From the course: Real-World GIS (2014)

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Understanding shapefile data

Understanding shapefile data - ArcGIS Tutorial

From the course: Real-World GIS (2014)

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Understanding shapefile data

The second data model offered by Esri is the shapefile. And it was introduced in ArcView in the early 1990s. Just like the coverage file, the shape file is a geo-relational format meaning that there are several layers that are associated together to visualize the geo-graphic feature. Take, for example, the cartographic boundary file we downloaded earlier from the census bureau. Let's take a look at that in ArcMap together. I'm going to load a new map document to start fresh. The file we downloaded earlier is in my downloads file. I'm going to add it now. Here are the census tracts for the state of Michigan. Notice that if we look at the properties for this layer and the source tab, we can see the data type is a shape file. Now, when looking at this file in the Windows format, for the folders, we'll see many different files associated with it, which show us the geo-relational model. Let's do that now. Here within the Windows environment, we can see that same shape file. Notice over…

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