Measure the distance between feature points to the nearest polygon centroid in ArcGIS Pro

Summary

In ArcGIS Pro, the distance between point features and the nearest polygon centroids can be measured. This method can be used to find the nearest schools from the center of districts. The workflow provided describes how to measure the distance between point features to the nearest polygon centroid in ArcGIS Pro using the Feature To Point and Near tools.

Procedure

1. In ArcGIS Pro, on the Analysis tab, click Tools to open the Geoprocessing pane.
2. Search for and select the Feature To Point (Data Management Tools) tool.

3. On the Parameters tab of the Feature To Point pane, select the polygon layer for Input Features. In this example, the Park Area polygon layer is selected.

4. Click Run. The output is a new point feature layer of the polygon centroids. In this example, ParkArea_FeatureToPoint is created.

5. In the Geoprocessing pane, search for and select the Near (Analysis Tools) tool.

6. On the Parameters tab of the Near tool pane, configure the parameters below
   1. For Input Features, select the point feature layer. In this example, the Points A layer is selected.
   2. For Near Features, select the new polygon centroids layer from Step 4. In this example, the ParkArea_FeatureToPoint layer is selected.

7. Click Run.
8. On the Contents pane, right-click the point feature layer and click Attribute Table to open the layer’s attribute table.

The NEAR_DIST field in the attribute table displays the distance between the point features and the nearest polygon centroid.