# Satellite imagery, terrain and 3D

Three layers for MapLibre, Leaflet and OpenLayers: aerial imagery of the United States, elevation for 3D terrain and hillshading, and 3D buildings in the vector styles. Imagery and terrain tiles count as map tiles, and on paid plans you may keep them like any other tile.

## Aerial imagery (USDA NAIP)

`/v1/tiles/satellite/{z}/{x}/{y}.jpg` serves photos from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP): 60 cm aerial photography of the lower 48 states, re-flown every two to three years. NAIP is a work of the U.S. Government in the public domain, so unlike most satellite layers you may cache and store these tiles.

- **Coverage:** zooms 0 to 12 across the contiguous United States, and zooms 13 to 16 in the metro areas listed at `/v1/tiles/satellite/coverage.json`, a list that grows each month. Outside coverage a tile is transparent and isn't counted. Let your map library overzoom past 16.
- Alaska, Hawaii and other countries are not covered.

```bash
curl "https://api.mapiron.com/v1/tiles/satellite.json?key=YOUR_KEY"
```

```
L.tileLayer("https://api.mapiron.com/v1/tiles/satellite/{z}/{x}/{y}.jpg?key=YOUR_KEY", {
  maxNativeZoom: 16, maxZoom: 19,
  attribution: "Imagery: USDA NAIP"
}).addTo(map);
```

A hybrid map (photo with roads and labels on top): add `imagery=1` to any vector style.

```
https://api.mapiron.com/v1/styles/light.json?imagery=1&key=YOUR_KEY
```

## Terrain and hillshading

`/v1/tiles/terrain/{z}/{x}/{y}.png` serves worldwide elevation in the Terrarium encoding (height in metres = R × 256 + G + B / 256 − 32768), zooms 0 to 15, for MapLibre's `raster-dem` sources. TileJSON: `/v1/tiles/terrain.json`. The data comes from USGS 3DEP in the US and SRTM, GMTED2010, NOAA ETOPO1 and national agencies elsewhere ([sources](https://mapiron.com/attributions#terrain)).

## 3D terrain and buildings in one line

Add options to any style URL:

```
https://api.mapiron.com/v1/styles/light.json?terrain=1&buildings=3d&key=YOUR_KEY
```

| Option | Adds |
| --- | --- |
| `terrain=1` | 3D terrain (tilt the map) and hillshading |
| `hillshade=1` | Hillshading only, on a flat map |
| `buildings=3d` | Buildings extruded to their mapped height from zoom 14 (a default height where OpenStreetMap has none) |
| `imagery=1` | The NAIP photo under the roads and labels |

In MapLibre, set `pitch` (for example 60) to see terrain and buildings in 3D. The style's `metadata["mapiron:attribution"]` lists every credit to show.

## Credit to show

- Imagery: Imagery: USDA Farm Service Agency, National Agriculture Imagery Program (not legally required for a public-domain work, but say where it's from).
- Terrain: Terrain: USGS 3DEP, SRTM, GMTED2010, NOAA ETOPO1 and national elevation data.
- Maps: © OpenStreetMap contributors, as always.

---
Source: https://mapiron.com/docs/satellite-terrain · Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · Index: https://mapiron.com/llms.txt