Manual

mapz.com offers professionally designed city, regional and country maps covering the whole world for use in online media and print applications.

You can download our maps immediately for further editing on your computer, or add them to websites and applications using the optional mapz API. They are available in screen and Retina display versions, as well as high resolution for print applications.

Stadtplan Hamburg Download
Overview map of Hamburg, Germany, in the mapz “Shades of Gray” design

File formats

Our service offers the perfect file format for every application: Depending on the type of map, you can choose between editable PDF files, the widely used graphics formats JPG and PNG, or Photoshop files with a separate text layer, in 200 and 400 dpi resolutions. The largest download format is 1,750 square centimeters, or approximately 42 x 42 cm.

We also offer embed codes, an easy way to add interactive maps to your website, and a powerful API for database-supported retrieval.

Select a map

mapz.com lets you choose the ideal map for your project from a variety of types. Our map material is global and, in metropolitan regions, includes detail down to the level of building outlines. Various styles offer variety in terms of both map aesthetics and content density. That lets you easily fulfil a broad range of requirements, for everything from detailed maps to info graphics. The type of map that best meets your needs depends on your goals and, not least, personal taste.

World wide maps

Launch the map editor. The Maps menu gives you access to global map material with two different designs and different content densities. Our “Multicolor” maps have a traditional, four-color design, as used in traditional cartography.

map cologne download

The “Shades of Gray” map design features less color and content, and is ideally suited to infographics and thematic maps. Both map designs are also available in a “blind” version; without any labels. It is easy to add the labels required for your project using our text and drawing tools.

All our base maps use data from the OpenStreetMap project. They are designed by professionals of Kober-Kümmerly+Frey.

Regional maps

In addition to the world wide maps you have access to official aerial photographs or official real estate maps (most of them covering Germany).

official real estate maps and aerial photographs for real estate brochures
Seamless transition between official real estate maps, aerial photographs and our Shades of Gray vector map.

We currently offer the following official data:

  • Berlin: aerial photographs 20 cm 2014 / 2016 / 2018 / 2020, official real estate map ALKIS, parcels of land map CP-ALKIS, construction plan basemap ALK, ground value map 2021
  • Brandenburg-Berlin: aerial photographs 20 cm
  • Hamburg: aerial photographs 20 cm unleafed, aerial photographs 20 cm leafed, official real estate map ALKIS, official real estate map gray-blue
  • Hessia: aerial photographs 20 cm, historical aerial photographs 1952-67, official real estate map, ground value map without background
  • Lower Saxony: aerial photographs 20 cm
  • North Rhine-Westphalia: aerial photographs 10 cm, official base map ABK, german base map DGK 5 historical, official real estate map ALKIS, ground value map without background
  • Rhineland-Palatinate: aerial photographs 40 cm, real estate map basic service, ground value map 2022
  • Saxony: aerial photographs 20 cm
  • Saxony-Anhalt: aerial photographs 20 cm
  • Thuringia: aerial photographs 20 cm, official real estate map ALKIS
  • Austria: aerial photographs 29 cm, basemap

Along with the aerial photographs listed above, a special agreement allows us to offer our flat-rate customers access to aerial photographs of the whole of Germany. And we are happy to integrate other map sources that are (here things get a little technical) available as a WMS in EPSG:3857. Please feel free to contact us to discuss your needs. ››› Contact us

Registration

You can view all our maps without registering. Samples of all our file formats are available from the Map design and demo files page, which allows you to assess their quality before you register. We only require registration for access to high-resolution downloads and the drawing tools.

The registration process only takes a moment, and is free. The initial registration only involves entering a valid email address and password. After a few seconds, you will receive an email that allows you to activate your account. If you can’t find the email in your inbox, please check your spam folder. We always send our activation links from the address service@mapz.com.

Using the map editor

The map editor gives you access to all the core mapz.com functions. Use Maps to choose the required map section, and Draw to add pictograms from library of markers, along with text, lines and areas. Then Download the map data to your computer.

Good to know: as soon you log in and open the editor, the current map view is saved automatically. That ensures that your settings are not lost when you log out of the system, so that you can continue editing your map at a later time.

The map type currently selected, all the objects inserted using the drawing tools and the selection set in the download menu are saved.

You can choose the name of the saved file using the input field directly below your email address. The default file name is My map with a time stamp.

When you want to access a saved map, select the menu item My maps by clicking your email address.  

Search for streets and places

The mapz.com editor includes a search function, which you can use to locate a street address, in the same way you would use the map portals of the major search engines.

