Mapbox

Mapbox is a large provider of custom online maps for websites such as Foursquare, Pinterest, Evernote, the Financial Times, The Weather Channel and Uber Technologies. Since 2010, it has rapidly expanded the niche of custom maps, as a response to the limited choice offered by map providers such as Google Maps. Mapbox is the creator of, or a significant contributor to some open source mapping libraries and applications, including the MBTiles specification, the TileMill cartography IDE, the Leaflet JavaScript library, and the CartoCSS map styling language and parser.

Data sources and technology

The data are taken both from open data sources, such as OpenStreetMap and NASA, and from proprietary data sources, such as DigitalGlobe. The technology is based on Node.js, CouchDB, Mapnik, GDAL, and Leafletjs.

Mapbox uses data from tracks of its clients' users, such as Strava and RunKeeper, to identify likely missing data in OpenStreetMap with automatic methods, then manually applies the fixes or reports the issue to OSM contributors.

History

The startup was created as a part of Development Seed in order to offer map customization for non-profit customers, in 2010. It was bootstrapped until a 2013 $10M funding round by Foundry Group. In June 2015, Mapbox announced it had raised $52.55 million in a Series B round of funding.

Early work on OpenStreetMap tools, including the iD editor, was funded by a $575,000 grant from the Knight Foundation.

External links

• Mapbox Streets, a global map with street level detail
• Natural Earth, a high-level topographic and bathymetric map
• Earthquake Risk Zones, Earthquake risks mapped against active USAID projects in the pacific rim region.

See also

• Google Maps
• CartoDB
• ArcGIS
• OpenStreetMap