GIS Format Guides and Tutorials
In-depth guides on Shapefile, GeoJSON, KML, GeoPackage, GDAL, and more — written for GIS practitioners, developers, and anyone working with geospatial data.
5 best MyGeodata Cloud alternatives (free, no monthly limit)
MyGeodata Cloud limits free users to 3 conversions a month. These five free tools — including Maparz — have no monthly cap and require no signup.
What is a Shapefile? The complete guide to SHP files
A Shapefile is not one file — it is at least three. This guide covers the anatomy, geometry types, the 10-character field name limit, and when to convert.
GIS file formats explained: Shapefile, GeoJSON, KML, GeoPackage and more
A practical guide to eight common vector GIS formats — what each is for, its key limitations, and a format decision guide.
Shapefile vs GeoJSON: Which format should you use?
A no-nonsense comparison of the two most common vector formats — file structure, field name limit, size trade-offs, and when to use each.
What is GeoPackage? The modern replacement for Shapefile
GeoPackage is an OGC-standard SQLite file that stores multiple layers, has no field name limit, and comes in a single portable file.
ogr2ogr: The definitive beginner's guide
ogr2ogr converts between 80+ geospatial formats from the command line. Installation, syntax, common conversions, reprojection, and errors everyone hits.
Working with KML and KMZ in Google Earth
KML and KMZ are the native formats for Google Earth and Google My Maps. This guide explains the difference and when to switch to GeoJSON.
More articles coming soon
We publish new GIS tutorials and format guides regularly. Have a topic? Suggest it here.
About this blog
The Maparz blog publishes practical, technical guides on geospatial file formats — written for GIS analysts, developers, surveyors, and data scientists who work with spatial data day to day. Each article is focused on answering real questions: what a format is, what its limitations are, when to use it, and how to convert it to something else when needed.
The guides cover both the theory and the practical commands — from understanding why a Shapefile is actually three files, to using ogr2ogr from the command line to batch-reproject thousands of features in a single pass. Where relevant, each article links to the corresponding free converter on Maparz so you can apply the knowledge without needing to install GDAL locally.
Why geospatial formats matter
Geospatial data is published in dozens of formats, and interoperability is one of the most common pain points in GIS workflows. A dataset downloaded from a government portal is often a Shapefile; a web map expects GeoJSON; a client needs a KMZ for Google Earth; a CAD engineer needs DXF. Every handoff between tools, teams, or platforms is a potential friction point — and the format decision affects file size, CRS handling, attribute field names, and downstream compatibility.
Understanding the strengths and constraints of each format — the Shapefile's 10-character field name limit, GeoJSON's RFC 7946 WGS 84 requirement, GeoPackage's multi-layer SQLite architecture, or FlatGeobuf's HTTP range-request support for cloud streaming — helps you make the right choice before a project starts rather than discovering a hard limit after you have already built a pipeline around the wrong format.
What you will find here
Articles on this blog fall into three categories: format deep-dives that cover a single format in depth (anatomy, geometry types, size limits, software support); format comparisons that help you decide between two similar options (such as Shapefile versus GeoJSON, or GeoJSON versus GeoPackage); and tool guides that walk through command-line or GUI workflows for common conversion tasks. New articles are added regularly as the Maparz format support expands.