An overview of the Measuring Geographic Distributions toolset

Measuring the distribution of a set of features allows you to calculate a value that represents a characteristic of the distribution, such as the center, compactness, or orientation. You can use this value to track changes in the distribution over time or compare distributions of different features.

The Measuring Geographic Distributions toolset addresses questions such as:

• Where's the center?
• What's the shape and orientation of the data?
• How dispersed are the features?

Tool	Description
Central Feature	Identifies the most centrally located feature in a point, line, or polygon feature class.
Directional Distribution	Creates standard deviational ellipses to summarize the spatial characteristics of geographic features: central tendency, dispersion, and directional trends.
Linear Directional Mean	Identifies the mean direction, length, and geographic center for a set of lines.
Mean Center	Identifies the geographic center (or the center of concentration) for a set of features.
Median Center	Identifies the location that minimizes overall Euclidean distance to the features in a dataset.
Standard Distance	Measures the degree to which features are concentrated or dispersed around the geometric mean center.

Measuring geographic distributions tools