Taking only the largest polygon from MultiPolygon layer in QGIS

Question

I have MultiPolygon geometries in my file, and I want to take only the largest polygon within the MultiPolygon geometry to further work with it.

I tried using the "Multipart to singleparts" tool, which allowed me to have single polygons. Now I suppose I could filter for non-unique "ID"s and have QGIS calculate the largest out of its geometries. I am not sure how to do this, and any alternative methods could be beneficial as well!.

Answer 1

You can achieve this in a single step using a virtual layer.

The idea is to call QGIS function to order the multi part, as suggested by @Babel, and to select the 1st (biggest) one. The difference between the two approaches is how the biggest part is retained, and that a virtual layer is dynamic, i.e. if you modify the source shapes, it will be automatically recomputed.

Go to the menu Layer > Add Layer > Add/Edit Virtual Layer... and enter the following query. Replace the layer name for yours and feel free to add any field you want from the source.

SELECT id, -- any field you want from the source layer
       geometry_n(
         order_parts(geometry, area(geometry), False)
         ,1) as geometry
FROM myMultiPartLayer

Answer 2

Let's assume there is a multi-polygon layer called 'polygons' with its attribute table, see image below

Step 1. Apply the "Multipart to singleparts" geoalgorithm

Step 2. Use a "Virtual Layer" through Layer > Add Layer > Add/Edit Virtual Layer... with the following query:

SELECT
    *
FROM
    "Single parts"
GROUP BY
    "id"
HAVING
    MAX(area(geometry))

And get the output

Answer 3

Here's another alternative using a virtual layer

Go to Layer > Add Layer > Add/Edit Virtual Layer... and enter the following prompt:

WITH
tbla AS (SELECT id, st_area(geometry) area, geometry FROM "Single parts")
SELECT id, MAX(area) max_area, geometry FROM tbla

I hope that your result meets your expectations...

Answer 4

As an alternative, you can get the biggest polygons using exclusively QGIS expressions. Similar to @JGH's proposal, but you don't have to create a virtual layer, but it will still adapt dynamically to changing geometries if using geometry generator. In this case, you need no additional layer. This is if you need it for to visualize or for styling only.

However, if satisfied, you can transform it to real geometries with the same expression.

This is the expression to use:

geometry_n(  
    order_parts( 
        $geometry,
        'area($geometry)', 
        'false'
    )
    ,1
)

You have two possibilities:

1. For visualization purpose only, without creating actual geometries: add a new symbol layer, set it to Geometry generator / Geometry type: line and paste the expression (this is what you see on the screenshot).

2. Create actual geometries you can use for further processing: Menu Processing / Toolbar / Geoemtry by expression, than set the multipolygon layer as input, set polygon as output type and paste the expression from above.