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I have a shapefile that shows up in QGIS and ArcGIS correctly.

But when I inspect the attributes of the layer it does not have latitude or longitude.

I need to extract the coordinate system so I'm looking for the lat/longs using QGIS.

Gabriel Fair
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  • May be related to this question "Identifying Coordinate System of Shapefile when Unknown?": https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/7839/identifying-coordinate-system-of-shapefile-when-unknown – cmrRose Dec 08 '17 at 22:14
  • Beware of posting illegible images in your question. Usually this is an issue with alternate devices (phone, etc), but the attribute printout isn't even legible on an HD monitor. – Vince Dec 08 '17 at 22:52
  • Just convert shapefile to geojson. You can see vertices of your polygon as coordinates – GeospatialInformationTech Dec 09 '17 at 00:52
  • The data may not be in degrees lat/long, not all coordinate systems use degrees as a unit of measure. – nmtoken Dec 10 '17 at 16:13

2 Answers2

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That's what shapefiles do: keep the coordinates in a binary where you cannot see them. In qgis go to the field calculator, ad a field "x": double, length 12 with 8 precision, and then write "$x" in the calculator, the same for "y"; if you want the nodes of a polygon or a line, first extract them (there's an option in the toolbox), then do the field calculator procedure.

Elio Diaz
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  • Or, more simple, go for Vector->Geometry tools->add geometry column – Erik Dec 09 '17 at 12:17
  • he said he was looking for latitude and longitude, not for area and perimeter – Elio Diaz Dec 11 '17 at 15:54
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    If the x and y values aren't in lat/long format, right click on the layer and save a copy in WGS 84 coordinate system. Then re-calculate the x and y columns. – csk Dec 15 '17 at 18:29
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You can find the coordinate system in the 'general' tab of the layer properties dialog box (right click on the layer to bring up the properties option). You can also find coordinate system info in the .prj file of the shapefile (if you are indeed using a shapefile).

pdavis
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