# GeoJSON

Driver short name

GeoJSON

Driver built-in by default

This driver is built-in by default

This driver implements read/write support for access to features encoded in GeoJSON format. GeoJSON is a dialect based on the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). JSON is a lightweight plain text format for data interchange and GeoJSON is nothing other than its specialization for geographic content.

GeoJSON is supported as an output format of a number of services: GeoServer, CartoWeb, etc.

The OGR GeoJSON driver translates GeoJSON encoded data to objects of the OGR Simple Features model: Datasource, Layer, Feature, Geometry. The implementation is based on GeoJSON Specification, v1.0.

The GeoJSON driver supports updating existing GeoJSON files. In that case, the default value for the NATIVE_DATA open option will be YES.

## Driver capabilities

Supports Create()

This driver supports the `GDALDriver::Create()` operation

Supports Georeferencing

This driver supports georeferencing

Supports VirtualIO

This driver supports virtual I/O operations (/vsimem/, etc.)

## Datasource

The OGR GeoJSON driver accepts three types of sources of data:

- Uniform Resource Locator (URL) - a Web address to perform HTTP request

- Plain text file with GeoJSON data - identified from the file extension .geojson or .json

- Text passed directly and encoded in GeoJSON

The URL/filename/text might be prefixed with GeoJSON: to avoid any ambiguity with other drivers. Alternatively, starting with GDAL 3.10, specifying the `-if GeoJSON` option to command line utilities accepting it, or `GeoJSON` as the only value of the `papszAllowedDrivers` of `GDALOpenEx()`, also forces the driver to recognize the passed URL/filename/text.

## Layer

A GeoJSON datasource is translated to single OGRLayer object with pre-defined name OGRGeoJSON:

    ogrinfo -ro http://featureserver/data/.geojson OGRGeoJSON

It is also valid to assume that OGRDataSource::GetLayerCount() for GeoJSON datasource always returns 1.

The layer name is built with the following logic:

1. If a "name" member is found at the FeatureCollection level, it is used.

2. Otherwise if the filename is regular (ie not a URL with query parameters), then the filename without extension and path is used as the layer name.

3. Otherwise OGRGeoJSON is used.

Accessing Web Service as a datasource (i.e. FeatureServer), each request will produce a new layer. This behavior conforms to the stateless nature of HTTP transaction and is similar to how Web browsers operate: single request == single page.

If a top-level member of GeoJSON data is of any other type than FeatureCollection, the driver will produce a layer with only one feature. Otherwise, a layer will consist of a set of features.

If the `NATIVE_DATA` open option is set to YES, members at the level of the FeatureCollection will be stored as a serialized JSON object in the NATIVE_DATA item of the NATIVE_DATA metadata domain of the layer object (and "application/vnd.geo+json" in the NATIVE_MEDIA_TYPE of the NATIVE_DATA metadata domain).

## Feature

The OGR GeoJSON driver maps each object of following types to new OGRFeature object: Point, LineString, Polygon, GeometryCollection, Feature.

According to the GeoJSON Specification, only the Feature object must have a member with name properties. Each and every member of properties is translated to OGR object of type of OGRField and added to corresponding OGRFeature object.

The GeoJSON Specification does not require all Feature objects in a collection to have the same schema of properties. If Feature objects in a set defined by FeatureCollection object have different schema of properties, then resulting schema of fields in OGRFeatureDefn is generated as union of all Feature properties.

Schema detection will recognize fields of type String, Integer, Real, StringList, IntegerList and RealList, Integer(Boolean), Date, Time and DateTime.

It is possible to tell the driver not to process attributes by setting the configuration option `ATTRIBUTES_SKIP=YES`. The default behavior is to preserve all attributes (as a union, see previous paragraph), which is equal to setting `ATTRIBUTES_SKIP=NO`.

If the `NATIVE_DATA` open option is set to YES, the Feature JSON object will be stored as a serialized JSON object in the NativeData property of the OGRFeature object (and "application/vnd.geo+json" in the NativeMediaType property). On write, if the OGRFeature to be written has its NativeMediaType property set to "application/vnd.geo+json" and its NativeData property set to a string that is a serialized JSON object, then extra members of this object (i.e. not the "property" dictionary, nor the first 3 dimensions of geometry coordinates) will be used to enhance the created JSON object from the OGRFeature. See RFC 60 : Improved round-tripping in OGR for more details.

