Very minimal information provided, so this is a guess. Clip your vector dataset in half, and try the import. If that works, clip the original to 3/4. If it doesn't work, cut it in half again. Repeat as until it imports - whatever works is what you have available. The second is simplification, any specific approach can't be recommended with the information provided. The third is to rasterize the vector data shapefile, then import that, and again, not enough information to be specific, and requires you to re-think the model - i.e. what is NetLogo doing with the shapefile aimport, is it converting the data representation to raster anyways, for it's own internal computations? From https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/docs/programming.html#agents "Turtles are agents that move around in the world. The world is two dimensional and is divided up into a grid of patches. Each patch is a square piece of “ground” over which turtles can move. Links are agents that connect two turtles. The observer doesn’t have a location – you can imagine it as looking out over the world of turtles and patches.")

So, 'Patches'. Look 'inside the box'.

And depending where in the world you are, there are gridded population rasters, also. https://urban-tep.eu/#!pages/dataservices

Gernel Lumacad Did one ( or some ) of these have some success? ( mentioning that here would be helpful for others in the future with the same issues.