Custom made polygon

Create a polygon in QGIS using google maps as background

Miriam Lerma true
2023-01-23

Intro

This post is to give you an example on how to create your own polygon using google maps.

Program

For this exercise we used the release candidate of QGIS, but every version has the option to create new layers, so no worries in which version you are using.

If you still dont have it, here is the link for download QGIS

QGIS

In earlier QGIS versions, there was a plugin called Open Layers plugin, but is not available anymore (as far as I am aware of).

Now to add a google satellite map in your QGIS you could do the following:

  1. Go to View > Panels > Activate Browser Panel

  1. Now go to XYZ > a new connection

  1. A new window will appear

  1. Fill in the spaces with the map you want to use

You need to give it a name and the URL

There are many options of maps, you can look at some here: Google URLs

We will use Open Street Map: https://tile.openstreetmap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png for the example.

Once you have create the connection, double click on the name and the map should be loaded as a layer.

Ready to Use!

Create polygon

  1. Select New Shapefile Layer

  1. Give a name to your new shapefile

I recommend to click on the three dots to select also the directory

In the exercise, we will create a polygon, therefore, select Polygon in Geometry type

  1. Select Layer > Toggle editing, or just click on the icon with the yellow pencil

  1. Now add polygon feature by clicking on the green polygon icon

  1. Use the pointer of your mouse and click one time to create points

The areas will start to look red

Keep clicking until you have a more or less the polygon you want

When you finish you should add an id, here I used the number 1 for an example

Now you should have a polygon!

  1. To edit the shapes you can use the vertex tool

  1. The corners can be moved/dragged when the icon has been selected

  1. New points can be created using the cross

  1. When you are editing your layer you will have a red pencil icon, click on the yellow pencil for finish editing

  1. Do not forget to save the changes!

… Now you are done!

I hope this helped you.

References

For continuing learning, here are other uses of google maps: