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

Which of your stores are most similar to your top performers with regard to customer profiles?
Based on characteristics of villages hardest hit by the disease, which other villages are high risk?

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 the candidate search locations by how closely they match your reference locations across all the fields you have selected.

Choose layer containing the reference locations

The layer containing the reference locations to match.

In addition to choosing a layer from your map, you can choose Choose Analysis Layer at the bottom of the drop-down list to browse to 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 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 features 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 field values method uses the squared differences of standardized values. This is the default.
The field 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 the candidate search locations ranked from most similar to least similar, or you can specify the number of results you would like to see.

If you specify all locations from most to least similar, all 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.
If you specify the number of most, least, or most and least similar locations, you determine how many of the most, least or most, and least similar candidates should be included in the result layer. The maximum allowed value is 10,000.

Choose fields to add to results

Optionally add fields to your data from your search layer. By default, all fields will be added.

Result layer name

The name of the layer that will be created. If you are writing to an ArcGIS Data Store, your results will be saved in My Content and added to the map. If you are writing to a big data file share, your results will be stored in the big data file share and added to its manifest. It will not be 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 will fail.

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

When writing to ArcGIS Data Store (relational or spatiotemporal big data store) 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.