Esri shapefile overview

OS Open Rivers is supplied as an Esri shapefile. Shapefile is an open file format to store geometry and attribute information about spatial features.

Attribute mapping

The naming of attributes between GML and Esri shapefile is different; shapefiles limit attribute names to 11 characters, whereas GML has no limit. The tables that follow map the GML attribute name to its Esri shapefile equivalent for the WatercourseLink and HydroNode features.

GML includes attributes which describes the geometry of the features; this is not applicable to shapefile as they are separated by their geometry. The use of an asterisk symbol (*) in the following tables indicates that a particular attribute is not mapped in that format, for example, centrelineGeometry has no shapefile equivalent.