No .shp files only .dbf files

Question

I've recently been given a set of files to work on/analyze with QGIS, but they seem to be missing any .shp files.

Basically, the data is organized into a bunch of folders labelled land, water, etc. and in each of the folders are a few .dbf files and then a bunch of files with no extensions. Here's an excerpt from one of the ones with no extension that I opened in a text editor:

&
' & è à ZJA àqžVA @bÂKA `ShWA
-ÎYJW§·J Q¿UJÈ»J 7YJšõ¹J
Ÿ­WJ†Ú¹J å [Jœ«¹J ”ÔWJßt¹J
ŒÎUJØU¹J ã…XJN¹J )'YJ[¹J
ãUJƒ¹J léWJqú¸J
ä”YJW

All the files with no extension look something like that; I've tried converting them into .shp files but QGIS still can't understand them. Do I need the .shp to do anything ?

Answer 1

Shapefiles require three files (ESRI Shapefile Technical Description):

1. main file; example.shp
2. index file; example.shx
3. dBASE table; example.dbf

An ESRI shapefile consists of a main file, an index file, and a dBASE table. The main file is a direct access, variable-record-length file in which each record describes a shape with a list of its vertices. In the index file, each record contains the offset of the corresponding main file record from the beginning of the main file. The dBASE table contains feature attributes with one record per feature.

Without these three files, you will not be able to use your shapefile.