Vector maps — what they are in plain words and where to download them
A vector map is a map stored not as a picture made of pixels but as a list of objects: "this road runs from this point to that one", "this building is this outline", "this park is this polygon". All its properties follow from that: it zooms without pixelating, splits into layers and is edited object by object. Below is the same thing in detail and without jargon, and at the end — where to get such a map.
A picture versus a drawing
A raster map (PNG, JPEG, a screenshot) is a photograph of a map. It's made of pixel cells, and their number is fixed once and for all. Zoom in four times and you see the cells themselves.
A vector map is a drawing — more precisely, the instructions for producing one: coordinates, line weights, colours. The program redraws the map from scratch at whatever size you ask for, so the lines stay crisp on a business card and on a banner alike.
Four differences you actually feel
- Scaling. Vector never pixelates. The same file works for A4 and for an A0 poster.
- Layers. In a vector map, buildings, roads, water and greenery sit separately — any category can be switched off, recoloured or handed over on its own. In a picture everything is already baked into one layer.
- Editability. Every house is a separate object: move it, delete it, fill it with another colour. In raster that's pixel retouching.
- Weight and contents. A vector's size depends on the number of objects, not on the print size. A neighbourhood map is a couple of megabytes, while a city map at 300 DPI as raster is hundreds. Vector also often keeps names and properties: you can find a street by searching the file.
The flip side: satellite imagery is never vector, and a very detailed vector map of a large city can open more slowly than a picture. A detailed comparison with tables is in vector vs raster maps.
Which vector map formats exist
- SVG — for design, print and web. Opens in Illustrator, Inkscape, Figma, CorelDRAW and plain browsers. Take it if the map will be recoloured and styled.
- PDF — for printing and passing along as is. Opens for everyone, fonts inside, raises no questions at a print shop.
- DXF and DWG — for CAD: AutoCAD, BricsCAD, nanoCAD, KOMPAS. Layers, real dimensions, measurable distances and areas. This is a base for a project, not a picture.
- GeoJSON — for web maps and developers. A plain text file with coordinates and properties, readable from any programming language.
- Shapefile (SHP) and GeoPackage — GIS classics: QGIS, ArcGIS, MapInfo. Needed when analysis is coming: what falls inside a radius, what the total road length is.
If you're torn between them, the guides top 10 GIS formats and which format for print and design will help.
How to tell whether yours is vector
A simple check: open the file and zoom to 800%. If the lines stayed sharp and the text readable — vector. If little squares appeared — raster. Careful with PDF: an ordinary picture can be embedded inside a PDF, and then it's "vector" by extension only. Such a file is easy to spot by the same zoom test and by the fact that its text can't be selected with the cursor.
Where to download a vector city map
The world's main open source of mapping data is OpenStreetMap: streets, houses, water, greenery and points of interest, collected by the community and available under the free ODbL licence (when publishing, credit the source — © OpenStreetMap contributors).
The data itself lives in technical formats, so people usually take one of three routes: install QGIS and export through plugins, write an Overpass API query, or take a ready-made export of the area in the format they need.
Easier — get a ready file straight away
Select the piece of the city you need on the map and download it straight as vector: SVG for design, PDF for print, DXF for CAD, GeoJSON for web and GIS. Layers are separated, labels are in place, no registration. It's free and takes seconds.
In short
- A vector map is a list of objects with coordinates, not a grid of pixels.
- Hence: lossless scaling, layers, object-level editing, modest file size.
- Formats: SVG for design, PDF for print, DXF for CAD, GeoJSON for web and GIS.
- The "is it vector" test: zoom to 800% — if you see little squares, it's raster.
- The data comes from OpenStreetMap; the in-depth comparison with raster is in a separate article.