Polygonize landcover block-by-block.

polygonize_landcover.py

from __future__ import print_function

import json
import sys

import fiona
from fiona.crs import from_epsg
import rasterio
from rasterio import features

with rasterio.open("LCType_4326.tif") as src:
    schema = {
        "geometry": "Polygon",
        "properties": {
            "VALUE": "int",
        }
    }

    with fiona.open("landcover.shp", "w",
        crs=from_epsg(4326),
        driver="ESRI Shapefile",
        schema=schema,
        ) as sink:

        for ji, window in src.block_windows(1):
            print(ji, file=sys.stderr)
            data = src.read(1, window=window)
            mask = 0 < data

            shapes = features.shapes(data, mask=mask, transform=src.window_transform(window))

            for geometry, value in shapes:
                feature = {
                    "geometry": geometry,
                    "properties": {
                        "VALUE": value
                    }
                }

                sink.write(feature)

NOTE: this doesn't actually work, as the resulting Shapefile exceeds 4GB before completing.