Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer



Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer

Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer and save as Shapefile.  When you have collection of point data i.e latitude and longitude, stored in Excel file in different column, then you can easily view and Save it as Vector layer file in QGIS(Quantum GIS). Well after uploading Excel latitude longitude values as spatial layer,  you are only one step back, to convert the Excel data in Shapefile or KML or any vector file.

Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer
Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer

Before starting the exercise, you need to have a data excel file, which should be convert to Comma Delimited .csv file(Depends upon your choice, Comma delimited is common). To convert Excel file in .csv file, open the file and select save as type “CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv)”. Name the file and save it.

  • Note: If you are using old version of QGIS then, do download and install plugin “Add delimited text layer”.  To install a plugin,
  • Go to Plugins -> Manage and install Plugins, search for “Add delimited text layer“, and install it.

Visit this page to see more tutorial in QGIS.

Steps to Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer

You should have an already downloaded and installed QGIS , before going through this steps. 

1.) Open up QGIS and click on layer, from menu tab and select Add delimited text layer. 

Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer
Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer

2.) Browse the already created .csv excel file, which has latitude and longitude coordinates.

3.) By default, if your column is named as latitude and longitude, then, X will be mapped to longitude and Y will be mapped to latitude. Select OK after mapping X and Y.

Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer
Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer

4.) Select the desired coordinate reference system and press OK, the file get uploaded as Spatial layer in QGIS.

Well if you want to convert this uploaded Spatial layer in Shapefile or KML or any other vector file, select on layer, and click on save as. In the open window, select the desired format in which you want to save the file. Done. I suppose this tutorial would be helpful to you. If you are facing any problem, then do comment below.

Author: Akshay Upadhyay

Owner and Director of a Private Limited company which serves individual to large scale industries in the field of Maps and GIS. He is a Gold Medalist in M.Tech(Spatial Information Technology) and owns some famous Technology blogs and website... Know more

8 thoughts on “Upload Excel latitude longitude in QGIS as Spatial Layer”

  1. I understand this, but must be missing something as no matter what I do I can’t get the layer to actually display on the map.

  2. what if I updated the the contains of the CSV, without removing the existing layers that loaded before.

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