The claimed subject matter relates to a computer-implemented architecture that can, at a high level, store query results in a location-independent manner in order to facilitate caching of local results. To store query results in a location-independent manner such that cached results to location-based queries can be useful, the architecture can further include a mechanism for encoding a surface or area (e.g., the earth) based upon document density rather than geography. The encoding mechanism can also organize an inverted index so that no join operation is required to return valid results to a location-based query. The architecture can also include a mechanism for determining when previously cached results are adequate to satisfy a query.