What is a MIF file?

MIF files are also known as MapInfo Interchange Format files, and often end in a .mif suffix. This format — developed and used by MapInfo for the export of maps and data — contains the data necessary for plotting map features (such as points, lines, or polygons) on a map. MIF files are often accompanied by MID files. MID files contain data attributes, but are not a mandatory addition to the MIF file format.

Specifications

A complete MIF dataset contains information about a map's features. This example of a 2-digit ZIP code file of the Netherlands contains the following specifications:

• The first 3 lines contain the header information
• The 4th line defines the projection of the table
• The 5th line specifies the number of associated data attributes and shows the number of columns in the dataset.
• The 6th – 9th lines define the type and length of every column. In this example, the MIF file contains the following columns: "pc2", "cartodb_id", "created_at" and "updated_at".
• The 10th line contains "Data" — the start of the GIS data.
• The 11th line contains the type of each object. The most common types of objects used in MIF files are: Point, Line, Polyline, and Region. This example contains "Region" objects.
• The 12th line contains the number of coordinates which will eventually create a Region on the map.
• The following 331 lines contain the coordinates for the 2-digit ZIP code areas on the map.
• The last 2 lines contain the style of the objects.

To add extra information to the map features you'll need the following optional file:

• MID file (.mid) - The MID-file often contains data that is associated with a specific GIS object. These MID-files are stored in a csv format with no column titles.

What software can you use to open a MIF file?

• Mapinfo
• Arcgis
• QGIS
• Tableau Software

Associated filename extensions

• .mif
• .mid