What is clipping map layers?

Clip is a geoprocessing operation where features or raster are cut to the boundary of another area (clip layer). Only the part inside the boundary remains.

Used to limit analysis to a municipality, watershed, or project area, or to reduce large datasets for export. Standard in GIS software and GeoApps workflows alongside intersect and union.

Clip is not the same as attribute selection or bbox filter alone. Clip works on geometric overlap and actually cuts geometry; the result is new data with smaller extent.