The shapefile is a widely used geospatial vector data format developed and maintained by Esri, a global provider of geographic information system (GIS) software. This format is designed to represent vector-based spatial features, including points, lines, and polygons. A shapefile is not a single standalone file; instead, it consists of a set of multiple associated files, of which four are essential. The functions of these core files are summarized as follows.
| File | Features |
| .shp | Shape format (feature geometry) |
| .dbf | Attribute format (attributes for each shape that stored as two-dimensional table) |
| .prj | Projection information described using a well-known text (WKT) representation of the coordinate reference system |
| .shx | Shape index (a positional index of the feature geometry that enables fast forward and backward access) |