mapbox/polylabel

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_license

Adoption not part of the score

1558 stars · 163 forks observed · 2026-10-21

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

A fast JavaScript (and C++) library implementing an iterative grid algorithm to find the pole of inaccessibility of a polygon — the internal point farthest from the polygon outline. It is primarily used for optimal text label placement on polygons in maps and visualizations.

Use cases

• find optimal label position inside a polygon
• compute the pole of inaccessibility of a polygon
• place map labels at the most spacious point of a region
• find the most distant internal point from a polygon outline
• calculate visual center of a polygon for annotation
• avoid label overlap by centering text in polygon interiors

When to choose

• you need guaranteed global-optimum label placement within a given precision
• you work with GeoJSON-like polygon data in JavaScript or C++
• performance matters and centroid-based placement is insufficient for concave polygons

When to avoid

• you need a polygon centroid rather than the visual center
• you need label placement for points or lines rather than polygons
• you need a full geometry library rather than a single focused algorithm

Facets

library · maturity stable

geospatial math graphics browser cross-platform cpp polygon geometry label-placement pole-of-inaccessibility computational-geometry algorithm maps geospatial algorithms nodejs

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="mapbox/polylabel")