Find Similar Locations

Find Similar Locations

Based on criteria you specify, the Find Similar Locations tool measures the similarity of locations in your candidate search layer to one or more reference locations. This tool can answer questions such as

To answer questions such as these, you provide the reference locations, the candidate search locations, and the fields representing the criteria you want to match. The first input layer should contain your reference or benchmark locations. For example, this might be a layer containing your top performing stores or the villages hardest hit by the disease. You then specify the layer containing your candidate search locations. This might be all of your stores or all other villages. Finally, you identify one or more fields to use for measuring similarity. The Find Similar Locations tool will then rank all of the candidate search locations by how closely they match your reference locations across all of the fields you have selected.

Choose layer containing the reference locations

The point, line, or area layer containing the reference locations to match.

In addition to choosing a layer from your map, you can select Browse Layers found at the bottom of the drop-down list to browse your contents for a big data file share dataset or feature layer.

You may use all locations or make a selection

Use the selection buttons to identify the reference locations, if necessary. This option is only available if the features are drawn on the map (not available for a big data file share). For example, if the input layer contains all of the locations—the reference locations as well as the candidate search locations—you will need to use one of the selection tools to identify the reference locations. If you create two separate layers, one with the reference locations and the other with all candidate search locations, you do not need to make a selection.

If there is more than one reference location, a single location is created by averaging the values for each of the fields used to analyze similarity.

Search for similar locations in

The candidate search locations in this layer will be ranked from most to least similar.

Base similarity on

The fields you select will be the criteria used to evaluate similarity. If you select a population and income field, for example, the candidate search locations with the lowest (best) rankings will be those that have similar population and income values to your reference locations.

Determine the most and least similar using

The method you select determines the how matching is determined.

  • The attribute values method uses the squared differences of standardized values. This is the default.
  • The attribute profiles method uses cosine similarity mathematics to compare the profile of standardized values. Using attribute profiles requires the use of at least two analysis fields.

Show me

You may either see all of the candidate search locations ranked from most similar to least similar, or you can specify the number of results you would like to see.

  • All locations from most to least similar—all of the features in the candidate search layer will be included in rank order in the result layer. a maximum of 10,000 results will be returned.
  • The top 1—you determine how many of the top most similar candidates should be included in the result layer. The maximum allowed values is 10,000.

Choose fields to add to results

Optionally add fields to your data from your search layer.

Result layer name

This is the name of the layer that will be created in My Content and added to the map. The default name is based on the tool name and the input layer name. If the layer already exists the tool run will fail.

This result layer will contain the reference locations and the number of ranked candidate search locations you specified. If the result layer name already exists you will be asked to rename it.

Using the Save result in drop-down box, you can specify the name of a folder in My Content where the result will be saved.