# GEOBench-VLM: Benchmarking Vision-Language Models for Geospatial Tasks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.19325 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.19325/

## Key facts

- Cited by 51 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Embodied and 3D vision-language models, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models.
- Builds on 60 of its 77 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Nov 2024.

## Placed in

- Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models / [Embodied and 3D vision-language models](https://mlsanity.com/mllm/embodied-and-3d-vision-language-models/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 60)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Visual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08485/) (2023)
- [BERTScore: Evaluating Text Generation with BERT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.09675/) (2019)
- [Qwen2-VL: Enhancing Vision-Language Model's Perception of the World at Any Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12191/) (2024)
- [Deformable DETR: Deformable Transformers for End-to-End Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.04159/) (2020)
- [SegFormer: Simple and Efficient Design for Semantic Segmentation with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.15203/) (2021)
- [LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03326/) (2024)
- [Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12712/) (2023)
- [InternVL: Scaling up Vision Foundation Models and Aligning for Generic Visual-Linguistic Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14238/) (2023)
- [MMBench: Is Your Multi-modal Model an All-around Player?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.06281/) (2023)
- [MMMU: A Massive Multi-discipline Multimodal Understanding and Reasoning Benchmark for Expert AGI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16502/) (2023)
- [DINO: DETR with Improved DeNoising Anchor Boxes for End-to-End Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.03605/) (2022)
- [MM-Vet: Evaluating Large Multimodal Models for Integrated Capabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.02490/) (2023)
- [SEED-Bench: Benchmarking Multimodal LLMs with Generative Comprehension](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16125/) (2023)
- [Are We on the Right Way for Evaluating Large Vision-Language Models?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.20330/) (2024)
- [Remote Sensing Image Scene Classification: Benchmark and State of the Art](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.00121/) (2017)
- [SpatialVLM: Endowing Vision-Language Models with Spatial Reasoning Capabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.12168/) (2024)
- [DOTA: A Large-scale Dataset for Object Detection in Aerial Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10398/) (2017)
- [Ferret: Refer and Ground Anything Anywhere at Any Granularity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.07704/) (2023)
- [GLaMM: Pixel Grounding Large Multimodal Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.03356/) (2023)
- [Florence-2: Advancing a Unified Representation for a Variety of Vision Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.06242/) (2023)
- [RemoteCLIP: A Vision Language Foundation Model for Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.11029/) (2023)
- [Object Detection in Optical Remote Sensing Images: A Survey and A New Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.00133/) (2019)
- [GeoChat: Grounded Large Vision-Language Model for Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15826/) (2023)
- [MME-RealWorld: Could Your Multimodal LLM Challenge High-Resolution Real-World Scenarios that are Difficult for Humans?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.13257/) (2024)
- [SPHINX: The Joint Mixing of Weights, Tasks, and Visual Embeddings for Multi-modal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.07575/) (2023)
- [DeepGlobe 2018: A Challenge to Parse the Earth through Satellite Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.06561/) (2018)
- [RSGPT: A Remote Sensing Vision Language Model and Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15266/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 51)

