The invention provides a map data processing method and navigation equipment. The technical proposal provided by the invention embodies access capability of an arc section in a road network by grid accessibility, therefore, in actual path planning, for a certain end point such as a place of departure or destination, the grid accessibility of the arc section is used for detecting whether the arc section with a certain distance from the end point has access capability of reaching the end point, if the grid accessibility of the arc section meets the preset condition, the arc section is shown to have such accessibility, and during path planning, the arc section is brought into search space; if not, the arc section needs not to be considered; therefore, the invention not only guarantees accuracy of computing results, but also can effectively compress data quantity in the search space compared with the prior art, thus effectively improving computational efficiency and reducing requirements on hardware performance; in addition, the invention not only is applicable to the application scenarios with limitless resources, but also can be applicable to the environments with limited resources.