How can I parse GeoJSON with Python

Question

I have have geojson data from a query which I now want to parse and print on screen. My current code is:

import urllib
import geojson
while True:
    url = 'https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/query?format=geojson&starttime=2012-01-01&endtime=2017-03-01&minmagnitude=4.0&maxmagnitude=9.0&minlongitude=5.95&maxlongitude=10.50&minlatitude=45.81&maxlatitude=47.81'
    uh = urllib.urlopen(url)
    data = uh.read()
    print data
    break

It seems that data is a simple string. However, I thought it could be parsed like a json parameter. How do I have to handle geojson data in order to print a single point, e.g. to extract the coordinates of the first point only?

Solution 1

You can read it like any json:

import json
data = json.loads(datastring)
data['features'][0]['geometry'] #Your first point

Solution 2

You can also use geopandas:

import geopandas as gpd
earthquake = gpd.read_file('earthquake.geojson')
print(earthquake.head())

Solution 3

You can read it with json import, and file open:

import json
with open(path) as f:
    data = json.load(f)
for feature in data['features']:
    print(feature['properties'])

Solution 4

You can use pandas library directly

import pandas as pd
data = pd.read_json('File.geojson')

The important this is to understand the structure of this json file and manipulate the dictionaries in there

View more solutions

Comments

[Martin Thoma]

I guess the while True and the break can be removed completely?

[Yanni Cao]

Caveat: this method is not reading data as geojson. It reads the data as geodataframe.

[Dahn]

This is often the quickest and easiest way to read GeoJSON and make sense of what it contains.

[onxx]

if loading from a file: use data = json.load(fileobject)

[Gobrel]

This is what I am searching for. When I use your solution, I get a dict which looks like this 0 MultiLineString [[[8.5551415, 49.8598025], [8.5563399, 49.8598... with 3 columns. As you can see the third column has the coordinates I want. Do you know by any chances how I can transfer the coordinates into a dataframe with latitude and longitude as seperate colums since the values represent this?