How to create a place designation matching erratic city limits

Forgive me if I have missed seeing this information posted elsewhere. I wish to create a place designation for a particular city that has extremely erratic boundaries for the city limits. I have been able to locate a link to a KML file, but it is out of date. The city does have a shape file I may request.

Is there a step-by-step tutorial anywhere to create a project using either one of these file types to map it? I’m not familiar with these mapping programs and it will have no value if I include or omit incorrect areas. A polygon outline is not specific enough nor remotely practical.

I am hoping to be able to use new and existing iNaturalist observations to document the need for a nature park instead of only additional tennis, basketball, pickle ball, etc. ball, concrete and parking lots.

Thanks for your patience.

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Probably your best bet is to request the shapefile, convert it to kml (if you need help with that, I can give suggestions), create a Place, and upload your kml as the boundary for that place. Once your place is set up with the correct boundary, you can create a Project limited to your place. It should be fairly straightforward, but feel free to ask for more details on any step.

Thank you for your help! Yes, I would greatly appreciate suggestions on converting the shape file to KML.

Are you willing to download QGIS (free) or would you rather use an online conversion tool? I don’t have a lot of experience converting online, but I just tried https://mygeodata.cloud/converter/shp-to-kml. It did convert the file to kml, though I found another issue in the process. iNat doesn’t like maps to have multiple features in them, so if the original shapefile contains multiple polygons as separate features rather than a single feature, you may have trouble. (You can check for this by running the conversion, then going to https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/ and creating a new map. Then import
your converted kml. One with multiple features will list multiple pieces.)

If you don’t mind sharing the original shapefile, I could do the conversion for you. Or I could try to walk you through setting up QGIS if you think that’s something you’d like to learn.

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@valt QGIS is a powerful and free computer app (http://qgis.org/). Some things can be complicated in QGIS, but converting a shape file to a KML is pretty simple. I’d also suggest you give that a go.

I’ve attached a couple of screenshots of the process. In that “Save Vector Layer As…” window in the second screenshot, you just need to add a file name for your KML and select a folder to save it into (doing those things will fill in the two blank boxes below the format).


I just use Google Earth for this conversion. Add the shapefile as a user layer, then export as KML. Works like a charm, no need to learn new software unless you want to for other reasons.

Thank you so much! As soon as I get an urgent project deadline completed, I will give it a try. Appreciate your help.

Thank you! I appreciate your help and suggestions and the screenshots greatly. As soon as I get past a looming project deadline I’ll give it a go.

Thank you! I appreciate your help and suggestions.

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