Base Guide

The Overture Maps base theme provides the land, water, infrastructure, and bathymetry features that are necessary to render a complete basemap. The majority of these features come from OpenStreetMap. We classify OSM features into type, subtype, and class based on their tags. The land and ocean polygons are derived from the Daylight Coastlines. The theme includes six feature types:

• bathymetry: derived vectorized bathymetric data products from ETOPO1 and GLOBathy data.
• infrastructure: Infrastructure features such as communication towers and lines, piers, and bridges from OpenStreetMap.
• land: physical representations of land surfaces derived from the inverse of OSM Coastlines; translates natural tags from OpenStreetMap.
• land_cover: derived from ESA WorldCover, high-resolution optical Earth observation data.
• land_use: classifications of the human use of a section of land; translates landuse tag from OpenStreetMap.
• water: physical representations of inland and ocean marine surfaces; translates natural and waterway tags from OpenStreetMap.

Data dictionary

Column definitions in the base theme

bathymetry

column	type	description
id	string	A feature ID that may be associated with the Global Entity Reference System (GERS) if—and-only-if the feature represents an entity that is part of GERS.
geometry	binary	A WKB representation of the entity's geometry - a Polygon or MultiPolygon.
bbox	struct	Area defined by two longitudes and two latitudes: latitude is a decimal number between -90.0 and 90.0; longitude is a decimal number between -180.0 and 180.0.
version	integer	Version number of the feature, incremented in each Overture release where the geometry or attributes of this feature changed.
sources	struct	The array of source information for the properties of a given feature. Each source object lists the property in JSON Pointer notation and the dataset from which that specific value originated.
depth	integer	Depth below surface level (in meters) of the feature.
cartography	struct	Defines cartographic hints for optimal use of Overture features in map-making.
filename	string	Name of the file being queried.
theme	string	Name of the Overture theme being queried.
type	string	Name of the Overture feature type being queried.

infrastructure

column	type	description
id	varchar	A feature ID that may be associated with the Global Entity Reference System (GERS) if—and-only-if the feature represents an entity that is part of GERS.
geometry	binary	A WKB representation of the entity's geometry - a Point, Polygon, MultiPolygon, or LineString.
bbox	struct	Area defined by two longitudes and two latitudes: latitude is a decimal number between -90.0 and 90.0; longitude is a decimal number between -180.0 and 180.0.
version	integer	Version number of the feature, incremented in each Overture release where the geometry or attributes of this feature changed.
sources	struct	The array of source information for the properties of a given feature. Each source object lists the property in JSON Pointer notation and the dataset from which that specific value originated.
subtype	varchar	A broad category of the building type and purpose.
names	struct	The name associated with the feature. The first entry in the array of names must have a "local" language.
class	varchar	Further delineation of the building's built purpose.
level	integer	The building feature's Z-order, i.e., stacking order. A Z-order of 0 is ground level.
height	double	Height of the feature in meters.
surface	varchar	Surface material, mostly from the OSM tag, with some normalization.
source_tags	struct	Any attributes/tags from the original source data that should be passed through.
wikidata	varchar	The Wikidata ID for the feature.
filename	varchar	Name of the file being queried.
theme	varchar	Name of the Overture theme being queried.
type	varchar	Name of the Overture feature type being queried.

land

column	type	description
id	string	A feature ID that may be associated with the Global Entity Reference System (GERS) if—and-only-if the feature represents an entity that is part of GERS.
geometry	binary	A WKB representation of the entity's geometry - a Point, Polygon, MultiPolygon, or LineString.
bbox	struct	Area defined by two longitudes and two latitudes: latitude is a decimal number between -90.0 and 90.0; longitude is a decimal number between -180.0 and 180.0.
version	integer	Version number of the feature, incremented in each Overture release where the geometry or attributes of this feature changed.
sources	struct	The array of source information for the properties of a given feature. Each source object lists the property in JSON Pointer notation and the dataset from which that specific value originated.
level	integer	The building feature's Z-order, i.e., stacking order. A Z-order of 0 is ground level.
subtype	string	A broad category of the building type and purpose.
class	string	Further delineation of the building's built purpose.
surface	string	Surface material, mostly from the OSM tag, with some normalization.
names	struct	The name associated with the feature. The first entry in the array of names must have a "local" language.
source_tags	struct	Any attributes/tags from the original source data that should be passed through.
wikidata	string	The Wikidata ID for the feature.
elevation	integer	Elevation above sea level (in meters) of the feature.
filename	string	Name of the file being queried.
theme	string	Name of the Overture theme being queried.
type	string	Name of the Overture feature type being queried.

land_cover

column	type	description
id	string	A feature ID that may be associated with the Global Entity Reference System (GERS) if—and-only-if the feature represents an entity that is part of GERS.
geometry	binary	A WKB representation of the entity's geometry - a Polygon or MultiPolygon.
bbox	struct	Area defined by two longitudes and two latitudes: latitude is a decimal number between -90.0 and 90.0; longitude is a decimal number between -180.0 and 180.0.
version	integer	Version number of the feature, incremented in each Overture release where the geometry or attributes of this feature changed.
sources	struct	The array of source information for the properties of a given feature. Each source object lists the property in JSON Pointer notation and the dataset from which that specific value originated.
cartography	struct	Defines cartographic hints for optimal use of Overture features in map-making.
subtype	string	A broad category of the building type and purpose.
filename	string	Name of the file being queried.
theme	string	Name of the Overture theme being queried.
type	string	Name of the Overture feature type being queried.

