Chapter 4. Working with real data

In this chapter, we’ll look at how you can load real-world data into PostGIS and export it. We’ll point you to specific data sources for the examples in this chapter, but if you’re interested in other sources, see the list in appendix A. Note that appendix A is not a comprehensive list, so we encourage you to explore on your own and report back on any discoveries at our Manning author forum: www.manning.com/obe2.

Note

Geographic data that covers large areas on our spheroidal earth needs a little special care. You’ll need to understand, at least on a rudimentary level, ellipsoids, datums, and projections in order to understand the pros and cons of each spatial reference system and determine which ones are suitable for your use cases. We hope the fundamentals we provided in the previous chapter are sufficient to get you started working with real data.

4.1. General utilities

4.2. Importing and exporting shapefiles

4.3. Importing and exporting vector data with ogr2ogr

4.4. Importing OpenStreetMap data with osm2pgsql

4.5. Importing and exporting raster data

4.6. Summary