A basemap is the map that sits underneath your own data. It supplies the geographic context, including coastlines and water, land cover, roads and paths, administrative boundaries, and place labels. Your markers, routes, and polygons go on top of it. The Stadia Maps basemap styles are built mostly from OpenStreetMap data, with licensed satellite imagery where imagery is the base, and are served as vector tiles, raster tiles, or both. Most of them are tuned around the same constraint: keeping the map readable once your data is added on top.

Key Takeaways

  • A basemap provides geographic context. Markers, routes, heat maps, and choropleths are the overlay you add on top of it.
  • A basemap is two things: tile data, and a style document that describes how to draw it. With vector tiles, the style is applied on the client and can be changed.
  • Stadia Maps basemap styles differ mainly in how much visual weight they give the map itself. Our style library describes Alidade Smooth as using "a muted color scheme and fewer points of interest to allow your added data to shine," while recommending OSM Bright where you "have minimal overlays or other data that might clash with the styling."
  • Stadia Maps vector tiles follow the OpenMapTiles schema and cover zoom 0 through 14, with over-zooming past that. Raster tiles go to zoom 20 for most styles.
  • Choosing a basemap is mostly a question about your overlay, not about the map.

What Goes in the Basemap, and What Goes on Top

The basemap supplies the ground. In the OpenMapTiles schema that Stadia Maps vector tiles follow, that means layers such as water and water_name, landcover for physical surface material, landuse for human purpose, roads and paths, boundaries, and place labels. Every user of your application sees the same basemap.

The overlay is yours. Our Maps product page lists choropleth maps, heat maps, and custom data overlays among what customers build on top, alongside markers, route lines, and polygons.

This split explains a common mix-up. Teams looking for a basemap sometimes describe what they want as satellite photographs, and teams looking for imagery sometimes ask for a basemap. Alidade Satellite is a map style that uses satellite imagery as its base and layers labels and feature outlines on top. It is not an imagery product, and it is not a data source for the things you plot.

What Is a Basemap Made Of?

Two pieces: the tile data, and the rules for drawing it.

The data comes from OpenStreetMap for most features, with licensed Airbus satellite imagery where imagery is the base. Stadia Maps serves vector tiles in Mapbox Vector Tile (MVT) format with a schema compatible with OpenMapTiles, at https://tiles.stadiamaps.com/data/openmaptiles.json. Vector coverage runs from zoom 0 to zoom 14, and renderers over-zoom from the z14 tile beyond that.

The rules are a style document. For vector tiles that is a MapLibre GL JSON style, and the Custom Map Styling docs publish a minimal skeleton with four top-level keys:

  • sources, pointing at the vector tile source
  • sprite, the icon set, such as https://tiles.stadiamaps.com/styles/alidade-smooth/sprite
  • glyphs, the font glyphs, at https://tiles.stadiamaps.com/fonts/{fontstack}/{range}.pbf
  • layers, the list of drawing rules

The same tiles plus a different style document produce a muted map, a dark map, or a high-contrast black-and-white map. Nothing in the tile data changes.

Raster tiles work differently. The style has already been applied by the time the tile reaches you, so a raster basemap is an image. Stadia Maps serves raster tiles at https://tiles.stadiamaps.com/tiles/<style>/{z}/{x}/{y}{r}.png, up to zoom 20 for most styles. Vector vs. Raster Map Tiles covers the trade-off between the two formats in full.

Why Do Basemap Styles Look So Different?

Because they are built for different amounts of overlay. Our style library says so style by style.

Alidade Smooth is "designed for maps that use a lot of markers or overlays," with "a muted color scheme and fewer points of interest to allow your added data to shine." If you are plotting several hundred markers, every colored area underneath competes with them.

Alidade Smooth Dark is the same idea with the color scheme inverted. The docs describe it as designed "to stay out of the way," flipping "the dark mode switch on the color scheme."

Alidade Bright is the full-color member of the family. Water, woodland, farmland, and parks each render in their own color over a warm background, and highway shields appear from zoom 7. It labels only four categories of point of interest: parks, hospitals, universities, and cemeteries. The docs tie that restraint directly to the overlay: it "keeps dense areas readable once you add your own data on top."

