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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-25T10:48:38+00:00

I am writing a map application that imports Census and USGS information and shows

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I am writing a map application that imports Census and USGS information and shows it as an overlay on a Google Map. I want to export mash-ups of these items and export as a Shapefile.

I use the geotools library to import Census Department TIGER/Line border data. These Shapefiles have multiple features, each with its own border geometry. What I want to do is mash it up with USGS features, then export a Shapefile with a single border geometry but multiple features.

My question: is this possible? I may be totally missing the point of Shapefiles, so I’d rather ask here than as on the Geotools mailing list.

Thanks!

Jason

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I don’t think what you are trying to do is possible. Shapefiles are very simple files, they are best thought of as a simple table with one row per feature. Each row has exactly the same format in terms of columns. So each feature will have a geometry (border) and one or more attributes (other values e.g. population, houses, etc).

    I’m not clear however on why you want to join USGS features to Census features? Wouldn’t it be easier to overlay the two layers on the Google map separately? You might want to look at GeoServer to produce KML from the shapefiles that could be added to a Google map.

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