Loading a Shapefile into PostGIS

This task shows how to load a shapefile into PostGIS database:

  1. Open the terminal window and enter the following command and press enter to creating a new database named ‘shape’:

  • Linux:

    createdb -U postgres -T postgis20 shape

  • Windows:

    setenv.bat
createdb -U postgres -T postgis20 shape
  1. Enter the following command and press enter to load the shapefile into ‘shape’ database:

  • Linux:

    shp2pgsql -I ${TRAINING_ROOT}/data/user_data/Mainrd.shp public.main_roads | psql -d shape

  • Windows:

    shp2pgsql -I "%TRAINING_ROOT%\data\user_data\Mainrd.shp" public.main_roads | psql -U postgres -d shape

The shapefile will be loaded within the ‘main_roads’ table of the ‘shape’ database. The following screenshot shows some of the table contents in pgAdmin III

../../../../_images/shp_postgis1.png

A PostGIS table by ShapeFile

In the next section we will see how to add a PostGIS layer into GeoServer.