<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Nov 15, 2013, at 7:09 PM, Sasa Sullivan wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div>I
am learning QGIS and know the general instructions on how to color code areas
through the Style feature but am not able to get a distinct color per state for
a map of the USA, maybe it is my source as I don't see one listed that
encompasses the state shape only. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Also
I only need the state, city and county boundaries, if someone has a scaled down
Open Source shape files for the USA it would be helpful as I don't have
unlimited hard drive space for the ones I have found</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Sasa</div></div>
_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><br><br>Hello Sasa,<br><br>Without knowing where your data was obtained, I cannot speculate on the trouble encountered. The instructions below assume QGIS 2.01 is used and should be usable with adjustments on older versions as well. <br><br>First lets get some data. The National Atlas website has numerous shape files available for download. Most of what you are looking for should be available from<a href="http://nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp.html?openChapters=%2Cchpbound#chpbound">http://nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp.html?openChapters=%2Cchpbound#chpbound</a>. <br><br>In this demo, I will be using the State Boundaries, One Million-Scale layer available for download at <a href="http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/pub/data/nationalatlas/statep010_nt00798.tar.gz">http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/pub/data/nationalatlas/statep010_nt00798.tar.gz</a>.<br><br>- Extract the archive and import the file statep010.shp into QGIS. <br>- Open the Properties dialog for the imported layer. <br>- Click Style from the column on the left. <br>- Locate the menu "Single Symbol" and change that to "Categorized". <br>- Change the Column menu to "State" Click the Classify button.<br>- Click OK.<br><br>You now have a basic US Map with each state colored with a unique color. <br><br>Dan<br><br></div><br></body></html>