basemap
A map style's basemap generally refers to the background map features, such as roads, buildings, labels, parks, points of interest, and bodies of water. Developers building with Mapbox usually add additional data layers on top of the basemap to create custom interactive maps for their applications.
Mapbox provides two map styles that serve as basemaps:
- Mapbox Standard, which is a general-purpose street map style suitable for a wide range of applications.
- Mapbox Standard Satellite, which provides a satellite imagery layer with minimal vector-based labels and features, ideal for applications that require a more realistic representation of the Earth's surface.
Both styles have configuration options that allow developers to customize the appearance of the basemap, such as adjusting colors, or setting the visibility of certain features.
There are two main approaches to using these basemaps in your application:
- You can instantiate a new map in your application using either of these styles, adding your layers at runtime.
- You can create a custom style in Mapbox Studio based on either of these styles, adding your layers and customization in the style editor, then use that custom style in your application.
In both scenarios, Mapbox Standard or Mapbox Standard Satellite are included as an import in the resulting map style, with user-defined layers integrated at various points in the layer stack using slots.
Or you can create your own basemap style from scratch in Mapbox Studio by adding and styling various map features according to your design requirements. This approach provides maximum flexibility but requires more effort to set up.