Geospatial file formats

As mentioned at the start of this chapter, geospatial data is data with a geographic component. This geographic component is often a latitude and longitude coordinate that is collected via a global positioning system (GPS). A geographic component can also be derived from an address using a process called geocoding. However, there are also many other geographic components that can relate tabular, or attribute, data to standard administrative geographies. We’ll talk more about administrative boundaries at length later in our discussion on vector data. It is also worth noting that geospatial data is a subset of spatial data or data that is related to a point in some broader study space.

Vector data

Vector data is not unique to the field of geographic information systems (GIS) or geospatial data science and has applications in many digital mediums. When talking about vector data in GIS or geospatial data science, we are talking about data that represents...