Shapefile has long been the industry standard, but the geospatial ecosystem has evolved rapidly. A new generation of data formats has emerged, each optimized for specific workloads such as visualization, cloud-native distribution, or large-scale analytics.

This talk provides a structured introduction to the modern geospatial format landscape. We cover rendering-optimized formats like MVT, MLT, and 3D Tiles, cloud-native containers such as PMTiles, and analytics-oriented formats including FlatGeobuf, GeoParquet, and GeoArrow. For each format family we explain the core concepts, design trade-offs, and typical use cases.

We also show how these formats complement each other and can be combined in real-world workflows — from data processing pipelines to interactive web map applications.

Whether you are building maps, processing large datasets, or designing cloud-native geospatial systems, this talk gives you a clear mental model of the modern format landscape and practical guidance for choosing the right tool for the job.