Python, GEOS and Shapely on Windows 64
When trying to install Shapely on my Windows 64bit computer, I cannot get the GEOS library to work.
So far, I have run the OSGeo4W installer from which I installed GDAL (I believe the geos library is included in that package). After that, I checked and I have geos_c.dll on my C:\OSGeo4W\bin directory, but either I have missed some configuration steps or the library does not work.
I need Shapely to work, so I also ran pip install shapely after installing GDAL, and it apparently worked (although it could not find the C library for GEOS).
In my code, I can import Shapely, but when I try to use it, I get an error telling me "geos.dll" is not found.
Any help with this will be very appreciated. Thanks!
Answer
As of 2020, the recommended way to install Shapely is simply:
pip install shapely
(you may need --upgrade to get at least version 1.7.0, when binary wheels were addeed to PyPi)
Anaconda is a popular resource to install precompiled Python packages. Shapely for win-64 is available from several of the main channels. This is a recommended method if you require lots of up-to-date Python software, and are happy to use Python from a 3rd party vendor.
Miniconda is similar, except much smaller to download/install (as it doesn't bundle as many packages in the base install).
With ether of these:
conda install shapely
Another resource for Windows users with Python installed from python.org, Christoph Gohlke maintains an excellent pool of Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python. Download the Shapely wheels for 32- or 64-bit versions of Python, which includes GEOS dependencies.