Mapbox data

Mapbox data is the foundation for all our maps, search, and navigation services. We update data continuously to serve customers and use cases across the globe, ingesting updates from open and proprietary sources.

This guide describes Mapbox data that developers can use, including information on data coverage and quality.

To contribute data, see our Improve this map utility.

Key terms

It can be helpful to understand key terms related to map data.

For more detailed definitions, click the terms below or visit the Glossary.

• raster: a pixel-based data format that stores data in a grid structure
• vector tile: a lightweight data format for storing vector data
• tileset: a collection of raster or vector data broken up into a grid

Map data

Mapbox tilesets offer developers access to a wide variety of map data, including road networks, place names, points of interest, satellite and aerial imagery, elevation data, live traffic data, expertly curated national borders, transit data, and more. The data in these tilesets is suitable for a wide variety of applications, both visual and analytical.

Click a tileset to learn about its layers, data sources, data updates, and more:

Data coverage and quality

Mapbox continuously improves data coverage and quality for all our services.

The following table shows data coverage by country for our Geocoding and Search APIs. Some data are available at a city level and do not appear in this list. Data coverage can change due to various reasons, including construction activities for roads, changes in government regulations, and changes in the licensing agreements with data providers.

See the Geocoding API documentation for definitions of data types.

Legend

Map projections

By default, Mapbox renders maps and map tiles with the popular Web Mercator projection using the EPSG:3857 projected coordinate system (sometimes called EPSG:900913). Because Web Mercator is used by most web maps, you can often combine map tiles and layers from other platforms that use the same projection with your Mapbox maps. You can use Mapbox GL JS adaptive projections to display map tiles on the web using different projections.

Use our data

You can use our map data as source data for your map styles in Mapbox Studio, access our data directly using the Mapbox Maps Service APIs, or contribute to our data sources through OpenStreetMap.

Mapbox Studio

You can use our tilesets directly in Mapbox Studio on the Tilesets page. Whenever you create a new style from a template style in the Mapbox Studio style editor, you are using a Mapbox tileset.

Maps APIs

With our Maps APIs, you can request Mapbox tilesets programmatically:

• Retrieve vector tiles with the Vector Tiles API.
• Retrieve features from vector tiles with the Tilequery API.
• Retrieve raster tiles with the Raster Tiles API.
• Retrieve TileJSON metadata for vector and raster tilesets with Mapbox Tiling Service (MTS).
• Access elevation data using the instructions in our Access Elevation Data guide.

Contribute to OpenStreetMap

We contribute to OpenStreetMap, and you should too!

Sign up for a free account to start contributing. The OpenStreetMap web editor allows you to draw or edit features such as roads, buildings, parks, traffic signals, and labels. Read Learn OpenStreetMap for a step-by-step guide to start contributing to the project.

We've covered how Mapbox works with OpenStreetMap data, the quality controls behind it, and how you can be a part of this growing movement to provide a free and open data set for everyone.

Next steps

Now that you know that you can use Mapbox data and create your own vector or raster tilesets, you are ready to begin building with map data.

These tutorials can help you start building:

• Tutorial: Add points to a web map, part 1: prepare your data using custom data.
• Tutorial: Customize label text for a single label using Mapbox Streets data.
• Tutorial: Add 3D buildings to a Mapbox Studio style using Mapbox Streets data.
• Video: Create a 3D terrain map with hypsometric tinting using Mapbox Terrain data.