land_use

column	type	description
id	string	A feature ID that may be associated with the Global Entity Reference System (GERS) if—and-only-if the feature represents an entity that is part of GERS.
geometry	binary	A WKB representation of the entity's geometry - a Point, Polygon, MultiPolygon, or LineString.
bbox	struct	Area defined by two longitudes and two latitudes: latitude is a decimal number between -90.0 and 90.0; longitude is a decimal number between -180.0 and 180.0.
version	integer	Version number of the feature, incremented in each Overture release where the geometry or attributes of this feature changed.
sources	struct	The array of source information for the properties of a given feature. Each source object lists the property in JSON Pointer notation and the dataset from which that specific value originated.
level	integer	The building feature's Z-order, i.e., stacking order. A Z-order of 0 is ground level.
subtype	string	A broad category of the building type and purpose.
class	string	Further delineation of the building's built purpose.
surface	string	Surface material, mostly from the OSM tag, with some normalization.
names	struct	The name associated with the feature. The first entry in the array of names must have a "local" language.
source_tags	struct	Any attributes/tags from the original source data that should be passed through.
wikidata	string	The Wikidata ID for the feature.
elevation	integer	Elevation above sea level (in meters) of the feature.
filename	string	Name of the file being queried.
theme	string	Name of the Overture theme being queried.
type	string	Name of the Overture feature type being queried.

water

column	type	description
id	string	A feature ID that may be associated with the Global Entity Reference System (GERS) if—and-only-if the feature represents an entity that is part of GERS.
geometry	binary	A WKB representation of the entity's geometry - a Point, Polygon, MultiPolygon, or LineString.
bbox	struct	Area defined by two longitudes and two latitudes: latitude is a decimal number between -90.0 and 90.0; longitude is a decimal number between -180.0 and 180.0.
version	integer	Version number of the feature, incremented in each Overture release where the geometry or attributes of this feature changed.
sources	struct	The array of source information for the properties of a given feature. Each source object lists the property in JSON Pointer notation and the dataset from which that specific value originated.
level	integer	The building feature's Z-order, i.e., stacking order. A Z-order of 0 is ground level.
subtype	string	A broad category of the building type and purpose.
class	string	Further delineation of the building's built purpose.
names	struct	The name associated with the feature. The first entry in the array of names must have a "local" language.
source_tags	struct	Any attributes/tags from the original source data that should be passed through.
wikidata	string	The Wikidata ID for the feature.
is_salt	boolean	Indicates the presence of salt water.
is_intermittent	boolean	Indicates whether or not the water is intermittent.
filename	string	Name of the file being queried.
theme	string	Name of the Overture theme being queried.
type	string	Name of the Overture feature type being queried.

Data access and retrieval

Overture's base theme data is freely available on both Amazon S3 and Microsoft Azure Blob Storage at these locations:

Bathymetry

provider	location
Amazon S3	s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=bathymetry/*
Azure Blob Storage	https://overturemapswestus2.blob.core.windows.net/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=bathymetry/*

Infrastructure

provider	location
Amazon S3	s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=infrastructure/*
Azure Blob Storage	https://overturemapswestus2.blob.core.windows.net/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=infrastructure/*

Land

provider	location
Amazon S3	s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=land/*
Azure Blob Storage	https://overturemapswestus2.blob.core.windows.net/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=land/*

Land Cover

provider	location
Amazon S3	s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=land_cover/*
Azure Blob Storage	https://overturemapswestus2.blob.core.windows.net/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=land_cover/*

Land Use

provider	location
Amazon S3	s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=land_use/*
Azure Blob Storage	https://overturemapswestus2.blob.core.windows.net/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=land_use/*

Water

provider	location
Amazon S3	s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=water/*
Azure Blob Storage	https://overturemapswestus2.blob.core.windows.net/release/2026-03-18.0/theme=base/type=water/*

Overture distributes its datasets as GeoParquet, a column-oriented spatial data format that is a backwards-compatible extension of Apache Parquet. Parquet (and GeoParquet) is optimized for "cloud-native" queries, which means you can use many developer-friendly tools to efficiently fetch column "chunks" of cloud-hosted data. We encourage users who are new to GeoParquet to consult this guide.

The Getting Data section of this documentation offers instructions for accessing the full Overture catalog.

We recommend querying and downloading only the Overture data you need. If you have a particular geographic area of interest, there are several options for using a simple bounding box to extract address data.

Schema design choices

• basic classification of features into type, subtype and class where appropriate.
• parsing and normalization of common OSM tags, such as height and ele.
• extraction of consistent OSM tags, such as wikidata to top-level properties.
• direct pass-through of remaining relevant OSM tags.

Schema reference

• Explore the schema for the bathymetry feature type.
• Explore the schema for the infrastructure feature type.
• Explore the schema for the land feature type.
• Explore the schema for the land cover feature type.
• Explore the schema for the land use feature type.
• Explore the schema for the water feature type.

Get support

Overture is an open project and we welcome feedback, questions, and bug reports through our public GitHub repositories.

Where to go. Use GitHub Discussions for general questions, workflow help, feature suggestions, or broader conversations about Overture. Use GitHub Issues in the data repository or the schema repository for specific bug reports: missing entities, geometry problems, duplicate records, or country-specific data concerns.

What to expect. We review incoming issues regularly and try to respond within a few business days, but we can't guarantee a resolution timeline. Issues that affect data integrity or block common workflows get higher priority.

Filing a good issue. The more detail you include, the faster we can help. When reporting a data problem, please include: the Overture release version you're using, a query or code snippet that reproduces the issue, specific entity IDs or bounding boxes where you see the problem, and any relevant screenshots or map views. If you can share a minimal reproducible example, that goes a long way.