## Geometry

Similarly to the issue with mixed-properties features, the GeoJSON Specification draft does not require that all Feature objects in a collection have the same type of geometry. Fortunately, OGR objects model does allow to have geometries of different types in single layer - a heterogeneous layer. By default, the GeoJSON driver preserves type of geometries.

However, sometimes the need arises to have a homogeneous layer from a set of heterogeneous features. For this purpose, it is possible to tell the driver to wrap all geometries with OGRGeometryCollection type as a common denominator. This behavior may be controlled by setting the `GEOMETRY_AS_COLLECTION` configuration option to YES.

## Configuration options

Configuration options can be specified in command-line tools using the syntax `--config <NAME>=<VALUE>` or using functions such as `CPLSetConfigOption()` (C) or `gdal.config_options` (Python). The following configuration options are available:

- GEOMETRY_AS_COLLECTION=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to `NO`. used to control translation of geometries: YES: wrap geometries with OGRGeometryCollection type

- ATTRIBUTES_SKIP=[YES​/​NO]: Controls translation of attributes. If `YES`, skip all attributes.

- OGR_GEOJSON_ARRAY_AS_STRING=value: Equivalent of `ARRAY_AS_STRING` open option.

- OGR_GEOJSON_DATE_AS_STRING=value: Equivalent of `DATE_AS_STRING` open option.

- OGR_GEOJSON_MAX_OBJ_SIZE=<MBytes>: (GDAL >= 3.0.2) Defaults to `200`. size in MBytes of the maximum accepted single feature, or 0 to allow for a unlimited size (GDAL >= 3.5.2).

## Open options

Open options can be specified in command-line tools using the syntax `-oo <NAME>=<VALUE>` or by providing the appropriate arguments to `GDALOpenEx()` (C) or `gdal.OpenEx` (Python). This driver supports the following open options:

- FLATTEN_NESTED_ATTRIBUTES=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to `NO`. Whether to recursively explore nested objects and produce flatten OGR attributes.

- NESTED_ATTRIBUTE_SEPARATOR=<character>: Defaults to `_`. Separator between components of nested attributes.

- FEATURE_SERVER_PAGING=[YES​/​NO]: Whether to automatically scroll through results with a ArcGIS Feature Service endpoint.

- NATIVE_DATA=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to `NO`. Whether to store the native JSON representation at FeatureCollection and Feature level. This option can be used to improve round-tripping from GeoJSON to GeoJSON by preserving some extra JSON objects that would otherwise be ignored by the OGR abstraction. Note that ogr2ogr by default enable this option, unless you specify its -noNativeData switch.

- ARRAY_AS_STRING=[YES​/​NO]: Whether to expose JSON arrays of strings, integers or reals as a OGR String. Default is NO. Can also be set with the `OGR_GEOJSON_ARRAY_AS_STRING` configuration option.

- DATE_AS_STRING=[YES​/​NO]: (GDAL >= 3.0.3) Defaults to `NO`. Whether to expose date/time/date-time content using dedicated OGR date/time/date-time types or as a OGR String. Default is NO (that is date/time/date-time are detected as such). Can also be set with the `OGR_GEOJSON_DATE_AS_STRING` configuration option.

- FOREIGN_MEMBERS=[AUTO​/​ALL​/​NONE​/​STAC]: (GDAL >= 3.11.0) Defaults to `AUTO`. Whether and how foreign members at the feature level should be processed as OGR fields:

  - `AUTO` mode behaves like `STAC` mode if a `stac_version` member is found at the Feature level, otherwise it behaves as `NONE` mode.

  - In `ALL` mode, all foreign members at the feature level are added. Whether to recursively explore nested objects and produce flatten OGR attributes or not is decided by the `FLATTEN_NESTED_ATTRIBUTES` open option.

  - In `NONE` mode, no foreign members at the feature level are added.

  - `STAC` mode (Spatio-Temporal Asset Catalog) behaves the same as `ALL`, except content under the `assets` member is by default flattened as `assets.{asset_name}.{asset_property}` fields.

