Atlas · South Africa / Data Guide
DATA GUIDE

Downloading data: formats and how to use them

CSV for tables and spreadsheets, GeoJSON for GIS software and web maps.

Intermediate 1 min read downloadCSVGeoJSONGIS

GeoJSON (.geojson)

  • Opens in QGIS, ArcGIS, geopandas, Mapbox and Leaflet.
  • Coordinates are WGS 84 longitude/latitude (EPSG:4326).
  • Properties include the name, class, date and harmonised attributes such as area_ha_geodesic.

CSV (.csv)

  • Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, R and Python.
  • One row per feature with its attributes and coordinates of a representative point.

Tips

  • In QGIS use Layer → Add Layer → Add Vector Layer.
  • Areas are in hectares, lengths in metres.
  • Keep the citation text from the dataset page and credit the original publisher.
  • Large datasets (hundreds of thousands of polygons) can be heavy; filter first if you can.

Every download is logged under the Audit log.

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