About Set Analysis Extent

An analysis extent specifies an area where Business Analyst will limit your analysis by a geographic boundary. For example, if you are creating customer derived trade areas in the Portland, Oregon, area but have customer locations throughout the nation in the map, you can set your analysis extent to Portland. Only the customer locations in Portland will be considered in your analyses. This is helpful when large amounts of data are added to the map and you want to consolidate your work by defining a smaller geographic area. Another example occurs when searching for businesses. If your analysis extent is set to the entire nation, all businesses for the nation will be returned. Alternatively, if your analysis extent is defined as a one-county study area, business points for only that county will be returned.

Analysis extents can be actual geographic boundaries or virtual boundaries. Geographic boundary examples are study areas, rings, or any type of extent feature class or layer. Virtual boundaries are defined as either the current map view or whole map view. When these options are selected, your analysis is limited, but not by an actual geographic boundary.

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Study areas and other analysis extents appear in the Set Analysis Extent menu. Only one analysis extent can be active at a time.

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Use the Jump To Location bookmarks to quickly zoom to areas such as states or city areas. These locations set an analysis extent to the bookmarked area and all surrounding areas that fill the map.