Map layers & overlays
The map you see is built in two parts: a base style that draws the world underneath, and a stack of optional overlays layered on top. The base style sets the overall look — a clean street map, satellite imagery, shaded terrain. Overlays add a single theme over whatever base you've chosen: live traffic, a weather radar loop, hiking trails, recent earthquakes, and so on.
You control both from the layer picker in the bottom-left corner of the map.
Base map styles
A base style is the foundation, and exactly one is active at a time. OpenMapX ships four:
| Style | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Default | The standard OpenMapX street map — roads, labels, land use, water. |
| Satellite | True-color aerial and satellite imagery instead of drawn streets. |
| Terrain | A relief-shaded map that emphasizes elevation, slopes, and landforms. |
| Cycling | A bike-oriented base that foregrounds cycle routes and infrastructure. |
Where the imagery comes from depends on how your instance is configured. The street and terrain bases are served by your tile stack (a self-hosted tile server, or MapTiler Cloud); satellite imagery requires a configured imagery source. If a base style has no data source available on your deployment, it simply isn't offered. The picker also has a Globe view toggle that switches the map from a flat projection to a 3D globe.
How overlays work
Every overlay is an integration. A map-overlay integration declares a few things in its manifest:
- a map-layer component that draws onto the MapLibre map,
- an optional legend explaining its colors or symbols,
- its data source and the attribution that must appear while it's on,
- and where it belongs in the picker (the Map details group, or the Map tools group).
The web app discovers these at runtime and builds the picker from whatever overlay integrations are enabled — so the list below describes the full catalog, not a fixed menu. Toggle an overlay on and its layer is added to the map and its attribution joins the credits in the corner; toggle it off and both go away. Several overlays can be on at once. A few declare exclusions (for example, the weather and air-quality overlays don't stack on top of each other), so turning one on automatically turns its conflicting siblings off.
Because overlays come from integrations, the catalog is yours to shape. Enabling or disabling an integration adds or removes its entry from the picker; community integrations can contribute new overlays of their own. Some overlays also have prerequisites — the cycling and hiking layers query OpenStreetMap through the Overpass service, the travel-time tool wants a Valhalla routing engine — and an overlay whose required service isn't running is hidden until it is. See Managing services for enabling those backends, and How it works for the service-and-integration model.
The overlay catalog
The built-in overlays group into a few themes.
Transportation
| Overlay | Shows | Data |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic | Live traffic-flow coloring on roads | TomTom Traffic (needs an API key) |
| Transit lines | Public-transport routes and lines | OpenStreetMap |
| Live transit | Real-time bus, tram, and train positions | Live-vehicle feeds (e.g. DB RIS, Entur) |
| Airports | Airport locations and metadata | OurAirports |
The traffic overlay needs a TomTom API key (set in the admin panel or via
.env), and only renders above a minimum zoom. The live-transit overlay picks
one vehicle-position provider per visible region. These overlays complement the
dedicated public transit and directions
features rather than replacing them.
Environment & weather
| Overlay | Shows | Data |
|---|---|---|
| Weather | Precipitation radar animation, plus temperature/cloud/wind/pressure tiles | RainViewer, OpenWeather, Open-Meteo |
| Weather alerts | Active severe-weather warnings | NOAA, Environment Canada, DWD, MeteoAlarm |
| Air quality | Air-quality index from monitoring stations | OpenAQ |
| Environment | Readings from community environmental sensors | openSenseMap, Sensor.Community |
The weather overlay's radar loop works out of the box; its temperature, cloud, wind, and pressure tiles need an OpenWeather API key. The weather overlay here is the map-wide layer — the per-place forecast lives in the weather feature.
Hazards & natural events
| Overlay | Shows | Data |
|---|---|---|
| Earthquakes | Recent earthquakes, sized by magnitude | USGS |
| Wildfires | Active fire hotspots | NASA FIRMS |
| Natural events | Storms, volcanoes, floods, and other ongoing events | NASA EONET, GDACS |
These pull from public hazard feeds and are useful for situational awareness at a glance.
Recreation & specialty
| Overlay | Shows | Data |
|---|---|---|
| Cycling | Cycle tracks, lanes, parking, and bike shops | OpenStreetMap (via Overpass) |
| Hiking | Hiking trails and mountain shelters | Waymarked Trails, Refuges.info, OpenStreetMap |
| Winter sports | Ski areas, pistes, and lifts | OpenSnowMap |
| Nautical | Sea marks, depths, tides, and water levels | OpenSeaMap and marine agencies |
| Satellite imagery | A true-color satellite overlay (distinct from the satellite base) | NASA GIBS / MODIS |
| 3D buildings | Extruded building footprints | OpenMapTiles building data |
Map tools
Two entries in the picker are interactive tools rather than passive layers:
- Measure — draw a path on the map to read off its distance and area.
- Travel time — paint an isochrone showing how far you can get within a time budget, computed by a Valhalla routing engine.
The picker only lists overlays whose integration is enabled and whose required services are running. If an overlay you expect is missing, check that its integration is enabled and any backend it needs (Overpass, Valhalla, a transit provider) is part of your service selection.
Related features
- Search and places — finding and inspecting points on the map.
- Directions and public transit — routing, which uses some of the same backends as the transit overlays.
- Street-level imagery — the immersive ground-level view, which can't be on at the same time as some overlays.
- Weather and mobility data — related data-driven features.