Mapbox Studio
- Design custom map styles with a visual interface
- Add custom data, fonts, and icons to your styles
- Publish style changes without redeploying your app
- Use 2D and 3D basemaps including Mapbox Standard
Mapbox Studio is a visual tool for designing map styles. It lets you add custom data, fonts, and icons, then define how everything appears on your map. Since styles are hosted on the Mapbox platform, you can publish changes to your map without needing to redeploy your app.
What is a style?
A style is a JSON document that conforms to the Mapbox Style Specification and primarily defines the layers on your map, the layer order, and how they change dynamically based on the state of the map. The style also references the data sources those layers draw from, along with any fonts and images used in rendering. Mapbox GL JS and the Mapbox mobile SDKs read the style to render your map.
While you can manually write a style JSON file, Mapbox Studio provides a visual interface to preview and customize your changes and publish them to your production apps.
Getting started with a custom style
When you create a new style, you'll choose between two basemaps: Mapbox Standard and Mapbox Standard Satellite. Mapbox Standard includes several built-in themes: Default, Faded, and Monochrome, that work well for both 2D and 3D use cases. You can view available templates at the Mapbox Gallery.
Once you create the style, you can customize the basemap's colors, fonts, and key visual properties through the Imports panel, then add your own data layers on top. Because Mapbox Standard is an evolving basemap, styles built on it automatically receive performance improvements and new features over time without any action on your part.
Using your style in an application
Once you've finished styling your map, click Publish to make it available in production. Each style has a style URL (for example mapbox://styles/username/style-id) that you use to reference it in Mapbox GL JS, the Mapbox mobile SDKs, or third-party tools like ArcGIS, Tableau, or CARTO.
For a full walkthrough of the Mapbox Studio interface — including the layers panel, toolbar, and publishing options — see the Mapbox Studio interface guide.
Attribution and Terms of Service
All Mapbox tools are governed by our attribution requirements and our terms of service. For more information about either of these requirements, contact Mapbox Support.