https://github.com/mapbox/geobuf
Geobuf is a compact binary encoding for geographic data.
Geobuf provides lossless compression of GeoJSON data into protocol buffers. Advantages over using GeoJSON alone:
- Very compact: typically makes GeoJSON 6-8 times smaller.
- 2-2.5x smaller even when comparing gzipped sizes. - Very fast encoding and decoding — even faster than native JSON parse/stringify.
- Can accommodate any GeoJSON data, including extensions with arbitrary properties.
The encoding format also potentially allows:
- Easy incremental parsing — get features out as you read them, without the need to build in-memory representation of the whole data.
- Partial reads — read only the parts you actually need, skipping the rest.
Think of this as an attempt to design a simple, modern Shapefile successor that works seamlessly with GeoJSON. Unlike Mapbox Vector Tiles, it aims for lossless compression of datasets — without tiling, projecting coordinates, flattening geometries or stripping properties.
