Android Maps - how to manage a large number of markers (1 million+)

Question

Managing a large number of markers for Google Maps in Android is all fine and dandy when you have 20-50K markers.

But how do you manage hundreds of thousands or even millions? What's better - performance wise - storing them in a JSON file locally on the device or retrieving a very large number of markers remotely?

I believe clustering is no huge issue with a very large number of markers - I've tested it with 50k markers and it runs acceptably smooth.

Are there any other performance considerations? Corners I can cut?

Answer 1

Thank you all for your suggestions. Fusion Maps is highly experimental, and makes your data visible for the public. It also limits the number of markers to 100k.

Google in particular is very strict when dealing with API calls, limiting the number you can do.

So, I've used CartoDB. It has more or less the same feature as the Google Maps stack, but it's open-source.