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I want to merge 9 shapefiles (all polygons) into one file. The problem is, when I try to merge more than two files at once, I seem to loose attributes on the way? Is there any other way of merging shapefiles than using the 'Merge shapefiles to one'-tool? In this case it's only nine files, so it's possible to merge whem 2 and 2, but I want to do the same thing with other files as well, and then merge about 20 files to one.

I'm using QGIS 2.0.1.

Thanks!

EDIT: I have data of 4 different kinds of natural reserves (polygons). Each reserve has data seperated into three different shapefiles, where each shapefile is cooected to a powerline. The three powerlines are parallell at first and then turn in different directions.

Each kind of natural reserve contains slightly different information, but they all contain the columns 'Powerline' (powerline identity) and 'Type' (type of natural reserve).

I want my output to contains all of the polygons and all attribute data. What happened was that information like 'Powerline' was lost when I tried to merge all files at once.

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    The tool you specify usually works well so I suspect that there is some issue to do with your data. Can you confirm that all your shapefiles have the same fields of the same name and data type? If one of your files has an attribute with a very slightly different name, QGIS will add an extra attribute and populate it with Nulls for those shapefiles which lack that field. What do you start with and what do you finish with (you can edit your question to add the extra information).
    – MappaGnosis
    Feb 25, 2014 at 8:43

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This seems like a task for scripting more than a graphical environment like QGIS. My first thought was ogr and the first google hit for 'ogr2ogr merge shapefiles' is http://gis-programming.com/?p=194, which seems to address your question.

Haven't tried this myself, but should work. Good luck!

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  • 'Merge Shapefiles to one' is part of the fTools set which is built on OGR
    – MappaGnosis
    Feb 25, 2014 at 8:45

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