[1] The shapefile format can spatially describe vector features: points, lines, and polygons, representing, for example, water wells, rivers, and lakes.

It is now possible to read and write geographical datasets using the shapefile format with a wide variety of software.

The shapefile format stores the geometry as primitive geometric shapes like points, lines, and polygons.

In line with the ESRI Shapefile Technical Description,[1] legacy GIS software may expect that the filename prefix be limited to eight characters to conform to the DOS 8.3 filename convention, though modern software applications accept files with longer names.

A Z-dimension stores the elevation of each coordinate in 3D space, which can be used for analysis or for visualisation of geometries using 3D computer graphics.

The user-defined M dimension can be used for one of many functions, such as storing linear referencing measures or relative time of a feature in 4D space.

The open-source shapefile C library, for example, calls its format "xBase" even though it's plain dBase IV.

The ESRI ArcInfo coverages and many geodatabases do have the ability to store feature topology.

The size of both .shp and .dbf component files cannot exceed 2 GB (or 231 bytes) — around 70 million point features at best.

The attribute database format for the .dbf component file is based on an older dBase standard.