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Editor's Picks

Introducing the Community Map of Canada Style of the Month

Published Date
Author Erin Vedam

New year, new maps. It’s the start of the new year and the start of something new at Community Maps. For the next 12 months, we will feature a new, rotating style – the Community Maps Style of the Month.

Each style will be made using the ArcGIS Vector Tile Style Editor and will be styled to match the month it comes out. The styles will reference the Community Map of Canada, which means each themed basemap will still update daily with the latest authoritative data from communities across Canada.

The Community Map Style of the Month is an easy way to keep your web content unique and current. The style of the month will be updated at the start of each new month and past styles will be kept in a gallery: https://arcg.is/1HCT8b

This gallery contains great resources that will make web development easier and will allow you to continue to view past styles after they are replaced. Please note that if you use the Style of the Month web map as a base map in any of your web applications, they will be updated automatically with the new style monthly.

To view this month’s style please visit: https://arcg.is/1fzX8u

If you find a style that you love and want to use it in an existing application, you can update the existing web map’s style in just a few steps!

  1. Browse to the Community Map of Canada Style Gallery and find your preferred style
  2. Open it in map viewer and click the drop down of the web map’s name. Hover over the first layer in the contents (i.e. not the background layer), click the ‘More Options’ icon and click on ‘Show Item Details’.
  3. Once in the item details, click ‘Download style’. This will automatically download the style as a root.json file. Save the file locally, keeping the extension as .json
  4. Browse to the web map component of your existing application and go to the Item details of your intended web layer. On the right-hand side of the page, click ‘Update’. When the ‘Update Style File’ window appears choose your newly saved style file.
  5. Enjoy your brand-new style!

If you have any ideas of styles you would like to see or would like to submit a style for the Style of the Month, please email communitymaps@esri.ca

Happy Mapping!