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Layers

Interactive maps are often formed from multiple layers of data, which can be panned (moved), rotated, and sometimes tilted/pitched, based on the user's gesture input, or another programmatic control.

Tile Basics

One type of layer included on every map is known as a tile layer, which displays tiles, square segments of a map.

When multiple tiles, which are each the same dimensions, are laid out around each other, they give the illusion of one continuous map.

Tiles can be referenced/identified in a few different ways, such as:

• Slippy Map Convention (the most popular/common)

• TMS (very similar to the Slippy Map Convention)

• WMS

• WMTS

Tiles themselves can be of two types:

• Raster Each tile is a normal pre-rendered standard image, such as JPG or PNG

• Vector Each tile is a special format containing the data for the tile, and is then rendered by the end library

This library/documentation focuses on maps accessible via the Slippy Map Convention, although all are supported.

This library only supports raster tiles. See Raster vs Vector Tiles for more information.

Slippy Map Convention

Slippy map tiles are accessed by 3 coordinates, x/y/z.

X & Y coordinates correspond to all the latitudes and longitudes contained within that tile, however they are not actual longitude and latitude. For example, geographic coordinate (61.127, -0.123) might be in the tile (128983, 430239).

The Z value represents the current zoom level, where one tile (0/0/0) covers the entire planet with extremely low detail at level 0, to level 20 (although some tile servers will support even higher zoom levels) where over 1 trillion tiles are required to cover the entire surface of the Earth.

Sourcing Tiles

Tiles, especially raster tiles, take a lot of computing power and time to generate, because of the massive scale of all the input and output data. Therefore, most tiles are sourced externally, from an online tile server (either publicly or by users holding an API key), or sometimes from the local filesystem or asset store of the app.

Tile Providers

A tile provider (within flutter_map) is responsible for:

• Constructing the path/URL to a tile, when given its coordinates (x/y/z): #slippy-map-convention

• Using an ImageProvider or other mechanism to fetch that tile: #sourcing-tiles

• Performing any other processing steps, such as caching

But don't worry! flutter_map (or a plugin) creates a provider for you, so for most use cases and tile sources, you shouldn't need to handle this yourself!

Demonstration

Setting up an interactive and map is simpler than making your lunch-time coffee! It can be accomplished in just under 30 lines and a minute or two to install.

This code snippet demonstrates everything you need for a simple map (in just over 20 lines!), but of course, FM is capable of much more than just this, and you could find yourself lost in the many options available and possibilities opened!

Feature Highlights

Get Help

Not quite sure about something? No problem. Please get in touch via any of these methods, and we'll be with you as soon as possible. Please remember that we are volunteers, so we cannot guarantee (fast) support.

flutter_map provides an example application showcasing much of its functionality. In some cases, the example app contains undocumented functionality, so it's definitely worth checking out!

Live Web Demo

Prebuilt Artifacts

If you can't build from source for your platform, our GitHub Actions CI system compiles the example app to GitHub Artifacts for Windows, Web, and Android.

The Windows and Android artifacts just require unzipping and installing the .exe or .apk found inside.

Build From Source

If you need to use the example app on another platform, you can build from source, using the 'example' directory of the repository.

Install

From

Just import the package as you would normally, from the command line:

From

If you urgently need the latest version, a specific branch, or a specific fork, you can use this method.

First, use , then add the following lines to your pubspec.yaml file, as a root object:

Additional Setup

Web

Android

flutter_map needs to access the Internet to load tiles, in most cases. On Android, apps must include the INTERNET permission in their manifest. Add the following line to all manifests:

MacOS

flutter_map needs to access the Internet to load tiles, in most cases. On MacOS, apps must include a dedicated entitlement. Add the following lines to 'macos/Runner/DebugProfile.entitlements' and 'macos/Runner/Release.entitlements':

Import

After installing the package, import it into the necessary files in your project:

There are 2 main types of tiles a server can serve: raster and vector; each has their own advantages and drawbacks. This page is designed to help you choose a type for your app, and help you use vector tiles if you choose to.

Raster Tiles

Raster tiles are the 'older' type of tile, and are raster images (usually .png or .jpg). These tiles are good because they can render quickly and easily, can be viewed without special software, and are readily available from most mapping services. As such, this makes them the popular choice for beginners.

