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Mapbox Studio

  • check
    Create custom maps
  • check
    Upload custom data as tilesets
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    Create data visualizations
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    Draw data in the dataset editor

This Mapbox Studio manual contains a comprehensive explanation of each section of Mapbox Studio, including general descriptions of individual components and detailed information on specific tools. It can be used either as a reference when using specific tools in Mapbox Studio, or as a way to understand the general pieces of how a Mapbox map is constructed.

  • Guides: Conceptual explanations of the map components and workflows in Mapbox Studio.
  • Examples: A collection of style examples you can browse and add to your account.
  • Reference: Comprehensive descriptions of the Mapbox Studio interface.
  • Tutorials: Step-by-step tutorials for creating map styles and using them in applications.
  • Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting guides for tasks related to map styles.
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Tutorials for Mapbox Studio

See our Mapbox Studio tutorials to find step-by-step instructions to help you learn how to upload data in Mapbox Studio, create custom map styles in Mapbox Studio, use custom map styles in applications on different platforms, and more.

What is Mapbox Studio?

Mapbox Studio is the Mapbox application for managing your geospatial data and designing custom map styles. Use Mapbox Studio to build and design a map to your exact specifications by uploading and editing your own data, utilizing Mapbox-provided tilesets, adding custom fonts and icons, or refining the built-in template map styles. With Mapbox Studio, full data management and design control are at your fingertips.

database

Create datasets

with the Mapbox Studio dataset editor.

tileset

Create tilesets

to add custom data to map styles.

paint

Create map styles

with the Mapbox Studio style editor.

How does it work?

Digital maps are comprised of three major parts - geospatial data, styling rules describing how the data should look, and a tool that takes those and displays a map. In the case of Mapbox, we do the following:

icon representing tilesets

Geospatial data: Mapbox uses tilesets as a geospatial data format when displaying maps. Tilesets are a lightweight storage format for both raster and vector data. When you upload data to Mapbox, it is stored as a tileset.

icon representing a style JSON document

Styling rules: When you define how your data should be styled in the Mapbox Studio style editor, this information is stored in a JSON document that conforms to the Mapbox Style Specification.

icon representing Mapbox GL

Display: Whether you use the Mapbox Maps SDK for iOS or Android on mobile or Mapbox GL JS on the web, we use a tool called Mapbox GL to put together the style JSON and the tilesets used in the style and to draw your map.

Mapbox Studio provides tools for converting your data to tilesets and creating styles. It also includes a dataset editor, which you can use to create and edit data before converting to a tileset. Once you create a style, you can display your map using Mapbox GL JS or one of our mobile SDKs.

Sample workflow

The flexibility of Mapbox Studio's design supports many different workflows. Below is one possible workflow for creating a custom map style with your own data in Mapbox Studio. In this example, custom data is created with the dataset editor, exported to a tileset, styled in the style editor, and displayed on the web with Mapbox GL JS.

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