Creating the layer

With neo4j-spatial, we can load data directly from a shapefile. The procedure is called spatial.importShapefile and accepts a single parameter: the path to the data file. It will automatically create a new spatial layer to hold the data, with a name derived from the input file name, and create a node for each geometry.

The full syntax is as follows:

1.  First, let's create the layer, with a given name and type:

CALL spatial.addLayer("manhattan_districts")

2. Import the shapefile data into this newly created layer:

CALL spatial.importShapefile("/<absolute_path_to>/manhattan_districts.shp")

After you run this procedure, your database contains twelve more nodes, one for each district contained in the shapefile. Each of these nodes contains the following information:

{
 "CD_ID": 4,
 "geometry": {....},
 "gtype": 6,
 "ID": 1,
 "bbox": [
     -74.01214813183593,
     40.7373608893982,
 ...