Chapter 1. Geospatial Analysis and Techniques
In this introductory chapter, we will start our exploration of geospatial analysis by learning about the types of tasks you will typically be performing, and then look at spatial data and the Python libraries you can use to work with it. We will finish by writing an example program in Python to analyze some geospatial data.
As you work through this chapter, you will:
- Become familiar with the types of problems that geospatial analysis will help to solve
- Understand the various types of geospatial data and some of the important concepts related to location-based data
- Set up your computer to use the third-party libraries you need to start analyzing geospatial data using Python
- Obtain some basic geospatial data to get started
- Learn how to use the GDAL/OGR library to read through a shapefile and extract each feature's attributes and geometry
- Learn how to use Shapely to manipulate and analyze geospatial data
- Write a simple but complete program to identify neighboring countries
Let's start by looking at the types of problems and tasks typically solved using geospatial analysis.
