> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://mariadb.com/docs/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/reference/sql-statements/geometry-constructors/wkb/well-known-binary-wkb-format.md).

# Well-Known Binary (WKB) Format

WKB stands for Well-Known Binary, a format for representing geographical and geometrical data.

WKB uses 1-byte unsigned integers, 4-byte unsigned integers, and 8-byte double-precision numbers.

* The first byte indicates the byte order. 00 for big endian, or 01 for little endian.
* The next 4 bytes indicate the geometry type. Values from 1 to 7 indicate whether the type is Point, LineString, Polygon, MultiPoint, MultiLineString, MultiPolygon, or GeometryCollection respectively.
* The 8-byte floats represent the coordinates.

Take the following example, a sequence of 21 bytes each represented by two hex digits:

```
000000000140000000000000004010000000000000
```

* It's big endian
  * 000000000140000000000000004010000000000000
* It's a POINT
  * 000000000140000000000000004010000000000000
* The X coordinate is 2.0
  * 000000000140000000000000004010000000000000
* The Y-coordinate is 4.0
  * 000000000140000000000000004010000000000000

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