[GIS] How to import data from excel and associate it with individual shapes

arcgis-10.0attribute-tableexcelshapefile

New user on ArcMap – Working with shapefiles…

Question: the shapefile I am working on, a polygon is a plot of land, each plot of land has a history of owners. I am currently having to copy/paste the ploygon in mapview, edit the attributes, and repeat…

Data includes the owner, price paid, length of ownership, acreage, etc.

looking for a quicker way to import or "join" or connect excel information with each plot/polygon…

so in short – the issue is one polygon, many owners with differing information of said polygon

Not a python expert yet…

Thanks

Best Answer

In ArcGIS, the way you normally handle many-to-one relationships such as you describe is to use a relate or relationship class.

When you relate your parcels layer to your owners table, you establish a relationship that says "this parcel corresponds to these owner records".

To do this you need a primary key in your parcels layer and a foreign key in your owners table.

Once you have established a relationship you can then identify or select related records -- a relationship is bidirectional so you can select an owner and then select its related parcel or vice versa.

Take note this point from the first link about ObjectIDs though:

  • If you relate to a table that does not have an ObjectID column (such as delimited text files or OLE DB tables), you will not be able to apply selections using the relate. The Related Tables command from the Table window's Table Options menu will list the relate, but it will be unavailable. The Identify tool, however, can still be used to find related records.
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