However, raster tiles cannot be easily themed: a theme needs a whole new set of map tiles. This makes apps using light and dark themes have mismatching maps. As well as this, raster tiles usually have larger file sizes meaning slower download times, and they can become blurred/pixelated when viewed at a larger scale: a problem for users when zooming between zoom levels. Another issue is that shapes/text inside tiles cannot be rotated, hence the name 'static tiles': therefore, rotating the map will not rotate the name of a road, for example.

Vector Tiles

Vector tiles can be considered the 'newer' standard. These images might contain a specialised format (such as .pbf) dictating the mathematics and coordinates used to draw lines and shapes. Because these tiles are drawn at render time instead of at request/server time, theming can be used to make the map fit in better with an app's theme. The math-based image means that the images/tiles can be scaled without any loss of clarity.

However it does add complexity to the rendering process as each element needs to be parsed and painted individually, meaning an impact to performance. Text elements and certain shapes can also be rotated (unlike raster tiles) to match the user's orientation, not the orientation of the map; but calculating this rotation needs to be done every frame, meaning an even larger impact on performance.

Using Vector Tiles

Due to the complications mentioned above, 'flutter_map' does not natively support vector tiles. However, vector tiles can be used with a to do this.

When changes happen to FlutterMap's internal state, such as a change to the current position or zoom, it emits a MapEvent, which can be handled by you.

Catching All Events

There's two ways to catch all emitted MapEvents, and use them/the Stream<MapEvent> directly.

These methods expose the raw MapEvent, and is recommended in cases where multiple events need to be caught, or there's no more specific callback method available in MapOptions.

• Listening to a MapController's mapEventStream

• Specifying a callback method in MapOptions.onMapEvent

Catching Specific Events

If only a couple of events need to be caught, such as just an onTap handler, it is possible to avoid handling the raw Stream of MapEvents. Instead, MapOptions has callbacks available for the following events:

• onTap

• onLongPress

• onPositionChanged

• onPointerDown/onPointerUp/onPointerHover/onPointerCancel

• onMapReady Primarily used for advanced MapController #usage-in-initstate

options: MapOptions(
    interactiveFlags: ~InteractiveFlag.doubleTapZoom,
),

This update brings support for Dart 3 and Flutter 3.10.

There are a few minor breaking changes for some users, but most changes are internal and need no work to take advantage of.

Please refer to the sections below for information on how to migrate your project. This will contain the changes that most users may need to make, but not all changes. It also excludes some deprecations where the message is self-descriptive.

For a full list of changes, please see the full CHANGELOG, and make use of the old and new API reference.

FlutterMap(
    mapController: _mapController,
    options: MapOptions(),
    children: [],
    nonRotatedChildren: [],
);

Placement Recommendations

It is recommended to make the map as large as possible, to allow it to display a lot of useful information easily.

As such, we recommend using a depth-based layout (eg. using Stacks) instead of a flat-based layout (eg. using Columns). The following 3rd party packages might help with creating a modern design:

• https://pub.dev/packages/backdrop

• https://pub.dev/packages/sliding_up_panel

• https://pub.dev/packages/material_floating_search_bar_2

If you must restrict the widget's size, you won't find a height or width property. Instead, use a SizedBox or Column/Row & Expanded.

To display anything on the map, you'll need to include at least one "layer"!

Multiple layers can be used - similar to a Stack - each one showing different data in different ways, from actual map tiles (Tile Layer) to shapes on top of them (Polygon Layer), and even just your own custom layers (Creating New Layers).

Each layer has its own configuration and handling, but can also access the map's state/configuration, as well as be controlled by it.

Layers are usually defined in the children property of the FlutterMap - as is with the TileLayer, for example.

However, the nonRotatedChildren property can be used for layers which shouldn't move with the map, but still require access to the map's state/configuration - for example, the AttributionLayers.

To dictate what the map can/should do, regardless of its contents, it needs some guidance!

It provides options that can be categorized into three main parts:

• Initial positioning Defines the location of the map when it is first loaded

• Permanent rules Defines restrictions that last throughout the map's lifetime

• Event handling Defines methods that are called on specific map events

Initial Positioning

One part of MapOptions responsibilities is to define how the map should be positioned when first loaded. There's two ways to do this (that are incompatible):

• center & zoom Defines the center coordinates of the map and a zoom level

• bounds Defines an area with two/four coordinates that the viewport should fit to

It is possible to also set the map's rotation in degrees, if you don't want it North (0°) facing initially.

