What are shapefiles and how can I use them?
Shapefiles are a way to store map features, characteristics, and associated attributes, the default format for ESRI’s ArcView program. The information is actually stored in a collection of four or more files, all with the same first part to the name but with different filename extensions. Because all the files are needed as a group, they are often offered together in a compressed archive format that ends with a “zip” filename extension. This requires Winzip or some similar decompression program to “unzip” the archive into its original separate files. They should all be placed in the same folder. Note that the file that ends in the extension “dbf” contains attribute information for the objects in the shapefile. This is an ordinary dBase file and can be read by most spreadsheet or database programs.
