What is a .geojson file? (GeoJSON)

GeoJSON is a JSON format for geographic data: points, lines and polygons with their coordinates and properties. It is the standard way to move map features between web maps, GIS tools and APIs.

What is a .geojson file used for?

A GeoJSON file is ordinary JSON with a defined structure of Features, each holding a geometry (such as a Point or Polygon) and a bag of properties. Coordinates are longitude then latitude, in the WGS 84 system used by GPS.

Because it is plain JSON, it works directly in web mapping libraries like Leaflet and Mapbox, and opens in any text editor. Large datasets are sometimes stored as newline-delimited GeoJSON for streaming.

How to open a .geojson file

The .geojson format opens in the following apps, grouped by operating system. If one app does not work, try another from the same list. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see how to open a .geojson file.

Windows

QGIS
VS Code
geojson.io (web)

macOS

QGIS
VS Code
geojson.io (web)

Linux

QGIS
VS Code
geojson.io (web)

Web

geojson.io
Mapbox, Leaflet

How to convert a .geojson file

You can convert a .geojson file to KML, GPX, Shapefile using a conversion tool or the export menu of an app that opens it.

.geojson file signature (magic bytes)

Programs recognise a .geojson file by the bytes at the start of the file, not by its name. These are the signatures for GeoJSON.

Hex signature	Offset	Note
7B	0	'{' JSON object

See the full magic-numbers reference for every format.

Frequently asked questions