A GPS track needs to go from GPX into a web map that only reads GeoJSON. A spatial database query returns WKT that needs to become KML for a client. A Shapefile from a GIS tool needs to open in something that never heard of .shp. All of these are the same kind of task — moving the same points, lines, and polygons into a different file structure — and the mechanics are mostly the same regardless of which two formats are involved.
The general process
Upload a GeoJSON, KML, GPX, CSV, WKT, TopoJSON, or Shapefile (.zip) file to the Geo Format Converter — the format is detected automatically from the file's content, not just its extension. Pick the format you need as output, and download. The tool shows you the feature count before you commit, along with a clear count of anything that can't survive the conversion (more on that below).
Two formats need nothing beyond that: GeoJSON and WKT are output targets that accept any geometry type without restriction, so converting into either one never drops anything.
The one extra step Shapefiles need
Shapefiles are commonly stored in a projected coordinate system — UTM, State Plane, or similar — not plain latitude/longitude. Converting one correctly means reprojecting to WGS84 first, which the Geo Format Converter does automatically by reading the bundle's .prj file. You'll see one of two notices: if no .prj is present, coordinates are assumed to already be WGS84 (no reprojection applied); if a .prj is present but can't be read, coordinates are used as-is with a warning. Either way, you're told which happened — a silent wrong-projection conversion is the kind of bug that only shows up as "all my points are in the wrong country" much later.
Shapefile is currently read-only in the converter — you can convert from one to any other format, but not to one.
What gets left out, and why
Two structural limits account for nearly every "features left out" warning you'll see:
- Converting to GPX — GPX has no polygon concept at all. A Polygon feature converting to GPX simply has nowhere to go and is excluded.
- Converting to CSV — a CSV row is structurally one point. Both LineString and Polygon features are excluded converting to CSV, since neither fits in a single row.
If your source file is entirely points, neither limit applies and the conversion is complete. If it has lines or polygons and your target is GPX or CSV, decide up front whether losing those specific features is acceptable, or whether GeoJSON, KML, or WKT — which all support every geometry type — is the better target instead.
One further one-way limit: TopoJSON can be converted from (into any of the others), but not converted to — its topology-sharing structure is a much harder thing to build correctly than to read.
Geometry type isn't the only thing that can go missing, either — KML keeps only a name and description per feature, GPX keeps only name, and WKT keeps no properties at all. The Geo Conversion Loss Inspector runs the same conversion and diffs the real output against your source, catching exactly this kind of property loss alongside the geometry-type warnings above — see how to verify a geospatial conversion actually worked.
A worked example
A GeoJSON point:
{ "type": "Point", "coordinates": [77.5946, 12.9716] }
converts to a KML <Point> with the same coordinates, a GPX <wpt lat="12.9716" lon="77.5946">, a CSV row with separate lat/lon columns, or a WKT POINT (77.5946 12.9716) — the coordinate values don't change, only how they're written down and in what order. This is exactly the detail that makes hand-converting error-prone: GeoJSON and WKT write longitude first, GPX writes it as a separate lat-then-lon attribute pair, and it's easy to transpose the two doing this by hand.
Confirming the conversion actually worked
A completed conversion with no error isn't proof the coordinates landed in the right place — a coordinate-order slip is silent until you look at it on an actual map. Load the converted file into the GeoJSON / KML / GPX / CSV Viewer and check that every point, track, and shape is where it should be, not on the wrong continent or ocean — see how to spot common geospatial data errors for the full checklist.
Where each step happens
- Converting — the Geo Format Converter handles GeoJSON, KML, GPX, CSV, WKT, TopoJSON, and Shapefile, and always shows what didn't survive before you download.
- Seeing exactly what changed — the Geo Conversion Loss Inspector converts for real and diffs the output against the source, catching property loss the feature count alone won't show.
- Verifying the result visually — the GeoJSON / KML / GPX / CSV Viewer renders the converted file on a map so a coordinate-order or projection bug is visible immediately.
- Starting from photo GPS instead — if your source data is really a folder of geotagged photos rather than an existing geospatial file, the EXIF GPS Extractor pulls the coordinates out directly and exports them as GeoJSON, CSV, or KML.