Welcome to the Python GDAL/OGR Cookbook!

This cookbook has simple code snippets on how to use the Python GDAL/OGR API. The web site is a project at GitHub and served by Github Pages. If you find missing recipes or mistakes in existing recipes please add an issue to the issue tracker.

For a detailed description of the whole Python GDAL/OGR API, see the useful API docs.

We heavily relied on Chris Garrard’s excellent Geoprocessing with Python using Open Source GIS and the official GDAL/OGR Python documentation. Another great source of examples is OGR’s autotest directory.

• GDAL/OGR General
  • Is GDAL/OGR Installed
  • Check Version of GDAL/OGR installed
  • Enable python exceptions
  • Install GDAL/OGR error handler
• Geometry
  • Create a Point
  • Create a LineString
  • Create a Polygon
  • Create a Polygon with holes
  • Create a MultiPoint
  • Create a MultiLineString
  • Create a MultiPolygon
  • Create a GeometryCollection
  • Create Geometry from WKT
  • Create Geometry from GeoJSON
  • Create Geometry from GML
  • Create Geometry from WKB
  • Count Points in a Geometry
  • Count Geometries in a Geometry
  • Iterate over Geometries in a Geometry
  • Iterate over Points in a Geometry
  • Buffer a Geometry
  • Calculate Envelope of a Geometry
  • Calculate the Area of a Geometry
  • Calculate the Length of a Geometry
  • Get the geometry type (as a string) from a Geometry
  • Calculate intersection between two Geometries
  • Calculate union between two Geometries
  • Write Geometry to GeoJSON
  • Write Geometry to WKT
  • Write Geometry to KML
  • Write Geometry to WKB
  • Force polygon to multipolygon
  • Quarter polygon and create centroids
• Vector Layers
  • Delete a file
  • Is Ogr Installed
  • View Auto Generated Ogr Help
  • Get List of Ogr Drivers Alphabetically (A- Z)
  • Is Ogr Driver Available by Driver Name
  • Force Ogr Use Named Driver
  • Get Shapefile Feature Count
  • Get All PostGIS layers in a PostgreSQL Database
  • Get PostGIS Layer Feature Count By Layer Name
  • Get all layers in an Esri File GeoDataBase
  • Load data to memory
  • Iterate over Features
  • Get Geometry from each Feature in a Layer
  • Filter by attribute
  • Spatial Filter
  • Get Shapefile Fields - Get the user defined fields
  • Get Shapefile Fields and Types - Get the user defined fields
  • Get PostGIS Layer Fields - Get the user defined fields
  • Get PostGIS Layer Fields and Types - Get the user defined fields
  • Get a Layer’s Capabilities
  • Get WFS layers and iterate over features
  • Set HTTP Proxy options before fetching a web datasource
  • Read a CSV of Coordinates as an OGRVRTLayer
  • Create a new Layer from the extent of an existing Layer
  • Save the convex hull of all geometry from an input Layer to an output Layer
  • Save centroids of input Layer to an output Layer
  • Create a New Shapefile and Add Data
  • Create a PostGIS table from WKT
  • Filter and Select Input Shapefile to New Output Shapefile Like ogr2ogr CLI
  • Merge OGR Layers
  • Get a list of the street names in a OSM file
  • Create fishnet grid
  • Convert polygon shapefile to line shapefile
  • Create point shapefile with attribute data
  • Create buffer
  • Convert vector layer to array
  • Convert polygon to points
• Raster Layers
  • Close a raster dataset
  • Get Raster Metadata
  • Get Raster Band
  • Loop Through All Raster Bands
  • Get Raster Band Information
  • Polygonize a Raster Band
  • Convert an OGR File to a Raster
  • Clip a GeoTiff with Shapefile
  • Calculate zonal statistics
  • Raster to vector line
  • Create raster from array
  • Create least cost path
  • Replace No Data Value of Raster with new value
• Projection
  • Create Projection
  • Reproject a Geometry
  • Get Projection
  • Reproject a Layer
  • Export Projection
  • Create an ESRI.prj file
• API Tricks and Trapdoors
  • Filtered Features Are Only Respected Using GetNextFeature()
  • Features and Geometries Have a Relationship You Don’t Want to Break

Indices and tables

• Index
• Module Index
• Search Page