Choose a map style

Map design First steps

This collection of articles forms a suggested workflow to help you begin with your first steps in map design.

  1. Maps & styles basics
  2. Choose a map style
  3. Quick map editing
  4. How to publish a map

MapTiler provides Cloud users with a set of ready to use base maps. Do you wonder where you can find them or which one is suitable for your use case? Find out in this article.

Map wizard

When you log in to your MapTiler Cloud account, you will see the dashboard below. Click on the NEW MAP button to get to the Map wizard.

cloud-dashboard.png

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Ready to use maps

Map wizard includes all MapTiler base maps created by our cartographers. These maps can be used right away with the USE THIS MAP button. Or you can customize them to your needs.

use-map.png

use-map.png

Once you have your preferred map style in your account, you can embed it into your apps or websites. Scroll down for embeddable viewer, vector style.json, raster tiles, WMTS or static map image.

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Maps for different use cases

MapTiler offers maps for various use cases. The most used are listed below.

Streets

  • first-class map with highlighted transportation networks and 3D cities

Satellite

  • seamless imagery for the whole world

Basic

  • lightweight and informative base map for overlaying your own geodata

Dataviz

  • simple background map style fordata visualization

Outdoor

  • map for hiking, biking and other outdoor sports

Winter

  • map for skiing, snowboarding and winter activities

Map categories

Maps are sorted based on the categories in the map wizard:

  • Popular (most used maps)
  • Simple (minimalistic maps for data overlays)
  • Navigation (context maps with transportation)
  • Terrain (maps including terrain and topography)
  • Others
  • All

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Color variants

Most of the MapTiler base maps come in dark, light or pastel variants. The variants can be found in the map wizard.

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Dark modes are beneficial for navigation at night or for highlighted data visualizations. Maps with dark color variants:

Light modes are monochromatic grey base maps that let your data stand out. Maps with light color variants:

Some maps come also in pastel color variants with tuned-down contrast and soft color schemes.

Conclusion

With MapTiler Cloud, users can leverage the ready to use base maps created for different use cases. All maps and their color variants can be found in the map wizard after clicking on the NEW MAP button.

Next steps

Continue to Quick map editing to learn about the Quick Edits panel for the simple and fast design of your maps in MapTiler Customize.

MapTiler maps overview
MapTiler Cloud dashboard
Dark base maps
Light base maps
Quick map editing