How to PIP Install Geospatial Libraries in Python.

Created by the author with DALL E-3

This may seem like a basic function but you will be surprised how effective it is, installing various libraries is knowledge you need to obtain as a software developer especially if you are going to be working with GIS data.

pip install is a fundamental command in Python for installing packages, such as GIS libraries for spatial analysis making it an essential tool for managing dependencies and extending the functionality of your Python projects.

Introduction

Richard Jones founded PyPI in 2003 as a repository for Python software. It gave developers a central place to distribute their Python utilities and libraries to the community which was known as Easy Install.

EasyInstall was developed in 2004 by Phillip J. Eby as a program to automate the installation of Python packages and their dependencies. EasyInstall made package installation easier, but it had drawbacks, like trouble with uninstalling and handling conflicting installations.

Ian Bicking developed pip in 2008 as a better package management-focused substitute for EasyInstall. In addition to offering features like requirement files, improved dependency resolution, and uninstallation, it fixed many of EasyInstall’s flaws.

To install packages from the Python Package Index (PyPI) or other package repositories, use the pip install command in Python. Software packages for the Python programming language are stored in a repository called PyPI. It contains thousands of community-contributed Python packages, from web development frameworks and utilities to libraries for data science and machine learning.

Pip install for GIS Libraries

GDAL: is a library for geospatial data abstraction that supports both vector and raster formats.

pip install GDAL

Fiona: Good for Geospatial data formats can be read and written using the Python library

pip install Fiona

Shapely: An analysis and manipulation library for geometric objects.

pip install Shapely

Pandas: Pandas is extended with GeoPandas to facilitate spatial operations.

pip install geopandas