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Style reference

Note: This document is a work-in-progress – it primarily focuses on the style of features coming from the Places database.

Park Tiles is a suite of online basemaps designed by NPMap to fit the National Park Service's graphic identity. With the release of Park Tiles 3, our basemaps will feature National Park Service data within park boundaries. This style reference explains how NPS Places (Places) data renders in Park Tiles 3 Standard (the default style for Park Tiles).

Data sources:

Table of Contents

Places (inside park boundaries)

The data inside park boundaries comes from the Places database. Park Tiles includes most but not all features entered in the Places Editor. Park Tiles is meant to serve as a simple basemap that shows the most important general reference data for all parks. As such, Park Tiles 3 has been styled to highlight an essential subset of four data themes within park boundaries:

  1. Roads
  2. Trails
  3. Buildings
  4. Parking Lots

What follows is a brief explanation of how each of these features is grouped and styled in Park Tiles 3.

Roads and Trails

Highway, Primary, Secondary Road

Roads in this group are symbolized with a thick maroon line. These roads are the most prominent in Park Tiles – they begin to display at zoom level 7.

Included feature types:

Tertiary, Minor, Service Road

Roads in this group are symbolized with a simple white line. These roads begin to display at zoom level 12.

Included feature types:

Four-Wheel Drive Road

Roads in this group are symbolized with strong dashed casing. These roads begin to display at zoom level 13.

Included feature types:

Railroad

Lines categorized as 'railroad' in Places appear as such. Railroads are styled in a typical manner as a simple grey line with evenly-spaced hash marks.

Included feature types:

Motorized Trail

Trails in this group are symbolized with a brown-green, two-track, dashed line.

Included feature types:

Non-Motorized Trail

Trails in this group are symbolized with a brown-green dashed line. These trails begin to display at zoom level 13.

Special trail color exceptions: - Paved Trails: Trails classified as Sidewalk or tagged with surface=paved will by styled with a grey dashed line - Water Trails: Trails classified as Water Trail will be styled with a blue dashed line - Boardwalks: Trails tagged with surface=boardwalk will be styled with a perpendicular dashed line to resemble the planks of a boardwalk.

Included feature types:

Road Style Exceptions

Some road styles are modified based on additional attributes added as tags in Places:

Oneway Road

Roads with no oneway tag are styled normally. Roads with a tag of oneway=yes are styled with small white arrows indicating the direction of the oneway road. If a road's oneway arrows are pointing in the incorrect direction, the direction of the line segment can be reversed in the Places Editor.

Included tags:

Unpaved Road

Roads with no surface tag are styled normally. Roads with a tag of surface=unpaved are styled with an off-white fill.

Included tags:

Private Road

Roads with no access tag are styled normally. Roads with a tag of access=private are styled with no line casing and 70% transparent line color to fade into the basemap background. These lines are also labeled "No Public Access" to reinforce their status.

Included tags:

Buildings & Parking Lots (Areas)

Building

All buildings entered in Places as an area (polygon) are brown with a darker brown shadow. They begin to display at zoom level 14. However, buildings can also be entered as points which result in different symbology (see POI section below).

Private Building

Buildings with no access tag are styled normally. Buildings with a tag of access=private are styled with no three-dimensionality and a 70% transparent fill to fade into the basemap background.

Included tags:

Parking Lot

All parking lots are light grey. They begin to display at zoom level 16.

Points of Interest

The Park Tiles 3 basemap does not display Places points of interest. Instead, POIs are displayed using an overlay. Information about the POI overlay can be found here.

A small handful of exception POIs do display in some way on the basemap:

Locality

Place names added as POIs in Places display as labels in Park Tiles 3. A special class of POI types will be labeled in grey, capitalized letters starting a zoom level 13.

Included feature types:

OpenStreetMap (outside park boundaries)

Almost all of the data you see outside of park boundaries comes from OpenStreetMap. Style details for these features will be added in the future.

Base Features

Base features include Shaded Relief, Water, and Park Boundaries. Style details for these features will be added in the future.