The Nginx GeoIP module is based on the original Geo module, the
difference being that it is not being controlled by a piece of config,
but makes use of the MaxMind GeoIP binary API natively. It provides for
fast lookups from both the binary GeoLite and GeoIP Country databases
available from MaxMind.
One of the advantages to use the binary databases and API is getting
automated updates from MaxMind through the geoipupdate utility. This is
also the reason why SPIL GAMES wrote this module.