In a method and a device for coding binary matrices, in particular sparse binary matrices, a matrix is gradually partitioned into sub-matrices. During the gradual partitioning the number of binary ones are counted for each resulting sub-matrix. If a resulting sub-matrix does not consist of mixed symbols no further partitioning of that sub-matrix is required. The counted number of binary ones for each sub-matrix is then coded and transmitted. The method provides an efficient coding particularly for sparse binary matrices such as bi-level images or bit maps.