Permanent Rules

One part of MapOptions responsibilities is to define the restrictions and limitations of the map and what users can/cannot do with it.

You should check all the available options, but these are recommended for most maps:

• maxZoom (and minZoom) Limits how far the map can be zoomed by the user, to avoid showing empty tiles

• maxBounds Limits how far the map can be moved by the user to a coordinate-based boundary

• interactiveFlags - see InteractiveFlag for available options Limits what methods the user can interact with the map through (for example, preventing rotation)

• keepAlive If FlutterMap is located inside a PageView, ListView or another complex lazy layout, set this true to prevent the map from resetting to the #initial-positioning on rebuild

Event Handling

To programatically interact with the map (such as panning, zooming and rotating) and receive it's events, you'll need a MapController.

Initialisation

To use a MapController, it must initialised like any other object and then passed to the FlutterMap. This attaches them until the map is disposed.

final mapController = MapController();

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) =>
    FlutterMap(
        mapController: mapController,
        ...
    );

Usage In initState()

It is a fairly common requirement to need to use the MapController in initState(), before the map has been built. Unfortunately, this is not possible, as the map must be built for the controller to be attached.

This isn't a problem however! The MapOptions contains an onMapReady callback (see #event-handling) is called once when the map is initialised, and the initialised map controller can be used freely within it.

final mapController = MapController();

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) =>
    FlutterMap(
        mapController: mapController,
        options: MapOptions(
            onMapReady: () {
                mapController.mapEventStream.listen((evt) {});
                // And any other `MapController` dependent non-movement methods
            },
        ),
    );

Animated Movements

Whilst animated movements through MapControllers aren't built-in, the community maintained plugin flutter_map_animations provides this, and much more!

The example application also includes a page demonstrating a custom animated map movement without the plugin.

Event Handling

You can add lines to maps by making them out of individual coordinates using PolylineLayer and Polylines.

Routing/Navigation

Routing is out of scope for 'flutter_map'. However, if you can get a list of coordinates from a 3rd party, then you can use polylines to show them!

Converting Formats

You may have a polyline with 'Google Polyline Encoding' (which is a lossy compression algorithm to convert coordinates into a string and back). These are often returned from routing engines, for example. In this case, you'll need to decode the polyline to the correct format first, before you can use it in a Polyline's points argument.

You can then use the package and the above snippet by doing:

You can add areas/shapes to maps by making them out of individual coordinates using PolygonLayer and Polygons.

Polygon Manipulation

'flutter_map' doesn't provide any public methods to manipulate polygons, as these would be deemed out of scope.

onTap Support

You can add single point features - such as pins, labels, or markers - to maps using MarkerLayer and Markers.

Rotation

Marker rotation support isn't built in (other than counter rotating to the map, to ensure the marker is always displayed right side up), but can easily be implemented through a rotation widget, such as Transform.rotate.

You can add circle areas to maps by making them out of a center coordinate and radius using CircleLayer and CircleMarkers.

The basis of any map is a TileLayer, which displays square raster images in a continuous grid, sourced from the Internet or a local file system.

flutter_map supports , but most map tiles are accessed through the CARTO/XYZ/Slippy Map standard, where the mapping library (flutter_map) fills in XYZ placeholders in a URL.

Tile Providers

Need more control over the source of tiles, or how tiles are fetched? You'll need to change the TileProvider.

userAgentPackageName

It should be passed the application's package name, such as 'com.example.app'. This is important to avoid blocking by tile servers due to high-levels of unidentified traffic. If no value is passed, it defaults to 'unknown'.

This is all ignored on the web, where the 'User-Agent' header cannot be changed due to a limitation of Dart/browsers.

The tileProvider parameter in TileLayer takes a TileProvider object specifying a to use for that layer.

This has a default of NetworkTileProvider which gets tiles from the internet through a dedicated image provider.