- [OmniSpatial: Towards Comprehensive Spatial Reasoning Benchmark for Vision Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.03135/) (2025)
- [How Far are VLMs from Visual Spatial Intelligence? A Benchmark-Driven Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.18905/) (2025)
- [When Large Vision-Language Model Meets Large Remote Sensing Imagery: Coarse-to-Fine Text-Guided Token Pruning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07588/) (2025)
- [Vision-Language Modeling Meets Remote Sensing: Models, Datasets and Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.14361/) (2025)
- [EarthMind: Leveraging Cross-Sensor Data for Advanced Earth Observation Interpretation with a Unified Multimodal LLM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01667/) (2025)
- [Towards LLM Agents for Earth Observation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12110/) (2025)
- [VLMs Need Words: Vision Language Models Ignore Visual Detail In Favor of Semantic Anchors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02486/) (2026)
- [A Benchmark for Ultra-High-Resolution Remote Sensing MLLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.17319/) (2025)
- [GeoAnalystBench: A GeoAI benchmark for assessing large language models for spatial analysis workflow and code generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.05881/) (2025)
- [SegEarth-R2: Towards Comprehensive Language-guided Segmentation for Remote Sensing Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.20013/) (2025)
- [OpenEarth-Agent: From Tool Calling to Tool Creation for Open-Environment Earth Observation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.22148/) (2026)
- [TerraScope: Pixel-Grounded Visual Reasoning for Earth Observation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.19039/) (2026)
- [VLRS-Bench: A Vision-Language Reasoning Benchmark for Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.07045/) (2026)
- [GeoMMBench and GeoMMAgent: Toward Expert-Level Multimodal Intelligence in Geoscience and Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.08896/) (2026)
- [Domain Specific Benchmarks for Evaluating Multimodal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12958/) (2025)
- [OmniEarth: A Benchmark for Evaluating Vision-Language Models in Geospatial Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.09471/) (2026)
- [OSMDA: OpenStreetMap-based Domain Adaptation for Remote Sensing VLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.11804/) (2026)
- [MOAT: Evaluating LMMs for Capability Integration and Instruction Grounding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.09348/) (2025)
- [Agentic AI for Remote Sensing: Technical Challenges and Research Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.24919/) (2026)
- [Evaluating and Enhancing Negation Comprehension in Remote Sensing MLLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20177/) (2026)
- [Leveraging ChatGPT's Multimodal Vision Capabilities to Rank Satellite Images by Poverty Level: Advancing Tools for Social Science Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.14546/) (2025)
- [SAR Object Detection with Self-Supervised Pretraining and Curriculum-Aware Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13310/) (2025)
- [GeoGrid-Bench: Can Foundation Models Understand Multimodal Gridded Geo-Spatial Data?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.10714/) (2025)
- [Remote Sensing Image Intelligent Interpretation with the Language-Centered Perspective: Principles, Methods and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.06832/) (2025)
- [Geo3DVQA: Evaluating Vision-Language Models for 3D Geospatial Reasoning from Aerial Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.07276/) (2025)
- [Reasoning with Pixel-level Precision: QVLM Architecture and SQuID Dataset for Quantitative Geospatial Analytics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.13401/) (2026)
- [DisasterVQA: A Visual Question Answering Benchmark Dataset for Disaster Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.13839/) (2026)
- [Seeing Clearly, Reasoning Confidently: Plug-and-Play Remedies for Vision Language Model Blindness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.19615/) (2026)
- [UHR-Micro: Diagnosing and Mitigating the Resolution Illusion in Earth Observation VLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.12237/) (2026)
- [GeoX: Mastering Geospatial Reasoning Through Self-Play and Verifiable Rewards](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.20006/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

While numerous recent benchmarks focus on evaluating generic Vision-Language Models (VLMs), they do not effectively address the specific challenges of geospatial applications. Generic VLM benchmarks are not designed to handle the complexities of geospatial data, an essential component for applications such as environmental monitoring, urban planning, and disaster management. Key challenges in the geospatial domain include temporal change detection, large-scale object counting, tiny object detection, and understanding relationships between entities in remote sensing imagery. To bridge this gap, we present GEOBench-VLM, a comprehensive benchmark specifically designed to evaluate VLMs on geospatial tasks, including scene understanding, object counting, localization, fine-grained categorization, segmentation, and temporal analysis. Our benchmark features over 10,000 manually verified instructions and spanning diverse visual conditions, object types, and scales. We evaluate several state-of-the-art VLMs to assess performance on geospatial-specific challenges. The results indicate that although existing VLMs demonstrate potential, they face challenges when dealing with geospatial-specific tasks, highlighting the room for further improvements. Notably, the best-performing LLaVa-OneVision achieves only 41.7% accuracy on MCQs, slightly more than GPT-4o, which is approximately double the random guess performance. Our benchmark is publicly available at https://github.com/The-AI-Alliance/GEO-Bench-VLM .