Passage Data

Check a file →

View a shapefile online, without installing anything

Shapefile · GeoPackage

The short answer

You do not need a GIS to look at a shapefile. Drop the zipped bundle into the viewer and it draws the geometry, lists the columns at full length, and states the coordinate system the file itself declares.

It also tells you what the file does not say — which is usually the part that matters. A shapefile that names no datum, or names one that is not WGS 84, looks completely normal and puts your data metres from where you think it is. We say so instead of quietly assuming.

The rest of the answer — 2 more points

A shapefile is several files, not one. The .shp holds geometry, the .dbf holds the table, the .prj holds the coordinate system. Zip the whole folder and send the zip — a lone .shp carries no attributes and no CRS, and no tool can invent them.

GeoPackage (.gpkg) works the same way and is a single file, which is why most advice now tells shapefile sufferers to switch to it.

What you will see

1. The shapes. A picture drawn from the file's own geometry — not a map, and it says so: no projection, no scale, no basemap unless you ask for one.
2. The columns, at full length where the format allows it. A shapefile caps field names at 10 characters, so bescherming arrives as beschermin. We name the ones that were cut; a GeoPackage has no cap.
3. The coordinate system it declares, read out of the .prj (or, for a GeoPackage, out of the file's own SRS table).
4. What we cannot tell you — the datum it never named, the character set nothing declared, the original spelling of a truncated column.
5. Imagery, only if you ask. It is off by default and per file, because map tiles are fetched by your browser from a third party, which tells them roughly where your data is. Your file is never sent to them.

Related

• Someone sent me a shapefile
• Shapefile to KML
• Shapefile column names cut to 10
• Open a .dbf without ArcGIS