- OGR_SCHEMA=<filename>|<json string>: (GDAL >= 3.11.0) Partially or totally overrides the auto-detected schema to use for creating the layer. The overrides are defined as a JSON list of field definitions. This can be a filename, a URL or JSON string conformant with the ogr_fields_override.schema.json schema

To explain `FLATTEN_NESTED_ATTRIBUTES`, consider the following GeoJSON fragment:

    {
      "type": "FeatureCollection",
      "features":
      [
        {
          "type": "Feature",
          "geometry": {
            "type": "Point",
            "coordinates": [ 2, 49 ]
          },
          "properties": {
            "a_property": "foo",
            "some_object": {
              "a_property": 1,
              "another_property": 2
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }

"ogrinfo test.json -al -oo FLATTEN_NESTED_ATTRIBUTES=yes" reports:

    OGRFeature(OGRGeoJSON):0
      a_property (String) = foo
      some_object_a_property (Integer) = 1
      some_object_another_property (Integer) = 2
      POINT (2 49)

## Layer creation options

Layer creation options can be specified in command-line tools using the syntax `-lco <NAME>=<VALUE>` or by providing the appropriate arguments to `GDALDatasetCreateLayer()` (C) or `Dataset.CreateLayer` (Python). This driver supports the following layer creation options:

- WRITE_BBOX=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to `NO`. Set to YES to write a bbox property with the bounding box of the geometries at the feature and feature collection level.

- COORDINATE_PRECISION=<integer>: Maximum number of figures after decimal separator to write in coordinates. Default to 15 for GeoJSON 2008, and 7 for RFC 7946. "Smart" truncation will occur to remove trailing zeros.

- SIGNIFICANT_FIGURES=<integer>: Defaults to `17`. Maximum number of significant figures when writing floating-point numbers. If explicitly specified, and `COORDINATE_PRECISION` is not, this will also apply to coordinates.

- NATIVE_DATA=value: Serialized JSON object that contains extra properties to store at FeatureCollection level.

- NATIVE_MEDIA_TYPE=value: Format of `NATIVE_DATA`. Must be "application/vnd.geo+json", otherwise `NATIVE_DATA` will be ignored.

- RFC7946=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to `NO`. Whether to use RFC 7946 standard. Otherwise GeoJSON 2008 initial version will be used. Default is NO (thus GeoJSON 2008)

- WRAPDATELINE=[YES​/​NO]: (GDAL >= 3.5.2) Defaults to `YES`. Whether to apply heuristics to split geometries that cross dateline. Only used when coordinate transformation occurs or when `RFC7946=YES`. Default is YES (and also the behavior for OGR < 3.5.2).

- WRITE_NAME=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to `YES`. Whether to write a "name" property at feature collection level with layer name.

- DESCRIPTION=value: (Long) description to write in a "description" property at feature collection level. On reading, this will be reported in the DESCRIPTION metadata item of the layer.

- ID_FIELD=value: Name of the source field that must be written as the 'id' member of Feature objects.

- ID_TYPE=[AUTO​/​String​/​Integer]: Type of the 'id' member of Feature objects.

- ID_GENERATE=[YES​/​NO]: (GDAL >= 3.1) Auto-generate feature ids

- WRITE_NON_FINITE_VALUES=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to `NO`. Whether to write NaN / Infinity values. Such values are not allowed in strict JSON mode, but some JSON parsers (libjson-c >= 0.12 for example) can understand them as they are allowed by ECMAScript.

- AUTODETECT_JSON_STRINGS=[YES​/​NO]: (GDAL >= 3.8) Defaults to `YES`. Whether to try to interpret string fields as JSON arrays or objects if they start and end with brackets and braces, even if they do not have their subtype set to JSON.

- FOREIGN_MEMBERS_FEATURE=value: (GDAL >= 3.9) JSON serialized object whose content must be merged into each Feature object. The string should start with { and end with }. Those characters will be striped off in the output stream. It is the responsibility of the user to ensure that the added foreign members are different from the other members of the Feature, such as "type", "id", "properties", "geometry".

