Map Sources

Map Sources#

Reference of map data, tile servers, geocoders, and imagery providers an operator builds from. The space splits into raster tile services (slippy maps), vector tile / data, satellite + aerial imagery, geocoders, routing engines, and specialized overlays.

For OSINT-flavored geolocation (Sentinel Hub, Mapillary, Google Earth, etc.), see OSINT Sources. This page is the lookup for infrastructure you’d build a map with.

Vector / OSM data#

Source

Notes

OpenStreetMap

The base layer of the open-data world; planet.osm extracts.

Geofabrik extracts

Per-country / per-region OSM PBF dumps.

BBBike extracts

Custom-area extracts, smaller files.

Overpass API

Live OSM queries (Overpass-turbo for interactive).

Nominatim

OSM geocoder; geocode.maps.co for hosted.

Natural Earth

Public-domain country / state / city / physical.

GADM

Global Administrative Areas (level 0-5).

Who’s On First (SF Public Library)

Whosonfirst, hierarchical place IDs.

GeoNames

Place names, populated places, postal codes.

Daylight Map (Meta + OSM)

Quality-controlled OSM snapshot.

Microsoft Building Footprints

1B+ AI-derived building outlines (US, AF, EU, AU).

Google Open Buildings

1.8B+ buildings across Africa / Asia / Lat-Am.

Overture Maps

Linux Foundation; AWS / Microsoft / Meta-backed merge.

Raster tile services#

Service

Notes

OpenStreetMap.org tiles

Free with usage policy; not for production.

OpenFreeMap

Free OSM-based vector + raster tiles.

Stadia Maps

OSM-based; commercial-friendly.

MapTiler

Vector + raster; per-style.

Mapbox

Vector tiles; first-party styles.

Stamen / Stadia

Watercolor, Toner, Terrain.

Carto

Positron, Voyager, Dark Matter; basemaps.

Thunderforest

Cycle, Outdoors, Transport, etc.

HERE

Commercial; deep auto-routing roots.

TomTom

Commercial; logistics / navigation focus.

Esri ArcGIS Online

ArcGIS Pro / JS APIs; first-party imagery + map.

Google Maps Platform

Tiles, places, directions, street view.

Bing Maps

Tiles, geocoder, Streetside.

Mapy.cz

Czech-origin; strong outdoors EU.

Satellite and aerial imagery#

Source

Notes

Sentinel-2 (ESA Copernicus)

10m optical; free; 5-day revisit.

Sentinel-1

C-band SAR; free; cloud-penetrating.

Sentinel-3

Ocean / land surface; 300m.

Sentinel-5P

Atmospheric (NO2, CH4, etc.).

Landsat 8 / 9 (USGS)

30m optical; free; 16-day revisit.

MODIS (Terra/Aqua, NASA)

250m daily.

VIIRS (Suomi NPP, NOAA-20)

375-750m daily; nighttime lights.

SRTM

30m digital elevation; free (USGS).

ASTER GDEM

30m DEM (NASA / METI).

ALOS World 3D

30m DEM (JAXA).

Copernicus DEM (GLO-30)

30m DEM (ESA).

USGS 3DEP

1m / 10m DEM (US only); LIDAR.

USGS National Map

US-focused topo / imagery.

NAIP

US 1m aerial; ~yearly.

NLCD

US land cover.

Maxar (DigitalGlobe)

Commercial sub-meter; SecureWatch.

Planet Labs

Daily 3m + ~50cm SkySat (commercial).

Airbus Pleiades / Pleiades Neo

Commercial sub-meter.

BlackSky

Commercial; intra-day revisit.

Capella Space, ICEYE, Umbra

Commercial SAR.

Satellogic

Commercial 1m optical.

Spire

GNSS-RO, weather, AIS.

NOAA Open Data

GOES-R, NOAA satellites; weather + atmospheric.

NASA Worldview

Daily browse for many of the above.

USGS EarthExplorer

Search across the USGS catalog.

Sentinel Hub Browser

Search Copernicus archive.

ESA Copernicus Browser

Same data, ESA UI.

Up42, SkyFi, Apollo Mapping

Imagery-on-demand brokers.

Routing engines#

Engine

Notes

OSRM

Open Source Routing Machine; OSM-based.

GraphHopper

OSS routing; cycle / car / hike.

Valhalla

OSS routing engine (Mapzen → Linux Foundation).

pgRouting

PostgreSQL extension for routing on graphs.

OpenRouteService

HeiGIT; hosted service + OSS.

BRouter

Cycle / hiking-oriented routing.

Mapbox Directions API

Commercial.

Google Directions API

Commercial.

HERE Routing

Commercial; auto-grade.

TomTom Routing

Commercial.

Geocoders#

Geocoder

Notes

Nominatim

OSM-based; self-hostable.

Pelias

Mapzen → self-hosted; OSM + Geonames + WoF.

Photon

Komoot’s OSM geocoder.

OpenCage Geocoding

Aggregator (OSM + others); commercial-friendly.

LocationIQ

OSM-based commercial.

Geoapify

OSM-based commercial.

Google Geocoding

Commercial.

HERE Geocoding

Commercial.

Mapbox Geocoding

Commercial.

Specialty overlays#

Source

Notes

GBIF

Biodiversity occurrence data.

INSPIRE

EU geospatial directive; per-country portals.

IPCC AR6 atlas

Climate scenarios.

GHSL (Global Human Settlement)

EU JRC; population, built-up.

WorldPop

Population grids.

Global Forest Watch

Tree-cover loss + monitoring.

NASA FIRMS

Active fire / hot spots.

Global Fishing Watch

AIS-based fishing-vessel tracking.

NOAA NWS

US weather forecasts + radar tiles.

ECMWF

Global numerical weather (commercial + free tiers).

Open-Meteo, OpenWeather, Visual Cro ssing

Free / commercial weather APIs.

LightningMaps, Blitzortung

Lightning networks.

FlightRadar24, ADS-B Exchange

see OSINT Sources.

MarineTraffic, AIS Hub

AIS vessel networks.

USGS Earthquake Hazards

Earthquake feeds (real-time + archive).

Self-hosting stacks#

Stack

Notes

PostgreSQL + PostGIS

The reference spatial DB.

GDAL / OGR

Format conversion; the Swiss-army knife.

osm2pgsql, imposm

Load OSM into Postgres.

Tegola, Tippecanoe, planetiler

Vector-tile generators.

mbtiles + tileserver-gl

Serve vector tiles locally.

GeoServer, MapServer

OGC-compliant WMS / WFS / WMTS.

QGIS

Desktop GIS; the analyst’s tool.

Leaflet, OpenLayers, MapLibre GL JS

Web map clients.

deck.gl, kepler.gl

WebGL data visualization.

H3 (Uber), S2 (Google)

Hierarchical hex / quad grids.

Pelias, Nominatim

self-hosted geocoders.

Operator notes#

  • Tile usage policies, OSM.org tiles are heavily rate- limited; production deployments self-host or use commercial providers.

  • Attribution, OSM and most open data require visible attribution; check each provider’s terms.

  • Coordinate systems, WGS84 (EPSG:4326) for source data; Web Mercator (EPSG:3857) for tiles; UTM zones for measurement.

  • Privacy, geolocation and GPS traces are PII in many jurisdictions; mind retention and aggregation.

  • Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) + STAC are the modern pattern for petabyte imagery archives.

  • Vector tiles + MapLibre is the open-default stack in 2026.

References#

Contents