kaarttiles

Kaarttiles are small square images or vector data that, together, form a map visualization in digital mapping applications. They are generated by dividing a larger map into a grid of tiles, typically at multiple zoom levels, allowing maps to be loaded progressively as a user pans and zooms. The tile approach enables efficient data delivery and smooth interaction on the web and in mobile apps.

Tiles can be raster or vector. Raster tiles contain pre-rendered bitmap images in formats such as PNG or JPEG, while vector tiles carry geometric and styling information (often in Mapbox Vector Tile format, a protocol buffer-based standard). Vector tiles enable dynamic styling and reduced data transfer when zooming, but may require client-side rendering.

A common tiling scheme uses 256 by 256 pixel tiles (though 512 px tiles are used for high-DPI screens). The most widespread system is tile addressing in the XYZ scheme, where a tile is identified by zoom level z and coordinates x and y. Web Mercator (EPSG:3857) is the dominant projection in online maps, with tiles aligned to a global grid. Other standards include TMS (where the tile origin is at the southwest) and WMTS (a formal grid standard used by many public datasets).

Typical workflows include serving tiles from a tile server or hosting them in offline formats such as MBTiles. Online tiles are cached and delivered via CDNs to improve performance. Licensing varies by dataset and provider, and attribution is often required for open data sources such as OpenStreetMap.

Common examples include raster tiles at tile.openstreetmap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png and vector tile deployments using Mapbox or open specifications. Kaarttiles underpin modern digital maps by enabling scalable, on-demand rendering across devices and networks.