Accessing Feature Attributes
Included in this tutorial:
Opening the attribute table for a feature class
Accessing individual feature attributes interactively
Software version in examples: QGIS-LTR 3.40.5-Bratislava (MacOS)
Tutorial Data: The tutorial includes demonstration with sample data available here.
Credits: Sally Kaye and L. Meisterlin (2025)
There are several ways to view and interact with feature attributes in QGIS. This tutorial demonstrates two of the most common: the Attribute Table and individual feature identification.
Opening the Attribute Table
To open the Attribute Table of a feature class, right-click on the name of the feature class in the Layers Panel, then click Open Attribute Table.
To dock the Attribute Table at the bottom of the window, click Dock Attribute Table, the right-most icon in the tool panel of the Attribute Table. (In the demonstrations below, right-clicks are shown in green and left-clicks are shown in black.)
accessing the Attribute Table of a layer
The Attribute Table displays all fields for each feature in the selected feature class. If your table contains many columns, scroll to the left or right to see the other fields.
Accessing individual feature attributes
Individual features can also be directly identified from the map canvas. In the Attributes Toolbar, click the Identify Features tool. Click the name of the feature class for the features you would like to identify in the Layers Panel. Click the feature to be identified on the map canvas. The Identify Results panel on the right of the window will display the feature’s attributes.
identifying an individual feature through the map canvas
Bonus: identifying multiple overlapping features
To view attribute data for features from multiple overlapping layers, select the Identify Features tool, then right-click a point on the map canvas to see all visible layers. Click Identify All to see attributes for all selected features in the Identify Results panel.
viewing attributes for multiple features