I am trying to subtract the internal and coastal shoreline waters from the land area of Ontario electoral districts, but it seems that it doesn't work

Question

I am trying to subtract the shoreline water (internal and coastal) from the land area of Ontario. I am using the Ontario electoral districts shapefile, and all the surface water that I got from the 2016 Census Boundary Files (internal water and coastal shapefiles).

It seems that I need to merge or clip all these shapefiles and them exclude the intersection among them. Have no idea about how to do that. The final goal is to calculate the population density of each electoral district.

Any advice?

Answer 1

just use "Erase tool" if you are using arcmap for example.

Or use "intersect" than select the polygons that take an ID from the "water layer"