You've hit upon a classic GIS data modeling problem: how to represent a many-to-
many relationship in a relational database or GIS environment.
If you have a table of Roads and you want to specify that a road passes through more
than one City (or District, County, etc.), a simple one-to-one or one-to-many join won't work
directly.
Here's why and how to handle it in QGIS, typically using a pivot table (also known as a
junction table or associative table):
The Problem with Direct Joins:
One-to-One: A single road segment relates to a single city. (This doesn't fit your
requirement).
One-to-Many: A single city can have many road segments. Or a single road
segment can only be in one city. This doesn't work if a road crosses city
boundaries.
Many-to-One: Many road segments can belong to one city. (Again, doesn't allow
a single road to be in multiple cities).
The Solution: Many-to-Many Relationships with a Pivot Table
The standard way to model this is with three tables:
1. Roads Table:
o road_id (Unique ID for each road segment)
o road_name
o length_km
o geometry (the actual line feature)
o ... (other road attributes)
2. Cities Table:
o city_id (Unique ID for each city)
o city_name
o population
o geometry (the polygon feature)
o ... (other city attributes)
3. Road_City_Junction Table (the Pivot Table):
o junction_id (Unique ID for this table's entries, optional but good practice)
o road_id (Foreign Key referencing Roads.road_id)
o city_id (Foreign Key referencing Cities.city_id)
o segment_length_in_city (Optional: You could store the length of that specific
road segment within that specific city)
o ... (any other attributes specific to the relationship between a road and a
city)
How it works:
Each row in the Road_City_Junction table represents a single instance of a road
passing through a specific city.
If "Road A" passes through "City X" and "City Y", you would have two entries in
the Road_City_Junction table:
o junction_id_1, road_id_A, city_id_X
o junction_id_2, road_id_A, city_id_Y
If "City X" has "Road A" and "Road B" passing through it, you would have entries
like:
o junction_id_1, road_id_A, city_id_X
o junction_id_3, road_id_B, city_id_X
Implementing this in QGIS:
The best way to handle this in QGIS for true many-to-many relationships is to use a
database backend like:
PostgreSQL/PostGIS: This is the most powerful and recommended solution.
You define the three tables with their primary and foreign keys in the database.
QGIS then connects to these tables, and you can define the relationships directly
within the QGIS Project Properties. This allows you to set up sophisticated
attribute forms where, when you select a road, you can see and manage all the
cities it passes through (and vice versa).
SpatiaLite or GeoPackage: These are file-based SQLite databases that support
spatial data and relational integrity. They are excellent for smaller projects or
when you need a single, portable file. You would create your tables and define
relationships within them, and QGIS can leverage these relationships.
Steps in QGIS (using Project Properties for Relationships):
1. Ensure your layers are in a database format that supports relationships
(PostGIS, SpatiaLite, GeoPackage). Shapefiles do not natively support many-to-
many relationships in this way.
2. Create your three layers/tables: Roads, Cities, and Road_City_Junction. Make sure
they have appropriate ID fields.
3. Open Project Properties: Go to Project > Properties... > Relations tab.
4. Add New Relations:
o Relation 1 (Roads to Junction):
Name: Road_Junction (or similar)
Referencing Layer (Child): Your Road_City_Junction table.
Referencing Field (Foreign Key in Junction): The field in
Road_City_Junction that stores road_id.
Referenced Layer (Parent): Your Roads layer.
Referenced Field (Primary Key in Roads): The road_id field in your
Roads layer.
ID: A unique ID for this relation (e.g., road_junction_rel).
o Relation 2 (Cities to Junction):
Name: City_Junction (or similar)
Referencing Layer (Child): Your Road_City_Junction table.
Referencing Field (Foreign Key in Junction): The field in
Road_City_Junction that stores city_id.
Referenced Layer (Parent): Your Cities layer.
Referenced Field (Primary Key in Cities): The city_id field in your Cities
layer.
ID: A unique ID for this relation (e.g., city_junction_rel).
5. Configure Attribute Forms for Many-to-Many:
o Go to the Layer Properties of your Roads layer.
o Switch to the Attributes Form tab.
o In the Form Layout designer, drag the "Road_Junction" relation (which
represents the connection to the pivot table) onto your form.
o For this relation widget, change its Cardinality to Many to many.
o Select the Road_City_Junction table as the Link table, and the Cities table as
the Referenced layer for the "Linked child relations" setting.
o Repeat similar steps for your Cities layer's attribute form, linking it to the
Road_City_Junction and then to the Roads layer.
Benefits of this approach:
Data Integrity: Enforces that only existing roads and cities can be linked.
Flexibility: A single road can be linked to any number of cities, and a single city
can be linked to any number of roads.
Efficient Storage: Avoids duplicating road or city attributes.
Powerful Querying: You can easily perform complex spatial and attribute
queries across these related tables.
User-Friendly Forms: QGIS's attribute forms become highly interactive, allowing
you to add, edit, and view related records directly.
This is the robust and recommended way to handle situations where a feature can have
multiple relationships with features from another layer.
