How to import an SHP file into a Geopandas DataFrame

shp_to_geopandas.py

# A breif overview of how to how to import an SHP file to a Geopandas DataFrame. For a more detailed breakdown of the
#process you can find the original post here: http://timcrammond.com/blog/creating-a-geopandas-dataframe-from-a-shp-file

import shapefile
import geopandas as gpd
from shapely.geometry import shape
import osr

tracts = shapefile.Reader('data/cb_2018_42_tract_500k.shp')

fields = [field[0] for field in tracts.fields[1:]]

attributes = []
geometry = []

for row in tracts.shapeRecords():
    geometry.append(shape(row.shape.__geo_interface__))
    attributes.append(dict(zip(fields, row.record)))

with open('data/cb_2018_42_tract_500k.prj') as p:
    proj4 = osr.SpatialReference(p.read()).ExportToProj4()
print(proj4)

gdf = gpd.GeoDataFrame(data=attributes, geometry=geometry, crs=proj4)
gdf.head()

gdf.plot(figsize=(16,8), cmap='Blues', edgecolor='black', linewidth=0.4)