Activity 3 of 5

2. Coordinates

Learn how to create coordinate data compatible with GIS software.

3 min read
  • Learn where to find coordinate information for locations
  • Learn how to format coordinates in a table so they can be opened in a map
  • Learn how to import a table of coordinates into a GIS mapping interface

In class activity

  1. Open a new spreadsheet, for example in Excel, or quickly make a new Google Sheets by typing sheets.new into a browser.
  1. Create three header columns, name, latitude, and longitude.
  1. In a new tab, navigate to Google Maps.
  1. Find a location you are interested in mapping.
  1. In your spreadsheet, under the name column, give the location a name.
  1. Right click on the map in Google maps in the area you are interested in. A window with coordinates should pop up. Click on the coordinates, and they will copy to your clipboard.
  1. Paste the value into the spreadsheet, under the latitude column.
  1. You will need to edit the values so that the first number in the set of coordinates is under the latitude column, and the second number is in longitude column. Make sure to include the negative - symbol, if it exists, and remove the separating comma.
table

Properly formatted table.

  1. Repeat this process and add two more points, so you have three altogether.
  1. When you are finished entering your data, name your spreadsheet, and export it to a .csv format by clicking File → Download → Comma Separated Values (.csv).

Demo and explore more

Sample data

You can download and explore sample datasets related to this activity from the workshop data homepage, hosted on the Open Science Framework (OSF.io)

  1. Visit the workshop data homepage.
  1. Click the three vertical dots icon and select Download. OSF data download page
  1. The folder that downloads to your computer contains sample data from all the workshop activities. It is a zipped or compressed file. In order to use it, you will have to double-click it on Mac or right-click → Extract or Uncompress on a PC.

4. The sample data for this activity, Activity 2 is in the folder activity2_coordinates. In this folder you will find the following files:

  • example-coordinates.csv
  • example-coordinates.geojson

Follow-along steps

  1. Open QGIS (download instructions).
  2. Add a basemap (instructions).
  3. Import the coordinates (instructions).
  4. Right-click example-coordinates in the Layers pane → Zoom to layer to see the points better.
  5. Right-click example-coordinates in the Layers pane → Open attribute table to view the data attributes.
  6. Right-click example-coordinates in the Layers pane → Properties → Symbology → Change Single Symbol to Categorized → Under Value choose type → Classify → OK to change the color symbols of the map. Click the dot icon next to Symbol (underneath Value) to change the size of the points.
  7. Save as spatial data by right-clicking example-coordinates in the Layers pane → Export → Format = GeoJSON → Click ... icon next to Filename to choose where to save.
  8. Notice how you can drag the .geoJSON file directly into the QGIS window to display the geometry now (rather than use the table import window). This is because it is stored as spatial data.