A BF(breadth-first) linear quadtree as a new data structure for image data is suggested, which enables us to compress the image data efficiently and to make operations of the compressed data easily. It is a list of path names for black nodes as the linear quadtree is. The path name for each black node of a BF linear quadtree is represented as a sequence of path codes from the root node to itself, whereas that of linear quadtree as a sequence of path codes from the root node to itself and fill characters for cut-offed path from it to any n-level node which corresponds to a pixel of an image. The BF linear quadtree provides a more efficent compression ratio than the linear quadtree does, because the former does not require redundant characters, fill characters, for the cut-offed paths. Several operations for image processing can be also implemented on this hierarchical structure efficiently, because it is composed of only the black nodes ad the linear quadtree is . In this paper, algorithms for several operations on the BF linear quadtree are defined and analyzed. Experimental results for forur image data are also given and discussed.