on the selected polygon and snap the new vertices to the boundaries of the polygons surrounding the hole, effectively increasing the "selected polygon" to the area contained by the hole. You will also have recalculate the area in the attribute table to update the entire area. This can be accomplished using the tools in the editor toolbar, specifically the trace tool.

The trace tool is the third from the left.

Answer 3

This sort of problem is what the topology tool was made for:

• Create a topology for this layer using the "No Gaps" rule
• Validate the topology
• Add it the TOC

Use the fix topology tool to Create Features. You can do this one by one or all at once.

Answer 4

I would

1. edit the polygon layer.
2. trace the missing polygon boundary.
3. merge the selected polygon and the newly created one.

screenshots

1. edit
   
2. Trace
   create a new feature using the autocomplete polygon tool.
   
   @ChrisL is correct...
   You can simply draw a line crossing one of the edges (justone single segment from one existing polygon into the missing hole and double click. no tracing needed.
   Then merge them
   

EDIT: I am leaving the trace instructions here. It helps to know the old way. Switch to tracing mode (instead of line)

select an existing polygon edge on the missing polygon edge.
Begin tracing...
Trace until you get to an intersection and single click the exact intersection point (zoom in with the wheel mouse).

Pick the next edge to begin tracing it.

Continue until you have returned to the beginning point. Stop one vertex short and double click (autocomplete will finish the polygon).

switch to the edit tool...

use the edit tool and the shift to select the polygon you want to merge with.

use the merge command to merge the two.

Answer 5

Fastest alternative if you have many holes to cover in a single file is a slight modification of mkennedy's comment suggestion using Union. There is no need to create a second layer that covers the extent of the one you're working with. Simply Union the layer to itself (add only the one layer to the Union tool) and be sure to uncheck the box at the bottom that says Gaps Allowed. The result will be a new layer, with new polygons filling in all the holes. Note this won't work if a 'hole' is along the outside edge - it must be fully enclosed/surrounded by other shapes.

Answer 6

Another option, faster than detailed tracing depending on how complex your boundaries are:

Edit the layer and either reshape the feature you want to enlarge to cover the hole using the Reshape Feature tool on the Editor toolbar (left side of image) or draw a whole new feature over the hole (right side of image). In both cases just ensure overlap with neighbors - don't worry about detailed snapping to the existing edges.

Select the now overlapped adjacent polygons one at a time and use the Editor dropdown Clip tool with no buffer and discard area of intersect. This only works on one selected polygon at a time, and be aware it will clip all visible/editable layers. Because it only works on one polygon at a time, if you have many holes or many adjacent polys you can create a temporary copy of your shape layer and merge them all into a single polygon to use for the clipping operation - but this requires use of some extra layers. See my answer at Creating feature class from area in one layer not covered by another layer using ArcGIS? for a detailed outline of this.

In the below image you can see I've clipped using two of the adjacent polys and I have three more to go (using the reshape method from above).