- FOREIGN_MEMBERS_COLLECTION=value: (GDAL >= 3.9) JSON serialized object whose content must be merged into the FeatureCollection object. The string should start with { and end with }. Those characters will be striped off in the output stream. It is the responsibility of the user to ensure that the added foreign members are different from the other members of the FeatureCollection, such as "type", "name", "crs", "features".

## VSI Virtual File System API support

The driver supports reading and writing to files managed by VSI Virtual File System API, which includes "regular" files, as well as files in the /vsizip/ (read-write), /vsigzip/ (read-write), /vsicurl/ (read-only) domains.

Writing to /dev/stdout or /vsistdout/ is also supported.

## Round-tripping of extra JSON members

See RFC 60 : Improved round-tripping in OGR for more details.

Extra JSON members at the FeatureCollection, Feature or geometry levels that are not normally reflected in the OGR abstraction, such as the ones called "extra_XXXXX_member" in the below snippet, are by default preserved when executing ogr2ogr with GeoJSON both at the source and destination. This also applies to extra values in position tuples of geometries, beyond the 3rd dimension (100, 101 in the below example), if the transformation preserves the geometry structure (for example, reprojection is allowed, but not change in the number of coordinates).

    {
      "type": "FeatureCollection",
      "extra_fc_member": "foo",
      "features":
      [
        {
          "type": "Feature",
          "extra_feat_member": "bar",
          "geometry": {
            "type": "Point",
            "extra_geom_member": "baz",
            "coordinates": [ 2, 49, 3, 100, 101 ]
          },
          "properties": {
            "a_property": "foo",
          }
        }
      ]
    }

This behavior can be turned off by specifying the -noNativeData switch of the ogr2ogr utility.

## RFC 7946 write support

By default, the driver will write GeoJSON files following GeoJSON 2008 specification. When specifying the `RFC7946=YES` creation option, the RFC 7946 standard will be used instead.

The differences between the 2 versions are mentioned in Appendix B of RFC 7946 and recalled here for what matters to the driver:

- Coordinates must be geographic over the WGS 84 ellipsoid, hence if the spatial reference system specified at layer creation time is not EPSG:4326, on-the-fly reprojection will be done by the driver.

- Polygons will be written such as to follow the right-hand rule for orientation (counterclockwise external rings, clockwise internal rings).

- The values of a "bbox" array are "[west, south, east, north]", not "[minx, miny, maxx, maxy]"

- Some extension member names (see previous section about round/tripping) are forbidden in the FeatureCollection, Feature and Geometry objects.

- The default coordinate precision is 7 decimal digits after decimal separator.

## Geometry coordinate precision

Added in version GDAL: 3.9

The GeoJSON driver supports reading and writing the geometry coordinate precision, using the `OGRGeomCoordinatePrecision` settings of the `OGRGeomFieldDefn` Those settings are used to round the coordinates of the geometry of the features to an appropriate decimal precision.

Note

The `COORDINATE_PRECISION` layer creation option has precedence over the values set on the `OGRGeomFieldDefn`.

Implementation details: the coordinate precision is stored as `xy_coordinate_resolution` and `z_coordinate_resolution` members at the FeatureCollection level. Their numeric value is expressed in the units of the SRS.

Example:

    {
        "type": "FeatureCollection",
        "xy_coordinate_resolution": 8.9e-6,
        "z_coordinate_resolution": 1e-1,
        "features": []
    }

## Examples

How to dump content of .geojson file:

    ogrinfo -ro point.geojson

How to query features from remote service with filtering by attribute:

    ogrinfo -ro http://featureserver/cities/.geojson OGRGeoJSON -where "name=Warsaw"

How to translate number of features queried from FeatureServer to ESRI Shapefile:

    ogr2ogr -f "ESRI Shapefile" cities.shp http://featureserver/cities/.geojson OGRGeoJSON

How to translate a ESRI Shapefile into a RFC 7946 GeoJSON file:

    ogr2ogr -f GeoJSON cities.json cities.shp -lco RFC7946=YES

## See Also

- GeoJSON - encoding geographic content in JSON

- RFC 7946 standard.

- GeoJSON 2008 specification (obsoleted by RFC 7946).

- JSON - JavaScript Object Notation

- GeoJSON sequence driver

- OGC Features and Geometries JSON (JSON-FG) driver

- ESRI JSON / FeatureService driver

- TopoJSON driver