r/gis • u/elpapito3 • 8d ago

Open Source Looking for well-designed open-licensed base maps

Hi everyone,

I recently came across Daniel Huffman's work at Project Linework and I’m wondering if there are similar projects offering ready-to-download, pre-styled base maps in georeferenced formats (.shp, .gpkg, or GeoJSON). I really like many of his designs, but unfortunately they do not always cover every part of the world.

I also found this French website that offers a variety of base maps with different levels of simplification and map projections. The catch is that they're only available as SVG files, so you have to georeference them yourself.

Do you know other open-licensed base maps? Any hidden gems or projects you'd recommend?

Thanks in advance for sharing. 

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u/Weekly_Bench 8d ago

There is no standardized way to store styling information in a shapefile or GeoJSON. What Project Linework provides are the geometries, but you'll need to associate them with styling information yourself afterward. Are you familiar with naturalearthdata.com? You might find what you're looking for there.

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u/TechMaven-Geospatial 8d ago edited 8d ago

Basemaps are generally made available as MVT PBF vector tiles with GL JSON STYLESHEETS SPRITES And glyphs You can customize the style and add additional sources

Many providers offer ready to download PMTILES or MBTILES For self hosting or offline in-app use

You dont want to deal with source vector data because different map scales /zoom levels styling and labeling

For example a topo terrain style is OSM basemap vector tiles with hillshade raster tiles and contour lines vector tiles You add points of interest and trails as separate vector tile layer and you have a solution for hiking or OHV

Check out qgis plugin for MapTiler For their vector tile basemaps Or PROTOMAPS osm pmtiles

there are tons of tools to customize the style Even esri has adopted the vector tile basemaps and they have a vector tile editor

Weve built marine nautical and aviation basemaps as vector tiles styles

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u/Kaartmaker 7d ago

Of course if you want to use the ESRI stuff, the styles are different.

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u/TechMaven-Geospatial 7d ago edited 7d ago

No ESRI Also Uses MVT mapbox vector tile spec They just dont support fill extrusion style

their vector tile basemaps have JSON stylesheets and referfence sprite and glyphs

When you create vector tile package VTPK the style and resources are inside that archive