Satellite imagery
Mapbox Satellite is a global basemap of high resolution satellite and aerial imagery. The Mapbox Satellite Streets style combines the Mapbox Satellite basemap with vector data from Mapbox Streets to bring contextual information to your map.
This guide will introduce Mapbox imagery resources and explain how you can upload your own imagery to use with Mapbox tools.
To learn more about Mapbox imagery, including data sources and data coverage, read our Mapbox imagery guide.
Key terms
It can be helpful to understand key terms related to imagery.
For more detailed definitions, click the terms below or visit the Glossary.
- aerial imagery: visual raster data acquired by an instrument on a plane, drone, or other aerial source
- satellite imagery: visual raster data acquired by a spaceborne instrument
- raster: a pixel-based data format that stores data in a grid structure
- tileset: a collection of raster or vector data broken up into a grid
Clockwise from top left: MODIS, Landsat, Maxar satellite, Vexcel aerial.
Use Mapbox imagery
You can use Mapbox imagery data in the following Mapbox-owned styles or tilesets, available to anyone using a valid Mapbox access token.
Imagery styles
Click a style name below to learn more about the style in our Styles API documentation:
Learn more about using styles in our Map Design getting started guide.
Imagery tilesets
Click a tileset name to learn about its layers, data sources, and more:
Learn more about using tilesets in our Mapbox imagery tileset guide.
Upload your own imagery
If you want to use your own imagery with Mapbox, see our documentation for our Mapbox Tiling Service, Mapbox Studio, and Uploads API. Make sure you convert your imagery into GeoTIFF format before you upload.
Once you have uploaded your data, it will be automatically converted into a custom raster tileset which you can then add to your Mapbox project.
To learn more what you can do with tilesets, see these guides:
- To create an imagery tileset, see our Processing satellite imagery tutorial.
- To add a tileset to a map style, see our Style a single country tutorial.
- To add a tileset to a web map, see our Add a video example.
Data updates
Imagery is not improved on a set schedule and is updated when and where it becomes available.