# Import geospatial data

Geospatial data on Redivis behaves quite similarly to [tabular data](https://docs.redivis.com/reference/datasets/create-and-edit-datasets/import-tabular-data): each feature is ingested as a single row within a table, alongside any metadata for this feature. This approach mirrors tools like PostGIS, R spatial features, and geopandas, allowing you to query and join your geospatial data, at scale.

[Learn more about geospatial tables on Redivis.](https://docs.redivis.com/tables/overview#geospatial)

## Supported file types

Redivis supports importing geospatial data from several common GIS formats: GeoJSON(Lines), Shapefile, GeoPackage, Geodatabase, Parquet, and KML. Parquet files with geospatial metadata (often referred to as GeoParquet) are the most performant and robust option, though as a newer standard, these files are less common. For other geospatial file types, Redivis first converts the file to a newline-delimited GeoJSON representation (using the relevant [ogr2ogr driver](https://gdal.org/programs/ogr2ogr.html#ogr2ogr)), and then imports the GeoJSON into a Redivis table.

Each feature will be imported as one row, with the `geometry` column containing the WKT representation for that feature. Additional feature properties will be mapped to variables in your table, with any nested properties flattened using the `.` separator. Multi-layer file types, such as Shapefiles and GeoPackages, will also include a `layer` column to map each feature to its corresponding layer.\
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Note that Redivis only supports 2-dimensional, unprojected ([WGS84](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Geodetic_System)) geometries. If your file contains projection information, the coordinates will automatically be reprojected to WGS84. If there is no projection information in the file, and your data is stored in a different coordinate system, the import may fail. Additionally, any extra dimensions will be stripped during ingest.

<table><thead><tr><th width="130.91059373223425">Type</th><th width="186.21840426514808">Description</th><th>Notes</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>.geojson</td><td>GeoJSON</td><td>Assumes an object with a <code>"Features"</code> property, containing an array of valid geojson features. <br><br>Each feature will be imported as one row, with additional properties mapped to columns in the table. Nested properties will be flattened using the <code>.</code> separator.<br><br>Note that Redivis only supports 2-dimensional, unprojected (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Geodetic_System">WGS84</a>) geometries. Other projections might cause the import to fail, and any extra dimensions will be stripped during ingest.</td></tr><tr><td>.geojsonl .ndgeojson .geojsons</td><td><a href="https://stevage.github.io/ndgeojson/">Newline-delimited GeoJSON</a></td><td>Same as the .geojson specification outlined above, except each feature is given its own line.<br><br>Importing .geojsonl (as opposed to .geojson) will be significantly faster.</td></tr><tr><td>.gdb.zip</td><td>Geodatabase (ESRI)</td><td>Zipped ESRI Geodatabase directory. The source geometries will be reprojected into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Geodetic_System">WGS84</a>.<br><br>Multiple layers will automatically be appended together, and a <code>layer</code> variable in the Redivis table will map a given feature to the layer it came from.</td></tr><tr><td>.gpkg</td><td>GeoPackage</td><td>The source geometries will be reprojected into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Geodetic_System">WGS84</a>. <br><br>Multiple layers will automatically be appended together, and a <code>layer</code> variable in the Redivis table will map a given feature to the layer it came from.</td></tr><tr><td>.kml</td><td>Keyhole Markup Language</td><td>Will be internally converted to .geojson, and then imported as specified above.</td></tr><tr><td>.shp.zip<br>.shz</td><td>Zipped ESRI shapefile directory</td><td><p>Many shapefiles will be collocated with additional files containing metadata and projection information. These files are often essential to parsing the shapefile correctly, and should be uploaded together.<br><br>To do so, create a ZIP directory of the folder containing your  shapefile and supplemental files, with the ending <code>.shp.zip</code> (sometimes the ending <code>.shz</code> is also used).</p><p></p><p>If projection information is available, the source geometries will be reprojected into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Geodetic_System">WGS84</a>. If no projection information is available, your data must be projected as WGS84, or the import will fail.<br></p><p>Multiple layers will automatically be appended together, and a <code>layer</code> variable in the Redivis table will map a given feature to the layer it came from.</p></td></tr><tr><td>.shp</td><td>Shapefile</td><td><p>If you have additional files associated with your shapefile (e.g., .shx, .proj, .dbf), create a ZIP of this folder and import according to the <code>.shp.zip</code> specification above. These files contain important metadata, and your import may fail without them.</p><p></p><p>If you are uploading a lone shapefile, it must use the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Geodetic_System">WGS84</a> (aka EPSG:4326) projection. </p></td></tr><tr><td>.parquet</td><td>GeoParquet</td><td>The <a href="https://geoparquet.org/">GeoParquet specification</a> is a modern standard for working with column-oriented geospatial data. If available, this format is the most robust and performant way to ingest geospatial features into Redivis.</td></tr></tbody></table>

### Geography data in text-delimited files

In addition to uploading geospatial data using one of the formats listed above, you can also import geographic data encoded within a text-delimited file (e.g., a `csv`). In this case, the geographic data should be encoded as strings using the [Well-Known Text (WKT) representation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-known_text_representation_of_geometry). This is also the same format used when exporting geography variables as a CSV. WKT in CSVs will be auto-detected during data ingest.

## Quotas & limits

Limits for upload file size, max variables, and other parameters are [specified here](https://docs.redivis.com/reference/quotas-and-limits).