Geo-Object Bundle
lastmod 2025-10-28created 2025-10-282 edits
GOB, a new file format for OSM: 30% smaller than PBF and 5x faster to import
About
- A new file format, GOB (Geo-Object Bundle), was introduced to handle the huge worldwide OpenStreetMap (OSM) dataset faster and more efficiently
- GOB is a compressed version of the existing Geo-Object Library (GOL), with the index removed to reduce size and increase processing speed
- GOB files are on average 30% smaller than PBF, about half the size of GOL, and 5x faster to import
- The tile-based structure makes region-level extraction and merging easy, and allows fast loading even on low-end systems
- Metadata and edit history are not included, but it is highly useful as a format for distribution and archiving
See also
- OSM
- PBF