Subdivide Polygon (Data Management)

Summary

Divides polygon features into a number of equal areas or parts.

Usage

• Euclidean or planar calculations are used to determine areas of polygon subdivisions. For best results, use an equal area, projected coordinate system that minimizes area distortion for polygons in your data's geographic location.

  Learn more about projected coordinate systems

• Attribute values from the input feature classes will be copied to the output feature class. However, if the input is a layer or layers created by the Make Feature Layer tool and a field's Use Ratio Policy option is checked, a ratio of the input attribute value is calculated for the output attribute value. When Use Ratio Policy is checked, whenever a feature in an overlay operation is split, the attributes of the resulting features are a ratio of the attribute value of the input feature. The output value is based on the ratio into which the input feature geometry was divided. For example, If the input geometry was divided equally, each new feature's attribute value is assigned one-half of the input feature's attribute value. Use Ratio Policy only applies to numeric field types.

• The Subdivide Polygon tool honors the Parallel Processing Factor environment. If the environment is not set (the default) or is set to 100, full parallel processing will be enabled and the tool will attempt to distribute the work to all the logical cores on the machine. Setting the environment to 0 will disable parallel processing. Specifying a factor between 1 and 99 will cause the tool to determine the percentage of logical cores to use by applying the formula (Parallel Processing Factor / 100 * Logical Cores) rounded up to the nearest integer. If the result of this formula is 0 or 1, parallel processing will not be enabled.

Syntax

SubdividePolygon(in_polygons, out_feature_class, method, {num_areas}, {target_area}, {target_width}, {split_angle}, {subdivision_type})

Parameter	Explanation	Data Type
in_polygons	The polygon features to be subdivided.	Feature Layer
out_feature_class	The output feature class of subdivided polygons.	Feature Class
method	Specifies the method that will be used to divide the polygons. NUMBER_OF_EQUAL_PARTS — Polygons will be divided evenly into a number of parts. This is the default. EQUAL_AREAS —Polygons will be divided into a specified number of parts of a certain area, and a remainder part.	String
num_areas (Optional)	The number of areas into which the polygon will be divided if the NUMBER_OF_EQUAL_PARTS subdivision method is specified.	Long
target_area (Optional)	The area of the equal parts if the EQUAL_AREAS subdivision method is specified. If the target_area is larger than the area of the input polygon, the polygon will not be subdivided.	Areal Unit
target_width (Optional)	This parameter is not yet supported.	Linear Unit
split_angle (Optional)	The angle that will be used to draw the lines that divide the polygon. The default is 0.	Double
subdivision_type (Optional)	Specifies how the polygons will be divided. STRIPS — Polygons will be divided into strips. This is the default. STACKED_BLOCKS —Polygons will be divided into stacked blocks.	String

Code sample

SubdividePolygon example 1 (Python window)

The following Python window script demonstrates how to use the SubdividePolygon tool in immediate mode.

import arcpy

arcpy.env.workspace = r"C:/data/project.gdb"
arcpy.SubdividePolygon_management(
    "studyarea", "subdivisions", "NUMBER_OF_EQUAL_PARTS", 10, "", "", 0, 
    "STRIPS")

Environments

Parallel Processing Factor

Licensing information

• Basic: Yes
• Standard: Yes
• Advanced: Yes