Nearest neighbors

Question

I have a point shapefile overlayed over a grid-based polygon shapefile. I would like to select the nearest neighbor grid cells of a given grid cell that contains any of the given point(s). So let's say the grid cell that contains the point(s) is 1,I want to select the neighboring cells of grid cell '1' which should, additionally, also have information on whether there are any point(s) in them or not.

I use ArcGIS Desktop.

Answer 1

Use the polygon neighbors tool to identify neighbouring cells.

The output is a table that lists out all neighbours for each polygon in the input feature class.

Relate the output table with the original shapefile using polygon/cell id. When you select a cell with points, you can then easily find its neighbours.