Alidade Satellite uses satellite imagery as the base and layers labels and outlines of major features on top, which the docs describe as "a solid contextual backdrop for your data."

Stamen Toner takes the idea furthest. The docs call these "high-contrast B+W (black and white) maps" that are "the perfect backdrop for your colorful and eye-catching overlays." With no color in the basemap, every color on the screen belongs to your data. Variations include Toner Lite, Toner Dark, and Toner Blacklite.

Stamen Terrain goes the other direction, "featuring hill shading and natural vegetation colors" to help users orient themselves.

Stamen Watercolor applies "raster effect area washes and organic edges over a paper texture." The docs describe its purpose as adding "warm pop to any map."

Outdoors is based on OSM Bright and "highlights useful outdoor features such as ski slopes, mountains, parks, and paths." Here the map's own content is a large part of what the user came for.

OSM Bright states the condition under which the backdrop principle stops applying. The docs recommend it "where you are focused on providing directions, have minimal overlays or other data that might clash with the styling, or want a lot of POIs visible."

How Do You Choose a Basemap?

Our Map Styles page frames the goal as finding "the best combination of detail and design for your integration." In practice, start with the overlay.

  • Dense overlay. Hundreds of markers, a heat map, or a choropleth covering most of the viewport. Alidade Smooth, Alidade Smooth Dark, and Stamen Toner are the styles the docs describe as built for this.
  • Sparse overlay. A handful of markers, or a single route line. Alidade Bright or Alidade Satellite can carry more detail without competing.
  • No overlay, or the map is the content. OSM Bright for directions and dense POIs, Outdoors for trails and terrain, Stamen Terrain for topography.
  • Dark mode. Alidade Smooth Dark, Toner Dark, and Toner Blacklite. With vector tiles you can switch at runtime rather than shipping a second map.
  • Real-world appearance matters. Alidade Satellite, where the user needs to see what a place actually looks like rather than an abstraction of it.

Two practical constraints narrow the list further. If you are on raster tiles and need a custom look, you cannot restyle on the client. And if you need zoom past 16, Stamen Watercolor is not an option, since raster tiles for that style stop there.

Can You Customize a Basemap?

With vector tiles, yes, and the Custom Map Styling docs describe what that covers: you can "change the color scheme of an existing style, change the language of place labels, and more," including dynamically while the map is running.

We recommend Maputnik, an open-source style editor, for modifying an existing Stadia Maps style. Open it, enter the JSON URL for one of the styles, edit, then export. If you access tiles by API key rather than domain-based auth, enter the key in the export dialog and Maputnik will add it to the exported style for you.

Customization goes deeper than color if you need it to:

  • Sprites. Generate your own icon set with Spreet and host it, then point the sprite key at it without a file extension.
  • Fonts. Stadia Maps rolls its default fonts into a super-font stack (Stadia Regular, Italic, Bold, and Semibold) so styles are easier to edit. You can mix and match from the full font list, or generate your own SDF glyphs with the open-source build_pbf_glyphs CLI or MapLibre FontMaker.
  • Starting from scratch. The docs publish a skeleton style JSON pre-filled with the source, sprite, and glyph URLs.
  • EU endpoints. If you need to serve from EU servers for regulatory reasons, change the host to tiles-eu.stadiamaps.com.

Once the style is finished, you host it yourself, either on your own server or CDN or bundled with your application, and load it instead of a Stadia Maps style URL.

Raster is the exception. Custom raster styles require a quote from Stadia Maps. The docs point Leaflet users toward the maplibre-gl-leaflet plugin instead, which renders vector tiles with a custom style inside an existing Leaflet application.

Where the Basemap and Overlay Split Falls Short

The split is a useful default rather than a rule, and a few things complicate it.