There's two situations in which you'll need to change the tile provider:

• Sourcing tiles from the filesystem or asset store:

• Using a that instructs you to do so ()

Network Tile Provider

NetworkTileProvider takes two arguments, but you'll usually never need to specify them:

• httpClient: custom BaseClient By default, a RetryClient backed by a standard Client is used

• headers: custom Map<String, String> By default, only the default headers, plus a custom 'User-Agent' header based on the property, are included with each request

Local Tile Providers

These tile providers use the templateUrl to get the appropriate tile from the asset store of the application, or from a file on the users device, respectively.

AssetTileProvider

This tile providers uses the templateUrl to get the appropriate tile from the asset store of the application.

FileTileProvider

This tile providers uses the templateUrl to get the appropriate tile from the a path/directory/file on the user's device - either internal application storage or external storage.

Offline Mapping

There are many independently maintained plugins created by the 'flutter_map' community that give extra, prebuilt functionality, saving you even more time and potentially money.

Unfortunately, you may need more niche functionality that hasn't been provided by an existing plugin or by 'flutter_map' itself. Alternatively, you may have found a gap in functionality that not everyone will need, but some people will: in this case, it's likely the maintainers will ask you to submit a plugin instead of a pull request.

Plugins can add/change a wide variety of functionality, so this guide is not exhaustive. However, it will help with the most common requirements. Each subpage covers a specific part of the plugin API, and the section below sets out requirements for plugins to be accepted into the list.

Submitting A New Plugin

If you've made your own plugin that you're willing to share, you can add it to this list by creating a pull request in GitHub. We're always looking forward to see what you've made!

When submitting a plugin & PR, please ensure the plugin:

• preferably includes 'flutter_map_' in the name

• preferably available via a pub.dev installation

• has good documentation

• includes a runnable example, and/or screenshots or recordings

• has a description that accurately and concisely represents your plugin

If you want to provide extra assistance to your users in a shared space, consider the official 'flutter_map' Discord server! Join using the link at the bottom of this page, and ping '@Github Maintainer' to be added to the 'Plugin Owner' role. You can then be easily identified and provide help or announcements in a dedicated plugins channel.

One common requirement is a custom TileProvider, and potentially a custom ImageProvider inside. This will allow your plugin to intercept all tile requests made by a map, and take your own action(s), before finally returning a tile.

Some useful steps are below, but there are more properties of a TileProvider that can be overridden.

Extending The Base TileProvider

To create your own usable TileProvider, the first step is making a class that extends the abstract class. It is not recommended to implement the base, as this will require overriding methods unnecessarily for most custom providers.

class CustomTileProvider extends TileProvider {
    // Add your own custom properties, methods, etc.
    CustomTileProvider({
        // Suitably initialise your own custom properties
        super.headers, // Use the Dart 2.17 `super` syntax to initialise the base's header `Map`
    })
}

Overriding getImage

The majority of custom TileProviders will want to implement their own method to retrieve tiles. This is done by overriding the getImage method, and usually specifying your own ImageProvider, for example:

    @override
    ImageProvider getImage(Coords<num> coords, TileLayerOptions options) =>
        CustomImageProvider(
            options: options,
            coords: coords,
            headers: {
                ...headers,
                'User-Agent': headers['User-Agent'] == null
                    ? '<pluginName> for flutter_map (unknown)'
                    : '<pluginName> for ${headers['User-Agent']}',
            },
        );

Overriding getTileUrl

Some custom TileProviders may want to change the way URLs for tiles are generated. Note that this is quite advanced usage.

    @override
    String getTileUrl(Coords coords, TileLayerOptions options) {
        // Custom generation
    }

flutter_map supports WMS tile servers through WMSTileLayerOptions - wmsOptions in TileLayers.

For usage, please refer to the Full API Reference, and the examples in the example app.

You can overlay images on the map (for example, town or floor plans) using OverlayImageLayer and OverlayImages or RotatedOverlayImages.

OverlayImageLayer(
  circles: [
    OverlayImage(
      bounds: LatLngBounds(
        LatLng(45.3367881884556, 14.159452282322459),
        LatLng(45.264129635422826, 14.252585831779033),
      ),
      imageProvider: NetworkImage(),
    ),
  ],
),

Before publishing your app to users, you should credit any sources you use, according to their Terms of Service.

There are two built in methods to provide attribution, RichAttributionWidget and SimpleAttributionWidget, but you can also build your own using a simple Align widget. All of these should be inserted into the map's nonRotatedChildren.

