GDAL-VECTOR_CONCAT(1)

📦
version 3.11.5 · 3 versions
, in fedora 43

🦋 NAME 🦋

okay so bestie, welcome to the section 1 man page for gdal-vector_concat — yes that's the one, the GDAL girly whose entire personality is Concatenate vector datasets 💖

Added in version 3.11. so she's new-new, fresh off the release notes, iconic behavior honestly.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Usage: gdal vector concat [OPTIONS] <INPUT>... <OUTPUT>

Concatenate vector datasets.

🎀 Positional arguments

  • -i, --input <INPUT> — Input vector datasets [1.. values] [required] — like, you have to feed her at least one, no skipping meals 🍓
  • -o, --output <OUTPUT> — Output vector dataset [required] — and she needs somewhere to put the glow-up ✨

💫 Common Options

  • -h, --help — Display help message and exit
  • --json-usage — Display usage as JSON document and exit
  • --config <KEY>=<VALUE> — Configuration option [may be repeated]
  • --progress — Display progress bar

🌸 Options

  • -l, --layer, --input-layer <INPUT-LAYER> — Input layer name(s) [may be repeated]
  • -f, --of, --format, --output-format <OUTPUT-FORMAT> — Output format ("GDALG" allowed)
  • --co, --creation-option <KEY>=<VALUE> — Creation option [may be repeated]
  • --lco, --layer-creation-option <KEY>=<VALUE> — Layer creation option [may be repeated]
  • --overwrite — Whether overwriting existing output is allowed
  • --update — Whether to open existing dataset in update mode
  • --overwrite-layer — Whether overwriting existing layer is allowed
  • --append — Whether appending to existing layer is allowed
  • --mode <MODE> — Determine the strategy to create output layers from source layers . MODE=merge-per-layer-name|stack|single (default: merge-per-layer-name)
  • --output-layer <OUTPUT-LAYER> — Name of the output vector layer (single mode), or template to name the output vector layers (stack mode)
  • --source-layer-field-name <SOURCE-LAYER-FIELD-NAME> — Name of the new field to add to contain identificoncation of the source layer, with value determined from 'source-layer-field-content'
  • --source-layer-field-content <SOURCE-LAYER-FIELD-CONTENT> — A string, possibly using {AUTO_NAME}, {DS_NAME}, {DS_BASENAME}, {DS_INDEX}, {LAYER_NAME}, {LAYER_INDEX}
  • --field-strategy <FIELD-STRATEGY> — How to determine target fields from source fields. FIELD-STRATEGY=union|intersection (default: union)
  • -s, --src-crs <SRC-CRS> — Source CRS
  • -d, --dst-crs <DST-CRS> — Destination CRS

🔥 Advanced Options

  • --if, --input-format <INPUT-FORMAT> — Input formats [may be repeated]
  • --oo, --open-option <KEY>=<VALUE> — Open options [may be repeated]

👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

gdal vector concat concatenates several source datasets. she's a joiner, she's a connector, she's literally the friendship bracelet of GDAL 🫶

It has 3 main modes:

  • --mode = merge-per-layer-name (the default). The output dataset generated by the command will contain as many layers as there are different layer names in the source datasets. For example if there are 2 datasets, one with layers a and b, and the other one with layers b and c, 3 output layers will be created: a, b (merging the 2 source layers) and c.
  • --mode = stack. The output dataset generated by the command will contain as many layers as there are layers in the source datasets. For example if there are 2 datasets ds1 (with layers a and b) and ds2 (with layers b and c), 4 output layers will be created: ds1_a, ds1_b, ds2_b and ds2_c.
  • --mode = single. The output dataset generated by the command will contain one single layer, merging all layers in the source datasets.

When an output layer merges several source layer, by default the resulting schema will contain the union of all source fields. It is possible to select only the intersection with the --field-strategy set to intersection. Regarding the resulting CRS, by default the CRS of the source layer will be used as the target CRS, and features of other source layers that do no match this CRS will be reprojected to it. --dst-crs can be used to select a given destination CRS.

This command can also be used as the first step of gdal vector pipeline. 💅

🌈 Standard options 🌈

-f, --of, --format, --output-format <OUTPUT-FORMAT>

Which output vector format to use. Allowed values may be given by

gdal --formats | grep vector | grep rw | sort

--co <NAME>=<VALUE>

Many formats have one or more optional dataset creation options that can be used to control particulars about the file created. For instance, the GeoPackage driver supports creation options to control the version.

May be repeated.

The dataset creation options available vary by format driver, and some simple formats have no creation options at all. A list of options supported for a format can be listed with the --formats command line option but the documentation for the format is the definitive source of information on driver creation options. See Vector drivers format specific documentation for legal creation options for each format.

heads up bestie — dataset creation options are different from layer creation options. don't mix them up, it's giving chaos energy 😭

--overwrite

Allow program to overwrite existing target file or dataset. Otherwise, by default, gdal errors out if the target file or dataset already exists.

