# MapLibre Tile Specification

> MLT is a column-oriented vector tile format that stores the same layers, features, geometries and properties as MVT in fewer bytes.

MLT (MapLibre Tile) is a vector tile format for map data.
It stores the same content as an MVT tile, layers of features with geometries and properties, in a column-oriented layout.
Each column is split into streams, and each stream picks the lightweight encoding that suits its values.
The first byte of every tile names its wire format version: v1 is stable, v2 is experimental.

## Getting Started

- [About MLT](<https://maplibre.org/maplibre-tile-spec/index.md>): A column-oriented vector tile format for map data
- [Data Model](<https://maplibre.org/maplibre-tile-spec/overview/index.md>): The data model of tiles, layers, features, columns and streams
- [Implementation Status](<https://maplibre.org/maplibre-tile-spec/implementation-status/index.md>): Libraries, tools and datasets that support MLT
- [Benchmarks](<https://maplibre.org/maplibre-tile-spec/benchmarks/index.md>): Decoding speed and tile size of MLT v1 and v2 compared with MVT

## Specification

- [MLT v1](<https://maplibre.org/maplibre-tile-spec/specification/v1/index.md>): Byte layout of the stable MLT v1 wire format
- [MLT v2 (experimental)](<https://maplibre.org/maplibre-tile-spec/specification/v2/index.md>): Byte layout of the experimental MLT v2 wire format
- [Encoding Algorithms](<https://maplibre.org/maplibre-tile-spec/encodings/index.md>): Payload of every encoding a stream can name
- [Implementation Guide](<https://maplibre.org/maplibre-tile-spec/implementation-guide/index.md>): Choosing encodings and decoding into memory

## Optional

- [Tile Inspector](<https://maplibre.org/maplibre-tile-spec/inspector/index.md>): Decode a tile in the browser and walk through its bytes