Joining Tables
Joining combines a shape file or feature class (a file that shows up on a map) with a related table. For example, if you have a shape file of all the countries of the world and a table or Excel document containing each country’s GDP, you can join them to make a map of GDPs across the world.
To begin, make sure you have the table you would like to join (for parcel data this might be Land or Real_acct table) in the document. Next, you will need to find a field between the two files that you can base the join on.
- In the contents pane, right click your shapefile or feature class and select Attribute table to view the table in your document.
- Find a field that the two files share and note their names (in the case of the Land table, HCAD_NUM and ACCOUNT), then close each attribute table.
- Right click the feature class you want to join the table to and click Joins and Relates > Add Join
- For ‘Input Join Field’, select the field name you noted for the layer in step 2.
- For the "Join Table" select the table you want to join to the layer selected.
- For the "Output Join Field", select the same field name you noted for the layer in step 2.
- Keep "Keep All target Feature" selected.
- Click Run.
- Right click your shape file or feature class and click Attribute Table and check that the data from both files is now part of the table.