When working with spatial data, you should be aware of its features in order to avoid errors in its manipulation and representation. Among spatial data characteristics, a very important one is the Coordinate Reference System (CRS) that was originally used to define the data.
In this recipe, you will learn basic concepts about CRS and how to properly define them in GeoServer.
You need a new dataset for this recipe. We will use Texas counties' boundaries, freely available from U.S. Census Bureau. Go to http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/geo/shapefiles2013/main, the main site to download the data from. Select the counties and click on the submit button.
From the states' list, select Texas and click on the Download button. When prompted, select a proper location on the filesystem to save the archive.
Unzip the archive. You'll find five files; have a look at the
tl_2013_48_cousub.prjfile. It contains a Well Known Text (WKT) representation of CRS for the data:GEOGCS["GCS_North_American_1983...