Most maps on the Internet are based on tiles. These are, usually, PNG images of 256x256 pixels each, that form a map when stitched together. They are a core ingredient of fast zoomable and pannable maps because they can be cached both on the server and client side. When the map view is moved, the client does not have to download the whole map image, but only those tiles that have not been downloaded yet. On server side, all tiles are cached so that one client profits from recent requests made by another.
Pre-generated tile packages are an alternative to tile servers if users do not have internet access, if using an external tile server is undesirable, and running a local tile server is too cumbersome. They contain all tiles in a region for a range of zoom levels. The packages can be either stored on a mobile device for offline usage, or extracted onto an intranet server and made available to users.
Theoretically, you can download the required tiles from the tile servers of the OpenStreetMap project. However bulk downloading is prohibited by OSM's tile usage policy because it puts too much load on those volunteer-run services.
In addition to tile servers as a service, Geofabrik offers pre-generated tile packages. They can be provided as ZIP archives, MBTiles files or individual PNG tiles on an external hard disk drive. On request, other map styles than those available for our tile servers can be used. Please get in touch if you are interested.
Tile packages can become quite large on disk. At the lowest scale, zoom level 0, the map of the whole world fits into a single PNG image of 256x256 pixel. For any additional zoom level, the tile is divided into four tiles. This means there are two tiles along the x axis and two tiles along the y axis on zoom level 1, i.e. four tiles in total. This continues for each zoom level.
| Zoom level | Number of tiles on this zoom level |
|---|---|
| 0 | 1 |
| 1 | 4 |
| 2 | 16 |
| 3 | 64 |
| 4 | 256 |
| … | … |
| 18 | 68.7 billion |
The size of tile packages grows similarly with each additional zoom level. The following table shows a few examples. You can do your own estimates using the Tile Calculator:
| Germany | Europe | USA without Alaska and Hawaii | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoom levels | #Tiles | Size | #Tiles | Size | #Tiles | Size |
| 0–6 | 9 | < 1 MB | 182 | 1.1 MB | 84 | < 1 MB |
| 0–10 | 1420 | 44 MB | 52,000 | 421 MB | 21,000 | 142 MB |
| 0–12 | 21,000 | 408 MB | 819,000 | 3.6 GB | 329,000 | 1.3 GB |
| 0–14 | 336,000 | 4.1 GB | 13 m | 38 GB | 5.2 m | 17 GB |
| 0–16 | 5.4 m | 36 GB | 209 m | 415 GB | 84 m | 237 GB |
| 0–18 | 86 m | 313 GB | 3.3 bn | 5.6 TB | 1.3 bn | 3.1 TB |
| Bounding box | 5.53°E 47.23°N 15.38°E 54.96°N | 23.82°W 34.54°N 46.84°E 71.46°N | 125.42°W 24.12°N 66.45°W 49.43°N | |||
We're happy to make you an offer. For a ballpark estimate, a tile package based on a standard map style might cost EUR 300 for 100,000 tiles, EUR 500 for 1 million tiles, and EUR 700 for 10 million tiles.
