JSONDecodeError for geojson file

Question

I've been trying to create a choropleth map based on NYC zip codes. I found a few different tutorials online but all of them are failing with the same issue (mostly referencing the same file so not too surprising).

This is the geojson file I am trying to use. https://github.com/fedhere/PUI2015_EC/blob/master/mam1612_EC/nyc-zip-code-tabulation-areas-polygons.geojson

When I try to open it with either with 'Code A' or referencing a downloaded version in 'Code B' or 'Code C', I get the same error message. I tried to inspect the file but can't seem to find what's wrong and a solution. I tried all the code suggestions in another thread but nothing worked.

The error message is: JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 7 column 1 (char 6)

My code is as follows - the dataframe 'df_zi' that's referenced has 4 columns but for the sake of this visualization, I'll be only using zip and customers.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to overcome this issue? I am very new to working with json files so it's completely out of my comfort zone.

Thanks in advance.

from urllib.request import urlopen
import json
import pandas as pd
import folium

# Code A:

with urlopen('https://github.com/fedhere/PUI2015_EC/blob/master/mam1612_EC/nyc-zip-code-tabulation-areas-polygons.geojson') as response:
    NYC_zipcodes_json = json.load(response)

# Code B:

map = folium.Map(location=[40.730610,-73.935242],zoom_start=10)
map.choropleth(geo_data="nyc-zip-code-tabulation-areas-polygons.geojson",
             data=df_zi, # my dataset
             columns=['zip', 'customers'], 
             key_on='feature.properties.postalCode'
             fill_color='BuPu', fill_opacity=0.7, line_opacity=0.2,
             legend_name='customers')

# Code C

with open("nyc-zip-code-tabulation-areas-polygons.geojson", encoding='utf-8', errors='ignore') as json_data:
     NYC_zipcodes_json = json.load(json_data, strict=False)

dataframe df_zi:
zip          783 non-null object
state        783 non-null object
county       434 non-null object
customers    783 non-null int64

Answer 1

You're downloading the wrong URL.

Take a look at the content of the uRL you're fetching. That is, try something like:

curl -s <theurl> | less

You'll find that what you're download is the GitHub HTML page for that file, which of course isn't going to do you any good. You need to download the actual JSON content, which you can get by clicking the "Raw" button. That will take you to:

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fedhere/PUI2015_EC/master/mam1612_EC/nyc-zip-code-tabulation-areas-polygons.geojson

If you use that url instead, you'll get a valid JSON file.