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# ESRI Shapefiles (SHP)

Also known as ESRI ArcView Shapefiles or ESRI Shapefiles. ESRI is the company that introduced this format. ArcView was the first product to use shapefiles.

## File listing

Shapefiles are made up of a minimum of three similarly named files, with different suffixes:

    Countries_area.dbf
    Countries_area.shp
    Countries_area.shx

## Data Access / Connection Method

Shapefile access is built directly into MapServer. It is also available through OGR, but direct access without OGR is recommended and discussed here. The path to the shapefile is required. No file extension should be specified. Shapefiles only hold one layer of data, therefore no distinction needs to be made.

## OGRINFO Examples

- The directory can serve as a data source.

- Each shapefile in a directory serves as a layer.

- A shapefile can also be a data source. In this case the layer has the same prefix as the shapefile.

Using ogrinfo on a directory with multiple shapefiles:

    > ogrinfo /data/shapefiles/
    INFO: Open of `/data/shapefiles/'
    using driver `ESRI Shapefile' successful.
    1: wpg_h2o (Line String)
    2: wpg_roads (Line String)
    3: wpg_roads_dis (Line String)
    4: wpgrestaurants (Point)

Using ogrinfo on a single shapefile:

    > ogrinfo /data/shapefiles/Countries_area.shp
    Had to open data source read-only.
    INFO: Open of `Countries_area.shp'
    using driver `ESRI Shapefile' successful.
    1: Countries_area (Polygon)

Using ogrinfo to examine the structure of the file/layer:

    > ogrinfo -summary /data/shapefiles/Countries_area.shp Countries_area
    Had to open data source read-only.
    INFO: Open of `Countries_area.shp'
    using driver `ESRI Shapefile' successful.

    Layer name: Countries_area
    Geometry: Polygon
    Feature Count: 27458
    Extent: (-180.000000, -90.000000) - (180.000000, 83.627419)
    Layer SRS WKT:
    (unknown)
    FAC_ID: Integer (5.0)
    TILE: Integer (3.0)
    ARCLIST: String (254.0)
    NAM: String (77.0)
    PERIMETER: Real (22.17)
    POLYGONCOU: Integer (6.0)
    NA2DESC: String (45.0)

Map File Example:

    LAYER
            NAME my_shapefile
            TYPE POLYGON
            DATA countries_area
            STATUS OFF
            CLASS
            NAME "Countries"
            OUTLINECOLOR 0 0 0
            END
    END