Shapefile representation
Shapefile representation is a widely used industry standard defined by ESRI. Shapefiles are often used for importing data from and exporting data to file systems.
The term shapefile refers to what is actually a collection of
files with the same file name but different file extensions. A shapefile collection can include up
to four files:
- A file with the extension .shp that contains spatial data in shape format, a standard format developed by ESRI. Such data is often called shape data.
- A file with the extension .dbf that contains business data that pertains to locations defined by shape data.
- A file with the extension .shx that contains an index to shape data.
- A file with the extension .prj that contains a specification of the coordinate system on which the data in a .shp file is based.
For more information about shapefiles, see the ESRI Shapefile Technical Description.