MapInfo TAB

TAB is the native MapInfo format, still a working tool in cadastre, telecom and municipal services. Like the shapefile, it is not one file but a set: the table description, the attributes, the geometry and the index. Losing any of the four files means losing the layer.

The export is needed when the data goes to an organization where the map lives in MapInfo: to a contractor, to a GIS department, into a project that has been running for years. Opening data through a conversion is not popular in such places — it is easier to receive the native format right away.

What is in the archive: a ZIP where each layer sits in its own folder as a full set of files, with a README.txt description next to them. The coordinates are WGS84 (EPSG:4326), and the OpenStreetMap attributes are carried into the table in UTF-8. The file is written by the regular MapInfo driver: if a layer could not be written, it is honestly marked as failed rather than slipped to you in a foreign format under the expected extension.

Next to it there is the text exchange variant MIF/MID — it is more universal and readable by eye, but larger and slower. TAB is taken for work, MIF for handing data to an unfamiliar system.