RichAttributionWidget

An animated, interactive attribution layer that supports both logos/images (displayed permanently) and text (displayed in a popup controlled by an icon button adjacent to the logos).

It is heavily customizable (in both animation and contents), and designed to easily meet the needs of most ToSs out of the box.

nonRotatedChildren: [
  RichAttributionWidget(
    animationConfig: const ScaleRAWA(), // Or `FadeRAWA` as is default
    attributions: [
      TextSourceAttribution(
        'OpenStreetMap contributors',
        onTap: () => launchUrl(Uri.parse('https://openstreetmap.org/copyright')),
      ),
    ],
  ),
],

For more information about configuration and all the many options this supports, see the in-code API documentation.

SimpleAttributionWidget

We also provide a more 'classic' styled box, similar to those found on many web maps. These are less customizable, but might be preferred over RichAttributionWidget for maps with limited interactivity.

nonRotatedChildren: [
  SimpleAttributionWidget(
    source: Text('OpenStreetMap contributors'),
  ),
],

There are many independently maintained 'plugins' created by the 'flutter_map' community that give extra, prebuilt functionality, saving you even more time and potentially money.

Some pages in this documentation provide direct links to these plugins to make it easier for you to find a suitable plugin.

However, if you're just browsing, a full list is provided below (in no particular order), containing many of the available plugins. You can click on any of the tiles to visit its GitHub repo or pub.dev package.

Miscellaneous

From more layers to whole heaps of new functionality, it's all here - assuming it's not in one of the other sections!

Marker Clustering

Marker clustering groups markers together under bigger markers when zoomed further out, decluttering your UI and giving a performance boost.

Better Markers

Better Polylines & Polygons

Parsing & Creating Map Features

Thunderforest is a popular tiered-payment (with free tier) tile provider solution, especially for generic mapping applications. Note that using 'flutter_map' uses up your 'Map Tiles API' requests.

To integrate with 3rd party mapping libraries, Stadia Maps provides an alternative to the normal 'Static Maps Base URL' for each map style.

The 'Raster XYZ PNGs' URL contains all the information and placeholders that flutter_map requires to display a map. Tiles requested through this endpoint consume the 'Styled Raster Map Tiles' credits.

Once you have the appropriate URL for your desired map style (see ), use it in a TileLayer's urlTemplate as normal.

Retina tiles (high-DPI) tiles are available. Use the URLs containing '@2x' instead of '{r}'. The maximum zoom level that Stadia Maps supports is 20, so it is recommended to set maxNativeZoom or maxZoom as such.

Styles

Stadia Maps offers a variety of ready-made map styles that don't require customization. URLs are found with the style: see the available . The URL should be used as above.

Vector Usage

Stadia Maps' also provides vector tiles. For more information about using vector tiles, please see .

However, please note that this method of integration is still experimental. Many of the Stadia Maps styles utilize advanced features of the Mapbox GL JSON style language which are not yet well-supported.

Creating a new map layer is just as easy as it is to create a normal StatelessWidget or StatefulWidget.

Only one method call is needed to 'connect' the widget to the map state: FlutterMapState.maybeOf(). This call does two important things:

• Cause the widget/layer to rebuild automatically when required (if in the build method)

• Expose the map's internal state, meaning that it's information (such as zoom) can be accessed

You can see an example of how this is done below:

class CustomLayer extends StatelessWidget {
  const CustomLayer({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    final mapState = FlutterMapState.of(context);
    // Use `mapState` as necessary, for example `mapState.zoom`
  }
}

Using maps without an Internet connection is common requirement. Luckily, there are a few options available to you to implement offline mapping in your app.

• Caching Automatically store tiles as the user loads them through interacting with the map

• Bulk downloading Download an entire area/region of tiles in one shot, ready for a known no-Internet situation

• Bundling Provide a set of tiles to all users through assets or the filesystem

Caching & Bulk Downloading

The community maintained plugin 'flutter_map_tile_caching' aims to solve the first two points. FMTC is designed to be easy to implement, but also sufficiently advanced to cover most (if not all) use cases.

However, using simpler packages in a DIY solution can be a better option in some cases. You'll need to implement a custom TileProvider backed by an alternative image provider or cache lookup system: see Creating New Tile Providers.

