Cartographic Partitions (Environment setting)

Tools that honor the Cartographic Partitions environment will subdivide input features by the specified partition polygon features for sequential processing to avoid memory limitations that may otherwise be encountered with large datasets.

Usage notes

• Partition features should represent a logical subdivision of input features that will be processed by the tools that honor this setting. Input features should be somewhat evenly distributed among partition features. These may be a spatially related set of features, such as counties or other administrative boundaries; polygons that represent individual map sheets, such as those created with the Grid Index Features tool; or polygon partitions specifically created for this purpose by the Create Cartographic Partitions tool.
• Partition features must be a polygon feature class or a polygon shapefile with a valid spatial reference.
• Partition features must be topologically correct. Adjacent polygon edges should match, and there can be no overlaps. Holes between partition features are acceptable, but partition features cannot be multipart polygons or polygons with holes. Polygons must have simple, nonoverlapping geometry.
• Each partition polygon must have an area greater than zero. Null or empty partitions will not be processed and will raise a warning. These partitions will be ignored in processing.
• Only the input features covered by the extent of the partition features will be processed when the Cartographic Partitions environment setting is used, even if the Output Extent environment is set to a larger extent than the partition features. Features outside this extent will be ignored.
• Learn more about generalizing large datasets with cartographic partitions

Dialog syntax

Partition Features—The polygon feature class that will be used to subdivide large datasets for generalization or conflict resolution processing.

Scripting syntax

arcpy.env.cartographicPartitions = FeatureClass

cartographicPartitions syntax

Parameter	Explanation
FeatureClass	The polygon feature class that will be used to subdivide large datasets for generalization or conflict resolution processing.

Script example

import arcpy

# Set the cartographic partitions to C:\data\world.gdb\world_partitions
arcpy.env.cartographicPartitions = r'C:\data\world.gdb\world_partitions'