  • Not every style is a backdrop. OSM Bright, Outdoors, and Stamen Terrain are built to be looked at. Treating every basemap as something that should recede leads you to the wrong style for a trail app or a directions app.
  • Some of your data may already be in the basemap. If you are plotting hospitals or universities, Alidade Bright already labels those categories. Plotting your own on top can produce duplicate labels.
  • Raster locks in the styling. The docs are explicit that with raster tiles you cannot hide a layer or change the label language on the client. That decision gets made when you choose a format, not when you choose a style.
  • Style modification permissions vary. The docs say you are "generally free to modify Stadia Maps Styles for your own applications," and point to the attribution page for the per-style details.
  • Satellite is a separate case. The imagery-only layer, for teams building a custom style over imagery, uses 512x512 tiles rather than 256x256, which shifts its zoom levels by one compared with a standard raster layer.
  • A custom style is yours to maintain. Hosting, fonts, and sprites all become your responsibility once you export from Maputnik.

Common Basemap Use Cases

  • Data visualization. A muted basemap under a heat map or choropleth, which is what Alidade Smooth and Stamen Toner are built for.
  • Asset and fleet tracking. Many markers in motion over a basemap that stays still and quiet.
  • Directions and local search. OSM Bright, where the docs recommend a lot of visible POIs and minimal overlay.
  • Outdoor and recreation apps. Outdoors for ski slopes, mountains, parks, and paths, or Stamen Terrain for hill shading.
  • Property, logistics, and field operations. Alidade Satellite, where the real appearance of a site carries information a styled vector map abstracts away.
  • WordPress and CMS integrations. Raster tiles through the Leaflet Map plugin, where the simplest integration path matters more than client-side styling, or a vector style through the Mapster WP Maps plugin.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a basemap?

A basemap is the map that sits underneath your own data, providing geographic context such as coastlines, water, roads, land cover, and place labels. Your markers, routes, and overlays go on top of it. The basemap is the same for every user of your application; the overlay is what makes the map yours. Stadia Maps basemap styles are built mostly from OpenStreetMap data, with licensed satellite imagery where imagery is the base.

What is the difference between a basemap and a map layer?

A basemap is the bottom layer, the geographic context everything else sits on. A map layer is any one set of features drawn on the map, and a basemap is made of many of them. In the OpenMapTiles schema that Stadia Maps vector tiles follow, landcover, landuse, water, water_name, roads, and labels are separate layers inside the basemap.

Why do basemap styles look so different from each other?

Because they are built for different amounts of overlay. The Stadia Maps style library describes Alidade Smooth as using a muted color scheme and fewer points of interest to allow your added data to shine, and Stamen Toner as high-contrast black and white maps that make a backdrop for colorful overlays. OSM Bright goes the other way: the documentation recommends it where you have minimal overlays and want a lot of POIs visible.

How do I choose a basemap?

Start with your overlay. A dense overlay needs a muted basemap that stays out of the way, which is what Alidade Smooth, Alidade Smooth Dark, and Stamen Toner are built for. A sparse overlay leaves room for Alidade Bright or Alidade Satellite to carry more detail. If the map itself is the content, OSM Bright suits directions and dense POIs, Outdoors suits trails and terrain, and Stamen Terrain adds hill shading.

Can I customize a basemap?

With vector tiles, yes. Styling happens on the client, so you can change the color scheme, change the language of place labels, and restyle the map at runtime. The Stadia Maps documentation recommends Maputnik, an open-source editor, for modifying an existing style, and publishes a skeleton style JSON for building one from scratch. Raster tiles are rendered before they reach you, so you consume them as provided; custom raster styles require a quote.

What is a basemap made of?

Tile data and a style document. Stadia Maps vector tiles are served in Mapbox Vector Tile format with an OpenMapTiles-compatible schema, covering zoom 0 through 14 with over-zooming past that. The style is a MapLibre GL JSON document with top-level keys for sources, sprite, glyphs, and layers. The same tiles with a different style document produce a muted map, a dark map, or a high-contrast one.

Is satellite imagery a basemap?

It can be the base of one. Alidade Satellite uses satellite imagery as its base and layers labels and outlines of major features on top, which makes it a map style rather than an imagery product. You serve it in your own maps the same way you would any other basemap. If you are building a custom style over imagery, note that the imagery-only layer uses 512x512 tiles, so its zoom levels are off by one compared with a standard raster layer.

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