To help choose whether FMTC or DIY is more appropriate for your use case, please see:

Bundled Map Tiles

If you have a set of custom raster tiles that you need to provide to all your users, you may want to consider bundling them together, to make a them easier to deploy to your users.

There is essentially two options for doing this:

• Using AssetTileProvider, you can bundle a set of map tiles and register them as an asset within your app's pubspec.yaml. This means that they will be downloaded together with your application, keeping setup simple, but at the expense of a larger application bundle size.

• Using FileTileProvider, you can bundle a set of map tiles and store them on a remote web server, that can be downloaded from later. This means that the setup may be more complicated for users, but the application's bundle size will be much smaller.

Either way, the filesystem should be structured like this: 'offlineMap/{z}/{x}/{y}.png', where every .png image is a tile.

If you have a raster-format .mbtiles file, for example from TileMill, you should use mbtilesToPngs to convert it to the correct structure first. Alternatively, you can use an external package such as 'flutter_mbtiles_extractor' to extract during runtime.

Other Servers

There are plenty of other tile servers you can choose from, free or paid. Most provide a static tile service/API, usually called Static Tiles or just Tile Requests (if no vector tiles are supported).

A good catalogue of servers (usually called Providers elsewhere) can be found at the websites below:

If you're responsible for a tile server, and want to have your tile server and setup instructions listed in this documentation, please get in touch!

Serving Your Own Tiles

Switch2OSM also provides detailed instructions on how to serve your own tiles: this can be surprisingly economical and enjoyable if you don't mind a few hours in a Linux console.

However, this will require a very high-spec computer, especially for larger areas, and hosting this might be more complicated than it's worth. It's very difficult to fully understand the technologies involved.

To integrate with 3rd party mapping libraries, Mapbox provides an alternative to the normal 'Style URL' for each map style (and any custom map styles).

The 'CARTO' 'Integration URL' contains all the information and placeholders that flutter_map requires to display a map. Tiles requested through this endpoint consume the 'Static Tiles API' quota.

Once you have the appropriate URL for your desired map style (see #styles), use it in a TileLayer's urlTemplate as normal.

Retina tiles (high-DPI) tiles are used by default ('@2x'). The maximum zoom level that Mapbox supports is 22, so it is recommended to set maxNativeZoom or maxZoom as such.

Styles

Custom (Studio)

Mapbox supports creating and using custom styled maps through Studio. These are compatible with flutter_map.

Once you've found a style that suits your needs, or created your own, make it public, then open the 'Share & develop' modal:

Scroll to the bottom of the modal, and select 'Third party'. Then from the drop down box, select 'CARTO'. Copy the 'Integration URL' to your clipboard, and use as above.

Prebuilt

Mapbox offers a variety of ready-made map styles that don't require customization. An example URL can be found in the example here.

This URL should be used as above, although you may need to insert the placeholders manually.

We get quite a lot of similar questions, so please check if your question is here before you ask!

'flutter_map' is only as big and useful as it is because of generous open-source contributors!

We're always happy to receive improvements and fixes, so please submit them whenever you can! A few key points are listed below.

• Create a draft PR as soon as work starts, and take it out of draft status when ready for review

• Avoid changing the package version or GitHub workflows

• Fix issues reported by the GitHub workflows (such as formatting)

• Avoid resolving conflicts yourself, if you're not 100% sure what you're changing

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to flutter_map in anyway, you've helped make it the most popular non-commercially owned mapping solution for Flutter. As well as those that have contributed directly to the code, this includes everyone on the Discord server, everyone who's following the progress, and everyone that's participating in discussions and issues.

If you want to contribute to the codebase, please visit the Contributing instructions. We'd love to have your input!

In particular, thanks go to:

• John P Ryan - the founder of this project

• All the current maintainers:

  • @ibrierley

  • @JaffaKetchup

  • @mootw (previously @MooNag)

  • @TesteurManiak

• All the previous maintainers:

  • @kengu

  • @maRci002

• The original authors of this documentation:

  • @JaffaKetchup

  • @themisir

  • @comatory

• Notable contributors:

  • @rorystepenson

  • @ignatz

  • @josxha

• Anyone who has made plugins for flutter_map, see the Plugins List