New field added whenever I export shapefile to the geodatabase

Question

I don't know why this is keep happening, but I created shapefile in QGIS and opened the shapefile from ArcGIS. I needed to create geodatabase to put in all of my shapefile, but whenever I do that, point shapefiles are fine, but my line shapefiles automatically create new field.

The main problem is that I cannot delete that new field in my attribute table, but I want them to be disappeared.

It is just one field that is keep showing up. I got the shape_leng for the shapefile's length(m) but when I export that into geodatabase, the new field shape_length comes up. It doesn't let me delete this field and values are very different.

Is there any ways to fix this or delete this field permanently?

Answer 1

File geodatabases have a certain number of fields that are managed internally and you cannot modify or delete them. Shape_Length is one of them.

The most probable cause for divergent values between what you calculated in QGIS and what ArcGIS calculates is that you haven't set your feature dataset/class properly.

If you import many shapefiles from different sources, the file structure in your geodatabase should almost always have your feature classes imported inside a feature dataset as the CRS is then managed at that level. When you import your shapefile in the feature dataset, as long as you have set the CRS properly, the data should be projected properly and the Shape_Length field should be calculated with correct values.

But more importantly, make sure you are using the correct CRS. There is both a NAD83 (WKID 3005) and NAD83 CSRS (WKID 3153) version of BC Environment Albers which could be where the divergences are occuring since they are different datums.