In many metropolitan regions, the search results will show the exact house number. You can identify the type of search result by the color of the marker. A red marker indicates the exact location of a specific house. A blue marker indicates that the house number could not be located. Instead it shows the street or town/city, but not the exact location of the house.

Where required, you can use the drawing tool to move the marker to a different location, use a different marker design or remove the marker altogether.

If your search is unsuccessful: it can happen that an address is not found, although the location is correctly marked on the map and also labeled. This is usually due to an incomplete or incorrectly recorded database entry in one of our sources. In this case, try to keep the search query more general.

For our search function, we use data from OpenStreetMap, Geonames, Natural Earth, OpenGeoCode, Postcodes.io and numerous other sources. The database is continuously growing, and thus the search results are also continuously improving.

Add objects automatically

The mapz.com search function allows you to add building outlines and borders to a map, and highlight them, automatically.

An example of country highlighting, using a map of Greece

Then you can change the color and form out the outline as required. In this example, we have automatically added and colored Greece and Rhodes.

To add an object: carry out a search. For example, you can find the contours of continents and countries using the two-digit ISO country code. Then use the Draw function in the search result bar to edit the outline as required.

Widely used objects and your search terms

Here is an overview of search terms for objects that can be added to maps automatically, if they are available for the respective target area in our database:

  • Countries:  DE for Germany or FR for France. A complete list is available here.
  • Federal states:  NRW   Arizona   Saxony   Bavaria
  • Municipalities:  Cologne   San Francisco   Berlin   Hamburg
  • Boroughs/neighborhoods  Manhattan   Altona   Bockenheim   Prenzlauer Berg
  • Five-digit postal zones:   50677  for Cologne 50677
  • Two-digit postal zones:   50  for Cologne area 50
  • One digit postal zones:   5  for region 5
  • Exhibition centers:  Messe Berlin   or   Olympia, London
  • Buildings:  Willy-Brandt-Straße 1, 10557 Berlin
  • Popular sights:  Cologne Cathedral   or  United States Capitol
  • Public squares:  Pariser Platz   or  Viktualienmarkt
  • Leisure facilities:  Zoo Berlin   Phantasialand   Englischer Garten

It is not possible to locate and mark every object using the search function. However, our database is growing constantly, so it always worth experimenting.

How to edit PDF files

In our PDF files, all vector elements of a certain type have an individual color value, which can be used to make selections. This method (selection by color) allows content elements of a specific type to be selected and assigned to separate layers using software such as Adobe Illustrator. That lets you amend the colors of motorway networks, built up areas or pictograms, and remove groups of superfluous items from the map.

Use the following steps to make a selection in Adobe Illustrator:

  • Mark the required element with the direct selection tool (white arrow).
  • Select the menu item via Select → Same → Fill and Stroke
  • This marks all elements of a specific type so that you can change their color or move them to a new layer.

Fonts in PDF files

Horizontal elements retain as line text elements, so they are fully editable. Written elements that are aligned with pathways behave differently: for technical reasons, they are presented as a number of fragments, so they take longer to edit.

We use the free Fira Sans family. You can download the font at: fonts.google.com

Add your own data to a map

The mapz function Draw → Upload elements allows you to include and interactively display external data sets in a map image. If you have the geographical coordinates of locations, line elements or areas in a standard format – such as those generated by GIS systems, or from a publicly available source – they can be imported in just a few minutes.

mapz supports import and export of GeoJSON and adapted CSV text files. For detailed instructions, see Interactive maps and data integration.   

How can I change the map view?

Good to know: double clicking zooms in on the selected area. You can also use the plus and minus buttons to zoom in and out. To change the selection, click and hold the mouse button and drag the map. To enlarge an exact area, selected using your mouse, hold down the shift button as you drag.

The linear scale at the bottom left of the main window always displays the current scale and zoom level of the map section shown.

Download a map

When you switch to the Download tab, a selection frame with edges corresponding to the defined paper format is shown over the map. A DIN A4 format is shown by default, but individual paper formats and, therefore, different frame proportions can be selected. The map made available for download at a later time therefore fits the pre-determined paper format and not the (possibly scaled) selection frame.

The selection frame can be moved over the map content with the mouse until the selected map section meets your needs. The drag points at the corners can also be used to enlarge or reduce the size of the section, which makes selection easier when working with large formats.

