helptext(1)

✨ helptext(1) — GRASS GIS Quickstart ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the GRASS GIS User's Manual 💖 this is helptext(1) and it's literally your lil' orientation tour, so grab a snack and let's go 🍓

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🌍 GRASS GIS Quickstart

so the very first time you launch GRASS GIS, you'll open a default project called "world_latlog_wgs84" and inside it there's a map layer named "country_boundaries" that shows you a whole world map in the WGS84 coordinate system 🌈 like, the planet, just vibing in your window.

The main character of the Data tab is the Data Catalog 📚 which shows off the GRASS GIS hierarchical structure — and that structure is made of the database, project and mapset.

🗄️ GRASS database (directory with projects)

When you run GRASS GIS for the first time, a folder named "grassdata" gets automatically created for you ✨ Depending on your operating system, you can find it in your $HOME directory (*nix) or My Documents (MS Windows).

📍 project (previously called location)

A project is defined by its coordinate reference system (CRS). For the default project, that's a geographic coordinate reference system — WGS84 (EPSG:4326) 🌎 If you have data in another CRS than WGS84, you should create a new project corresponding to your system. no cap, that's the move.

🗂️ mapset (a subproject)

Each project can have many mapsets for managing different aspects of a project or project's subregions. When creating a new project, GRASS GIS automatically creates a special mapset called PERMANENT where the core data for the project can be stored 👑

For more info about data hierarchy, see GRASS GIS Database page. 💫

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🦋 GRASS started in the default project, now what?

First — if you would like to get to know GRASS better before importing your own data, please download provided samples such as the "North Carolina" dataset 🎀 You can simply reach them through the "Download sample project to current database" management icon.

To work with your own data, you typically want to first create a new project with a coordinate reference system (CRS) suitable for your study area or one that matches your data's CRS. The Project Wizard will help you with that by guiding you through a series of dialogs to browse and select predefined projections (also via EPSG code) or to define individual projections 🪄

🧚 Creating a New project with the Project Wizard

If you know the CRS of your data or study area, you can fill EPSG code or description and Project Wizard finds appropriate CRS from a predefined list of projections. If you do not know CRS of you data, you can read it from your georeferenced data file (e.g. shapefile or GeoTiff file with the related metadata properly included) 📖

📥 Importing data

After creating a new project, you are ready to import your data. You can use simple raster or vector data import, or a variety of more specialized tools. If the data's CRS does not match your project's CRS, data will be automatically reprojected 😌✨ After import your raster or vector data are added as a layer to Map Display. To change layer properties, go to Display tab. To analyze your data, search for a tool in the Modules tab 🔍

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💻 Text-based startup and project creation

GRASS GIS can be run entirely without using the graphical user interface 😤 yes, truly, no GUI required. See examples of running GRASS GIS from a command line.

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👀 See also

• GRASS GIS Reference Manual
• GRASS GIS startup program manual page
• GRASS GIS tutorials and books
• List of EPSG codes (Database of worldwide coordinate systems), CRS Explorer - PROJ codes, and EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset

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📜 SOURCE CODE

• Available at: GRASS GIS Quickstart source code (history)
• Accessed: Saturday Jan 17 05:40:17 2026
• Main index | Topics index | Keywords index | Graphical index | Full index
• © 2003-2025 GRASS Development Team, GRASS GIS 8.4.2 Reference Manual

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💅 this lil' guide lives in the GRASS GIS 8.4.2 world (the footer said so, and the header was serving helptext(1) under the GRASS GIS User's Manual banner 🎀). go forth and map something iconic 🫶🌈