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Convert GeoJSON to Shapefile Online — Free GIS Converter

Convert GeoJSON files to Shapefile format instantly in your browser — no software install required, automatic CRS detection, and optional reprojection.

Updated May 2026

GeoJSON is the lingua franca of web mapping, but many desktop GIS tools, government data portals, and enterprise workflows still require Shapefile format — convert your .geojson file to a ready-to-use .zip Shapefile bundle with geodata.plus.

Why convert GeoJSON to Shapefile?

Shapefile remains the most widely accepted vector format in legacy GIS workflows. If you need to share data with colleagues using older ArcGIS versions, submit geometries to a government portal, or import features into Tableau or AutoCAD Civil 3D, Shapefile is typically the only accepted input. GeoJSON's free-form JSON structure is excellent for web APIs, but Shapefile's rigid tabular schema is what desktop tools and enterprise systems were built around.

It is also common to receive GeoJSON data from a web API or open-data platform and need to load it into ArcMap, where native GeoJSON support is limited. Converting to Shapefile gives you immediate compatibility without requiring any plugins or intermediate steps.

Why use geodata.plus

  • Free tier — convert up to 3 files per month at no cost, no credit card required
  • Automatic CRS detection — reads the CRS embedded in your GeoJSON (always WGS 84 per RFC 7946) and sets the .prj file correctly
  • Optional reprojection — reproject to any EPSG code before download (e.g., from EPSG:4326 to a local projected CRS like EPSG:27700)
  • Browser-based — no QGIS, GDAL, or ArcGIS install needed; works on any modern browser
  • Encrypted transfer — all uploads use TLS; files are stored temporarily in Cloudflare R2 and automatically deleted on schedule
  • Auto-deleted output — output files are automatically deleted after 2 days (free tier) and 7 days (Pro); no manual cleanup needed

How it works

  1. Upload your GeoJSON file (.geojson or .json) using the widget above
  2. geodata.plus detects the format and confirms the coordinate reference system (WGS 84 / EPSG:4326)
  3. Select Shapefile as the output format; optionally choose a target EPSG for reprojection
  4. Download your converted .zip file containing the .shp, .shx, .dbf, and .prj components

GeoJSON format

GeoJSON is an open standard (RFC 7946) for encoding geographic data structures using JSON. It supports points, lines, polygons, and their multi-part equivalents, along with arbitrary key-value properties on each feature. Because it is plain text, GeoJSON is trivially diff-able in version control and renderable natively by GitHub, Mapbox, and Leaflet without any parsing library.

| Property | Value | |---|---| | Extension | .geojson, .json | | Type | Vector, single file | | Coordinate system | Always WGS 84 (EPSG:4326) | | Geometry types | Point, LineString, Polygon, MultiPoint, MultiLineString, MultiPolygon | | Common software | Leaflet, Mapbox, OpenLayers, QGIS, ArcGIS, GitHub |

Shapefile format

The Shapefile format was developed by Esri in the early 1990s and became the de facto standard for vector GIS data exchange. Despite its age, it remains ubiquitous because virtually every GIS application can read and write it. A Shapefile is actually a bundle of at least three files: the .shp geometry file, the .shx spatial index, and the .dbf attribute table. The .prj file stores the coordinate reference system definition.

| Property | Value | |---|---| | Extension | .shp + .shx + .dbf + .prj (delivered as .zip) | | Type | Vector, multi-file bundle | | Coordinate system | Any CRS (stored in .prj) | | Geometry types | Point, Polyline, Polygon, MultiPoint (one type per file) | | Common software | ArcGIS, QGIS, Tableau, AutoCAD Civil 3D, government portals |

Frequently asked questions

Will my GeoJSON property names be truncated when converting to Shapefile?

Yes. The DBF format used by Shapefiles limits field names to 10 characters. geodata.plus truncates names that exceed this limit and appends a numeric suffix if truncation creates a collision (e.g., population_density becomes populati_1). You will see a warning in the conversion summary if any names were shortened.

Can a Shapefile store mixed geometry types from a GeoJSON FeatureCollection?

No. A single Shapefile can only store one geometry type. If your GeoJSON contains a mix of points and polygons, geodata.plus will split the output into separate Shapefiles per geometry type and include them all in the output ZIP archive.

Does the converted Shapefile preserve all my GeoJSON properties?

All properties are preserved as DBF columns, but the DBF format does not support nested JSON objects or arrays as field values. Nested properties are serialized to a string representation. Numeric fields are mapped to DBF numeric types; string fields use character type with a width inferred from the longest value in the dataset.

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