--update

Whether the output dataset must be opened in update mode. Implies that it already exists. This mode is useful when adding new layer(s) to an already existing dataset.

--overwrite-layer

Whether overwriting existing layer(s) is allowed.

--append

Whether appending features to existing layer(s) is allowed

-l, --layer, --input-layer <LAYER>

Name of one or more layers to inspect. If no layer names are passed, then all layers will be selected.

--output-layer <OUTPUT-LAYER>

Name of the output vector layer (in single mode, and the default is "merged"), or template to name the output vector layers in stack mode (the default value is {AUTO_NAME}). Not allowed in merge-per-layer-name mode.

The template in stack mode can be a string with the following variables that will be substituted with a value computed from the input layer being processed:

  • {AUTO_NAME}: equivalent to {DS_BASENAME}_{LAYER_NAME} if both values are different, or {LAYER_NAME} when they are identical (case of shapefile).
  • {DS_NAME}: name of the source dataset
  • {DS_BASENAME}: base name of the source dataset
  • {DS_INDEX}: index of the source dataset
  • {LAYER_NAME}: name of the source layer
  • {LAYER_INDEX}: index of the source layer

--mode merge-per-layer-name|stack|single

Determine the strategy to create output layers from source layers. See introductory paragraph for more details.

--source-layer-field-name <SOURCE-LAYER-FIELD-NAME>

If specified, the schema of the target layer will be extended with a field whose name is the value of this option and whose content is determined --source-layer-field-content.

--source-layer-field-content <SOURCE-LAYER-FIELD-CONTENT>

If specified, the schema of the target layer will be extended with a new field (whose name is given by --source-layer-field-name, or source_ds_lyr otherwise), whose content is determined by the specified template (see --output-layer for variables that can be used).

--field-strategy union|intersection

Determines how the schema of the target layer is built from the schemas of the input layers:

  • union (default) to use a super-set of all the fields from all source layers.
  • intersection to use a sub-set of all the common fields from all source layers.

-s, --src-crs <SRC-CRS>

Set source spatial reference. If not specified the SRS found in the input dataset will be used.

The coordinate reference systems that can be passed are anything supported by the OGRSpatialReference.SetFromUserInput() call, which includes EPSG Projected, Geographic or Compound CRS (i.e. EPSG:4296), a well known text (WKT) CRS definition, PROJ.4 declarations, or the name of a .prj file containing a WKT CRS definition.

Starting with GDAL 2.2, if the SRS has an explicit vertical datum that points to a PROJ.4 geoidgrids, and the input dataset is a single band dataset, a vertical correction will be applied to the values of the dataset.

-d, --dst-crs <SRC-CRS>

Set destination spatial reference.

The coordinate reference systems that can be passed are anything supported by the OGRSpatialReference.SetFromUserInput() call, which includes EPSG Projected, Geographic or Compound CRS (i.e. EPSG:4296), a well known text (WKT) CRS definition, PROJ.4 declarations, or the name of a .prj file containing a WKT CRS definition.

Starting with GDAL 2.2, if the SRS has an explicit vertical datum that points to a PROJ.4 geoidgrids, and the input dataset is a single band dataset, a vertical correction will be applied to the values of the dataset.

🧚 GDALG OUTPUT (ON-THE-FLY / STREAMED DATASET) 🧚

This program supports serializing the command line as a JSON file using the GDALG output format. The resulting file can then be opened as a vector dataset using the GDALG: GDAL Streamed Algorithm driver, and apply the specified pipeline in a on-the-fly / streamed way. no cap, she's out here streaming like it's nothing 💀✨

🌟 EXAMPLES 🌟

🍓 Example 1: Creating a GeoPackage stacking all input shapefiles in separate layers.

gdal vector concat --mode=stack *.shp out.gpkg

💜 Example 2: Adding a field to indicate the source layer, and reprojecting to a single CRS

Concatenate the content of france.shp and germany.shp in merged.shp, reprojecting them to ETRS89, and add a 'country' field to each feature whose value is 'france' or 'germany' depending where it comes from:

gdal vector concat --mode=single --source-layer-field-name=country --dst-crs=EPSG:4258 france.shp germany.shp merged.shp

💖 AUTHOR 💖

Even Rouault <even.rouault@spatialys.com>

1998-2025

and that's the whole page, bestie 🦋 this was GDAL-VECTOR_CONCAT(1) from the GDAL manual, dated Oct 29, 2025 — go concat something and slay, mwah 💅💖

📦 where this page comes from