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Convert Shapefile to GeoJSON Online — Free GIS Converter

Convert Shapefile (.zip) to GeoJSON instantly in your browser — automatic CRS detection, optional reprojection to WGS 84, no software install required.

Updated May 2026

Shapefiles are the backbone of legacy GIS data distribution, but modern web mapping libraries, open-data platforms, and GitHub's map preview all require GeoJSON — convert your Shapefile .zip bundle to .geojson instantly with geodata.plus.

Why convert Shapefile to GeoJSON?

GeoJSON is the de facto standard for vector data on the modern web. Leaflet, Mapbox GL JS, OpenLayers, and Deck.gl all consume GeoJSON natively, with no parsing plugins or server-side pre-processing required. GitHub renders GeoJSON files as interactive maps automatically. If you have downloaded Shapefile data from a government portal or received it from a colleague and need to put it on a web map, Shapefile-to-GeoJSON is the most common GIS conversion in the world.

This conversion is also essential for feeding vector data into Python geospatial libraries like GeoPandas, Shapely, or the Overture Maps tools, which often prefer JSON over binary formats for data interchange in analysis pipelines.

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 .prj file from your Shapefile ZIP and reprojects to WGS 84 (EPSG:4326) automatically, since GeoJSON requires WGS 84 per RFC 7946
  • Optional reprojection — if you need to keep a different CRS in the GeoJSON (non-standard but sometimes useful), you can specify it
  • 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 Shapefile as a .zip archive containing at minimum the .shp, .shx, and .dbf files (.prj strongly recommended)
  2. geodata.plus detects the format, reads the CRS from the .prj file, and prepares reprojection to WGS 84
  3. Select GeoJSON as the output format
  4. Download your .geojson file, ready for Leaflet, Mapbox, GitHub, or any GeoJSON consumer

Shapefile format

The Shapefile format was developed by Esri and released in the early 1990s. It remains the most widely distributed vector GIS format, used by virtually every government data portal, federal agency, and enterprise GIS system. A Shapefile consists of multiple files that must travel together: the .shp contains geometry, .shx is a positional index, .dbf is the attribute table, and .prj defines the coordinate reference system. Field names are limited to 10 characters, and file sizes are capped at 2 GB per component.

| 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 |

GeoJSON format

GeoJSON is an RFC 7946 open standard encoding vector features as JSON. It is a single self-contained text file with no external dependencies. The spec mandates WGS 84 as the only valid coordinate reference system, and coordinates are always ordered longitude before latitude. GeoJSON's property values support nested objects and arrays, making it more expressive than the DBF flat-table structure of Shapefiles.

| 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 |

Frequently asked questions

My Shapefile has no .prj file — can I still convert it?

Yes, but without a .prj file geodata.plus cannot automatically determine the CRS. You will be prompted to enter the EPSG code of the source CRS manually. If you do not know the CRS, common defaults for US data include EPSG:4269 (NAD83 geographic) and EPSG:4326 (WGS 84). For European data, EPSG:4258 (ETRS89) is common. Choosing the wrong CRS will result in geometries appearing in the wrong location.

Will Shapefile's 10-character field name limit cause data loss in GeoJSON?

No. When converting from Shapefile to GeoJSON, field names are preserved as-is from the DBF column headers. Because GeoJSON property names are free-form JSON strings with no character limit, no truncation occurs in this direction. You may see shortened names if the original Shapefile was itself created from a source with longer field names, but that truncation happened before your file reached geodata.plus.

Does the GeoJSON output include all rows from the Shapefile attribute table?

Yes. Every feature in the Shapefile is output as a GeoJSON Feature object with a properties object containing all DBF column values. Null values in the DBF are represented as JSON null. Numeric DBF types (N, F) become JSON numbers; character types (C) become JSON strings; logical types (L) become JSON booleans or null.

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