The minimum bounding rectangle (MBR), alternatively, the minimum bounding box (MBB), is the single orthogonal rectangle that minimally encloses or bounds the geometry of a geographic feature or the collection of geometries in a geographic data set. It can be used to describe the extent of either vector or raster data. All coordinates for the vector feature or data set or the raster grid fall on or within this boundary.

In its simplest and most common form, the MBR is a rectangle oriented to the x- and y-axes, which bounds a geographic feature or a geographic data set. It is specified by two coordinates: the minimum x- and y-coordinates (x min, y min), at the lower left of the coordinate space, and the maximum x- and ...