Mapbox offers a global collection of satellite and aerial imagery, with resolutions ranging from a continent scale (1000+ meters per pixel) down to individual buildings and even cars (5 cm). Mapbox imagery is available in a variety of styles accessed through different core Mapbox services.

By using Mapbox’s imagery, you can gain additional context about your surroundings, perform tasks like identifying every parking lot in a state or every school in the world, or visualize the extent of deforestation in the Amazon basin. Its broad coverage and recent vintage allows you to understand ground truth before hiking a new area, making a curbside delivery in a new neighborhood, or accurately plan a UAV flight by using existing landmarks in the imagery.

We source both open-source and commercial imagery, and strive to create the most current, highest quality imagery layer available. Our imagery comes from satellites (orbiting in space) and aerial (flying in planes) sources, and varies in resolution from 1000 meters per pixel to 5 centimeters per pixel.

Imagery provides context beyond what can be gleaned from a street map, and can provide visual reference not available through other means. Things like identifying farm boundaries, counting the number of houses in a new development, or measuring the extent of urban expansion are just some of the solutions imagery can provide.

Mapbox imagery is served through a number of our core service endpoints. Requests can be made through the Raster Tiles API, Static Images API, or as a style in Mapbox Studio. These endpoints can serve imagery by themselves, via <code-span>'mapbox://styles/mapbox/satellite-v9'<code-span>. Static Images and Mapbox Studio can also serve streets overlaid on imagery by using <code-span>'mapbox://styles/mapbox/satellite-streets-v11'<code-span>.

Mapbox curates its imagery layer to serve a broad range of customers and use cases. For customers needing imagery not contained in our layers, you can procure your own imagery and use the Uploads API to add it to your Mapbox account. While we do not offer custom imagery at this time, we are happy to introduce you to a number of different vendors to fit your needs. Contact us to learn more.

We regularly search for and add open-source imagery to our collection, but realize we might not find every available source. We welcome customers to recommend imagery by contacting us with a description of the imagery, including any relevant links in order for us to investigate the imagery and its licensing to ensure it can be used in our platform. In general, we only consider imagery with resolution greater than 50 cm that was collected within the past 2 years.

Imagery is used by thousands of organizations and millions of end users. Common uses include identifying features on the ground, such as land use, natural features such as lakes or forests, farm or field extents, or man-made features such as buildings, roads, pipelines, or mines. Imagery is used in navigation by providing contextual information for deliveries or pickups, and is often used to chart paths traveled in fitness apps.

Mapbox imagery is currently available through two tilesets that users can integrate into their maps. Our default tileset is <code-span>‘mapbox.satellite’<code-span>, and contains sources from both satellites and airplanes from zoom levels 0 through 20. For customers in the United States, we also have the <code-span>‘mapbox.naip’<code-span> tileset, which uses USDA NAIP aerial imagery for zoom levels 12 - 16 over the contiguous US.

Mapbox’s imagery comes from a variety of open and commercial sources. In general, we use NASA’s MODIS satellite for low resolution tiles, Maxar’s Vivid product for zooms 8 - 18 globally, and Vexcel Imaging aerial imagery for zooms 14+ over portions of the US, Canada, and Europe. We also have open source aerial imagery covering most of France, Denmark, Switzerland, and various cities around the world. A full list of sources can be found here.

Imagery age varies by location, though typically cities and suburbs are refreshed more often than rural areas. Mapbox updates imagery on a regular basis and strives to keep it as up to date as possible.

Image resolution will vary by source and zoom level, with lower zoom levels containing coarser resolutions. With very few exceptions (Antarctica, Greenland, some smaller islands), the standard resolution for global imagery is 50 cm, with higher resolution aerial imagery available over portions of the US, Canada, and Europe. The <code-span>‘mapbox.naip’<code-span> tileset offers most states at 60 cm resolution, with a few at 1 m.

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The answer varies depending on the type of map you’re using, as GL-based maps serve 512x512 pixel tiles and the Mapbox Raster Tiles API serves 256x256 pixels. Specific resolutions for latitude can be found in our documentation.

The accuracy of Mapbox imagery varies based on the source and resolution. The highest resolution satellite imagery from Maxar is accurate to within 4 m RMSE. In areas of high relief, accuracy may fall outside of that specification due to Digital Elevation Model (DEM) errors. The Nearmap imagery over US urban areas is accurate to within 25.5cm RMSE. Accuracies of open-source aerial imagery will vary, but typically be within 1 m RMSE.

Mapbox constantly updates our imagery with both open-source and commercial data. Open source imagery is added as it becomes available, and may cover areas from a single city to an entire country. Commercial imagery is updated based on customer demand and existing imagery age.

We are not able to make imagery metadata available at this time. If your project depends on certain imagery characteristics, please contact us so we can assess your needs and determine the best source to use.

Yes! We include our <code-span>‘mapbox.satellite’<code-span> tileset as an option in GL JS to drape it over terrain. It should be noted that, when viewed in 3D perspective, tiles of different zoom levels are loaded. This could result in 2 different imagery sources being loaded in the same screen, giving the appearance of a seamline.

The imagery used in ‘mapbox.satellite’ is the same imagery available to OSM. This data can be used to make edits and updates in OpenStreetMap.

Mapbox imagery is only available for use within Mapbox services and platforms. If there is a need for offline use, we offer Mapbox Atlas for behind-the-firewall needs. Imagery can be cached locally for performance purposes only for no more than 30 days.

We allow for tracing of features and extraction only for non-commercial purposes, and for individuals updating OpenStreetMap. Tracing or extracting features for commercial use is prohibited. More information can be found in our Terms of Service.

Yes, we include a global layer of imagery up to zoom 14 in Mapbox Atlas. If there is a need to include areas of higher resolution, please work with your account manager to assess your needs for us to develop a custom solution.

Developers can use the Release Candidate version to start integrating the SDK in their apps, provide feedback to Mapbox before GA, and publish builds to their testing tracks. We recommend developers to migrate to the GA version of the SDK before releasing your application to the market.

We don’t allow customers to add their own imagery to our curated imagery tilesets, but you are able to add imagery to your own account. You can add a raster layer in GL JS or add an image to your account with the Uploads API.

Mapbox imagery is made of many sources, which may change based on the map’s zoom level. All source information is available at https://www.mapbox.com/about/maps.

Our documentation is available through our Documentation pages here.

Mapbox updates imagery on a regular basis, and we strive to keep it as current as possible. While there’s not currently a mechanism to request specific imagery updates, you can read about how we update imagery here.