Shapely

Shapely is an open-source Python library for manipulation and analysis of planar geometric objects. Built on the GEOSGEOSGEOS (Geometry Engine, Open Source) is a C/C++ library implementing the OGC Simple Features specification for spatial... (Geometry Engine, Open Source) library, Shapely provides a Pythonic interface for constructing points, lines, polygons, and multi-geometries, and for performing the full range of spatial operations defined by the OGC Simple Features specification. Shapely supports geometric construction from coordinate sequences, Well-Known Text (WKT), and Well-Known Binary (WKB) representations. Its operations include spatial predicates (intersects, contains, within, touches), set operations (union, intersection, difference, symmetric difference), constructive operations (buffer, convex hullConvex HullA convex hull is the smallest convex polygon that completely encloses a set of points, analogous to stretching a rubb..., envelope, simplification), and measurement functions (area, length, distance). Shapely 2.0 introduced vectorized operations using the STRtree spatial index for dramatically improved performance on large geometry collections. Shapely is a foundational library in the Python geospatial stack, serving as the geometry engine for GeoPandasGeoPandasGeoPandas is a Python library that extends pandas DataFrames with geospatial capabilities. It enables spatial operati..., and used extensively alongside FionaFionaFiona is a Python library for reading and writing vector geospatial data formats. Built on GDAL/OGR, it provides a cl... and RasterioRasterioRasterio is a Python library for reading and writing geospatial raster data. Built on GDAL, it provides a Pythonic AP.... It does not handle coordinate reference systems or data I/O, focusing purely on geometric computation. This separation of concerns makes it composable and lightweight. Data scientists, spatial analysts, and developers use Shapely for tasks ranging from simple point-in-polygon tests to complex spatial overlay analysisOverlay AnalysisOverlay analysis combines two or more spatial datasets by superimposing their geometries to identify areas of interse... in Python-based geospatial workflows.