qgis – Dissolving Polygons Within Same Larger Polygon in QGIS

Question

There is a layer in QGIS that contains multiple polygons, and I want to dissolve the polygons which are inside another polygon.

I don't want to dissolve the entire layer of polygons. For example, in the following map, is there a way in the QGIS to make it two polygons only by combining any inner polygon with the bigger one containing it?

I want to select the polygons automatically. It is very hard to select polygons manually since there are more than 1.2K polygons.

Answer 1

If you want to dissolve in-place:

1. Start edit mode for the layer.

2. Select the bounding and interior polygons

3. Click "Merge selected features" button () in the Advanced digitizing Toolbar.

4. Repeat 2-3 for all bounding and interior polygons separately.