A basemap style is a definition that controls the visual appearance of how geographic data in a basemap are displayed. It includes colors, backgrounds, outlines, labels, and other visual elements. Each basemap style emphasizes a specific type of cartographic theme and data. It provides the definition for geographic features such as land, water, roads, buildings, cities, places, administrative boundaries, and also for raster data such as satellite and areal images.
Each basemap style emphasizes a specific type of cartographic theme and data. Basemap styles are categorized into two families based on data provider type: ArcGIS Basemap styles or Open Basemap styles. They are further grouped into the following groups: streets, topography, satellite, reference, and creative.
Related terms
- Basemap layer
A basemap layer is the layer in a map or scene that displays basemap data. The data source for a basemap layer is typically a basemap service. - Basemap layer service
The ArcGIS Basemap Styles service, also referred to as the Basemap Styles service, is a location service that provides basemap styles and data for the world. It returns styles as Mapbox styles and web maps, and data as vector tiles and/or map tiles. It supports all of the styles in the ArcGIS Basemap style and Open Basemap style family. An ArcGIS Location Platform or ArcGIS Online account is required to use the service.