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I have four files from a download of a bathymetry map and sea depth lines. I want to upload the four files to QGIS because I understand that each file has different information, but I can only load the .shp file as a vector.

I can't upload the .dbf, .prj, and .shx files, neither as vector nor raster. I would like to know how to upload them since, at the moment, I can only see a map with the coastline when I load the .shp file.

Vince
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PereSabio
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    All four files are part of the shapefile and necessary for it to "work properly". The .dbf contains the attribute table, the .prj the projection, and the .shx something else I'm not sure about right now. – Erik May 09 '23 at 14:40
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    It sounds like all you have downloaded is a single shapefile of a coastline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile Go back to your source and look for a bathymetry dataset and some sea depth lines. – GBG May 09 '23 at 14:46

1 Answers1

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All those 4 files (.shp, .dbf, .prj, and .shx) are part of one file named shapefile. The files .dbf, .prj, and .shx contain data about your shapefile.

  • .dbf contains the attributes
  • .prj contains the projection
  • .shx corresponds to the index

If you delete those files your .shp won't work anymore. So in this case you do not have different data files. You just have one shapefile (.shp) with his collection of complementary files (.dbf, .prj, and .shx)

GisUser
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  • The .shx is a direct access index into the variable-length .shp file. The shapefile is all four files. – Vince May 09 '23 at 15:01