Determine the appropriate zoom level

Our “Multicolor” and “Shades of Gray” map designs are dynamically created and labelled when the user clicks “Download map”. However, the zoom level shown in the selection frame gives you an impression of the level of detail that will be included when the map is generated – because of the additional space, the same selection from a city map will include far more detail and labelling in A3 format that in a more compact A5 format.

If the required selection allows it, we recommend that the zoom level in the selection frame is matched to the zoom level shown at the bottom left in the editor to give an approximate impression of the resulting map on screen.

You will also be shown a preview of “your” map when you click “Download map”, giving you the opportunity make further adjustments or cancel the download.

Download options

  • Are you irritated that a downloaded map differs from the screen view before?
  • Do you want to download multiple maps of the same zoom level and want them to be consistent in terms of font sizes and overall aesthetics?

If so, the following tips may be helpful to you (but we need to elaborate a bit here for better understanding):

First of all, we are asked time and again why some maps differ from the screen view when downloaded (and thus already in the preview). The download frame marks the borders of the desired map, but in many situations this is only proportionally reduced or enlarged and not 1:1 according to the image format preset on the right under "Download" (imagine you want to draw a large frame of e.g. 40 x 40 cm on a small laptop, at the latest then the frame would otherwise protrude from the screen in one or more directions). A download can therefore only be identical to the screen view if the view zoom level also corresponds to the download zoom level (the zoom level information at the bottom left of the map image must therefore be identical to the information in the center of the download frame).

A zoom level also always covers a range of scales, so that maps generated in Zoom 16, e.g. of Cologne, could have scales between 1:3,700 and 1:8,600 (which then, strictly speaking, even more vary vertically within the respective map section).

By default, a map download always refers to the map format defined on the right in the "Download" area on the basis of cm specifications. A mapz map is also always created just at the moment of the download according to the format entered there, unlike the previous screen view, which is based on pre-produced "images" (map tiles) for the sake of speed. Thus it becomes clear that the screen view and the download map (including preview) can already differ from each other for technical reasons.

If one were to download different map sections at the same zoom level (in different scales), this would not only result in content that exactly matches the scale of the map section, but also in font sizes that differ from map to map. Of course, this has the advantage that the maps generated in this way are largely identical to the screen view. Close to the next higher zoom the labeling of one and the same federal road appears much larger, close to the next lower zoom, however, much smaller at the same time. This is the default behavior:

  • Standard download

    Dynamically generated. Your map is downloaded exactly as it appears in the browser. No elements are omitted. If you save multiple maps at the same zoom level, they may have different font and icon sizes.

However, such results look unattractive as soon as a series of maps is displayed next to each other. Here, one would wish for a uniform appearance with identical font sizes. To meet such requirements, the download settings of your mapz account can be changed from "Standard" to "Map series". In this setting, the maps are generated in the respective displayed scale, but standardized with regard to the font and symbol sizes. In this process it can happen that e.g. street names displayed in the screen view are no longer included in the download or vice versa. This is what we call a

  • Fixed download

    For map series with unified font size per zoom level. Your map is created using content and font sizes that we pre-define uniformly for each zoom level, so that fonts and icons from multiple downloads generated at the same zoom level match. If there is not enough space for individual elements in the process, they could be omitted.

mapz Labs

The Labs menu includes professional and experimental functions that require a certain level of expertise. We chose the name Labs because we are constantly developing these functions, and they may change at any time without notice.

The Geocoding function is in the beta phase. Use at your own risk ;-)

Compare maps (split screen)

The Labs/Compare maps function allows direct visual comparisons of different types of maps.

As soon as you activate this function, the map screen will be divided, with the map you are currently editing shown on the left. Choosing another map from the map menu will display it on the right.

Assuming that the maps are of the same area, changes to the selected map section are applied simultaneously, so that both maps show the same area. If the maps show different areas, for example because you want to compare a map of Cologne with a map of Berlin, then each map can be moved individually; the movements are not synchronized.

To hide the second map, simply click Labs/Compare maps a second time.

Geocoding of addresses

mapz geocoding adds geocoordinates to postal addresses. You can download the location coordinates of up to 20 addresses free of charge as a CSV file per call-up and transfer them to your own systems or integrate them into mapz maps.

In order to assign more than 20 addresses you will need an API-key. Please feel free to ››› contact us.

The Embed function

The Embed function is mature and works without limitation. However, the embed codes provided may change slightly from time to time, without affecting the functioning of existing codes.

Our embedding function allows you to add interactive maps to your website. The embedded maps can be zoomed to different levels and show all the objects you have added to the map. For detailed instructions, please see our embedding tutorial.