Mapzen Vector Tiles provide basemap coverage of the world in several vector tile formats. Tiles are available for zooms 0 through 16 and are available in several spatial data formats including MVT and GeoJSON. Learn more about the various data formats offered.
To use Mapzen's hosted vector tile service in a project, obtain an API key from Mapzen.
Once you have your Mapzen API key you'll need include it with Vector Tile requests as a URL query string like:
?api_key=your-mapzen-api-key
Request a single tile with this URL pattern to get started:
https://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/{layers}/{z}/{x}/{y}.{format}?api_key=your-mapzen-api-key
The OpenStreetMap Wiki has more information on this url scheme.
Here’s a sample tile in GeoJSON:
https://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/all/16/19293/24641.json?api_key=your-mapzen-api-key
Tiled geographic data enables fast fetching and display of "slippy maps".
Tiling is the process of cutting raw map data from latitude and longitude geographic coordinates (EPSG:4329) into a smaller data files using a file naming scheme based on zoom, x, and y in the Web Mercator (EPSG:3857) projection.
{z}zoom ranges from 0 to 20 (but no new information is added after zoom 15){x}horizontal position, counting from the "left", ranges from 0 to variable depending on the zoom{y}vertical position, counting from the "top", ranges from 0 to variable depending on the zoom
- MapTiler.org's Tiles à la Google Maps: Coordinates, Tile Bounds and Projection has a great visualization that overlays tile coordinates on an interactive map
- GeoFabrik's Tile Calculator charts number of tiles per zoom with a customizable bounding box
Layers to return can specified as all, or as one or more layer names separated by commas. Using the all layer is more performant.
buildings: https://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/buildings/16/19293/24641.json?api_key=your-mapzen-api-key
earth,landuse: https://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/earth,landuse/16/19293/24641.json?api_key=your-mapzen-api-key
When requesting a single layer, the response will be a single FeatureCollection, without any layer name prefix:
{
"type":"FeatureCollection",
"features": [...],
...
}When requesting multiple layers in GeoJSON, a dictionary of FeatureCollections will be returned, keyed by layer name:
{
"earth": {
"type":"FeatureCollection",
"features": [...],
...
},
"landuse": {
"type":"FeatureCollection",
"features": [...],
...
}
}Mapzen vector tiles can be returned in the following formats.
- GeoJSON: use the
.jsonextension. GeoJSON is easy to get started with, human-readable, and compatible with many tools - TopoJSON: use the
.topojsonextension. TopoJSON is an optimized form of JSON that saves space by encoding topology and reducing replication of shared geometry. - Mapbox-format binary tiles: use the
.mvtextension. This is a compact format using protocol buffers that is used for raster tile rendering in TileMill2 and vector rendering in MapboxGL
Optionally a 256 or 512 pixel tile size may be specified. When not specified, the size defaults to 256. Historically, the first web slippy maps were based on 256 pixel sized tiles.
Larger 512 pixel sized tiles offers several benefits:
- Fewer tiles, fewer network requests: a single 512 request is equivalent to four 256 requests
- Better labels: map rendering software like Tangram and MapboxGL have more room to better place labels
- Smaller overall file sizes: A larger 512 pixel tile compresses to a smaller file size than when split into four 256 tiles
- Offline: Fewer 512 tiles are needed to cover the same geographic area, and take up less disk space
https://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/{tilesize}/{layers}/{z}/{x}/{y}.{format}?api_key=your-mapzen-api-key
The suggested max {z} value for 256 pixel tiles is zoom 16. Requesting {z} coordinates up to 20 will return a smaller geographic area, but the tile will not include any additional data over the zoom 16 tile.
Default:
Including tile size in the path is not required. When not specified the default size of 256 is returned, and Tangram's default tile_size of 256 is used.
.
https://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/{layers}/{z}/{x}/{y}.{format}?api_key=your-mapzen-api-key
Example Tangram YAML:
sources:
mapzen:
type: MVT
url: https://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/all/{z}/{x}/{y}.mvt
url_params:
api_key: your-mapzen-api-key
max_zoom: 16
256 in path:
https://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/256/{layers}/{z}/{x}/{y}.{format}?api_key=your-mapzen-api-key
The suggested max {z} value for 512 pixel tiles is zoom 15. Requesting {z} coordinates up to 20 will return a smaller geographic area, but the tile will not include any additional data over the zoom 15 tile.
In practice, requesting 512 tiles at max zoom 16 can improve Tangram performance. Specifying tile_size of 512 in the Tangram source block is strongly suggested otherwise content will stretch and appear less detailed than intended.
512 in path:
https://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/512/{layers}/{z}/{x}/{y}.{format}?api_key=your-mapzen-api-key
Example Tangram YAML:
sources:
mapzen:
type: MVT
url: https://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/512/all/{z}/{x}/{y}.mvt
url_params:
api_key: your-mapzen-api-key
tile_size: 512
max_zoom: 15
TileJSON is an open standard for representing map metadata. It describes a vector tile service's layers and common properties. It also specifies how to request vector tiles (in mvt format and 256 pixel tile size), and is helpful to get started in applications like Maputnik and Mapbox Studio Classic. You can retrieve Mapzen's TileJSON file at:
http://tile.mapzen.com/mapzen/vector/v1/tilejson/mapbox.json?api_key=your-mapzen-api-key
Mapzen Vector Tiles works over HTTPS, in addition to HTTP. You are strongly encouraged to use HTTPS for all requests, especially for queries involving potentially sensitive information.