How to calculate the area of a polygon on the earth’s surface using python?

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Let’s say you have a representation of the state of Colorado in GeoJSON format

{"type": "Polygon", 
 "coordinates": [[
   [-102.05, 41.0], 
   [-102.05, 37.0], 
   [-109.05, 37.0], 
   [-109.05, 41.0]
 ]]}

All coordinates are longitude, latitude. You can use pyproj to project the coordinates and Shapely to find the area of any projected polygon:

co = {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [
    [(-102.05, 41.0),
     (-102.05, 37.0),
     (-109.05, 37.0),
     (-109.05, 41.0)]]}
lon, lat = zip(*co['coordinates'][0])
from pyproj import Proj
pa = Proj("+proj=aea +lat_1=37.0 +lat_2=41.0 +lat_0=39.0 +lon_0=-106.55")

That’s an equal area projection centered on and bracketing the area of interest. Now make new projected GeoJSON representation, turn into a Shapely geometric object, and take the area:

x, y = pa(lon, lat)
cop = {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [zip(x, y)]}
from shapely.geometry import shape
shape(cop).area  # 268952044107.43506

It’s a very close approximation to the surveyed area. For more complex features, you’ll need to sample along the edges, between the vertices, to get accurate values. All caveats above about datelines, etc, apply. If you’re only interested in area, you can translate your feature away from the dateline before projecting.

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