New Maps

New GaiaPro Map Layer—MapBox Satellite with No Labels

by Ruthie Irvin October 4, 2016

written by Ruthie Irvin

Now available to GaiaPro subscribers, MapBox Satellite Imagery with no labels offers a cleaner map view than the version with labels—perfect if you plan to layer the source with other maps in the app (iOS/Android), layer maps on gaiagps.com, or print your tracks on gaiagps.com.

MapBox Aerial with no Labels

MapBox Aerial with Labels

Add the source from the More Layers menu under the GaiaPro Base Maps category. For detailed instructions, check out the Add Map Sources articles (iOS/Android/Web).

MapBox Aerial with no Labels beautifully displayed with topo layers

Try MapBox Aerial with No Labels, Free

Unsure if you’d benefit from a GaiaPro subscription? Read about the perks of GaiaPro here, and sign up for a free 1-month trial today: https://www.gaiagps.com/user/freetrial.

October 4, 2016

Gaia GPS New Maps

SwissTopo Maps Now Available

by Ruthie Irvin September 27, 2016

written by Ruthie Irvin

Similar to USGS Topo maps, SwissTopo provides beautiful handmade cartography and fine detail. These maps of Switzerland are perfect for hiking, skiing, and planning trips in the Alps.

SwissTopo features heavy elevation shading and contour lines, and emphasizes peak and range names that display prominently.

Add the source from the More Layers menu under the GaiaPro Base Maps category. For detailed instructions, check out the Add Map Sources articles (iOS/Android/Web).

Unlike the USGS, SwissTopo requires license fees for these maps, so we have included them as part of a GaiaPro subscription.

Test Out the New Maps Today

Not a GaiaPro subscriber? Sign-up for a free 1-month trial here: https://www.gaiagps.com/user/freetrial

If you’d like to see additional sources added to Gaia GPS, post your ideas in the Maps section of the Gaia GPS Community Forums.

September 27, 2016

Gaia GPS Hunting New Maps

Updated Public Lands in Gaia GPS

by Kate Dougherty September 26, 2016

written by Kate Dougherty

In addition to the new collection of hunting data we recently added, GaiaPro users can now access an improved public lands layer. Updated for 2016, the overlay gives you the most current and comprehensive data on government-managed areas. Hunters and anyone exploring areas of mixed land ownership may want to consider using this layer, which emphasizes:

National and state forests
Parks and monuments
Wildlife refuges
Conservation lands and game preserves
Bureau of Land Management areas

To add public lands to the map, open the More Layers menu and look for them under the GaiaPro Overlays category. Read these Help Center articles for info about how to use layered maps on iOS and Android.

A User-Friendly Design

Color-coded federal lands let you easily identify which agency manages an area. We represent data at the state, county, and local levels with a single color for each, so the map doesn’t become overwhelming. Note that we’ve updated the symbology associated with the various categories. Labels will appear at zoom level 14.

The updated public lands layer at zoom level 14. The image shows labels for Bureau of Land Management and State of New Mexico lands, as well as Gila National Forest.

The new public lands layer, superimposed over Gaia Topo. Labels appear at zoom level 14.

The Best Public Lands Data in Gaia GPS

The updated layer draws on the most comprehensive and precise datasets available to offer a high level of detail. It displays the privately-held inholdings in federal and state parks that may not appear elsewhere, and shows smaller public lands missing from many popular maps. Bear in mind that not all of the areas in the layer will be open to the public, and watch for any restricted zones within otherwise accessible lands.

Open Source Data in the OpenBounds Project

Just like the hunt boundary overlays, we based the public lands layer on data gathered for OpenBounds, an open source project we founded to aggregate boundary data and share it from a single location. Gaia GPS sources the most current and detailed public lands data available directly from government agencies, then manages data submission and review for the project through the OpenBounds project on GitHub. Anyone can contribute to the project, check out the code, or even copy the repository by visiting the project site.

You can also post your thoughts about the new layer or the OpenBounds project to the Gaia GPS Community Forum, or email support@gaiagps.com with questions.

September 26, 2016

Colorado bighorn sheep hunt districts, superimposed over US Topo.

Gaia GPS Hunting New Maps

Updated: Hunting Map Boundaries in Gaia GPS

by Kate Dougherty September 21, 2016

written by Kate Dougherty

Colorado bighorn sheep hunt districts, layered over US Topo.

Gaia GPS Premium Membership users now have access to detailed hunting map boundaries for hunt districts in many states, just in time for the fall hunting season—a huge improvement on the previous collection in Gaia GPS.

These new maps use the fruits of OpenBounds, an open data project we created as the basis for these maps. This article describes the OpenBounds project, how the project aggregates data, and how you can contribute to this ongoing effort.

To add hunt districts to the map, open the More Layers menu and look for them under the US Hunting Boundaries category. Read these Help Center articles for info about how to use layered maps on iOS and Android.

Data and Coverage Overview

The OpenBounds initiative aims to collect data for U.S. hunt district boundaries and public lands in a single repository, and share it with the world. We’ve used the hunting boundaries as the basis of the new hunting layers, which show district name or number. Gaia GPS Premium Membership currently includes hunt district boundaries for the states in red on the map below.

Hunt district boundary coverage map of the US.

Map of Gaia GPS’s current hunt district boundary coverage.

Please note that Premium Membership currently offers partial species coverage for the following states.

North Dakota (fall turkey only)
Tennessee (huntable Tennessee Valley Authority lands only)
Washington (all available species except deer)

We will continue to integrate data for additional species and states in the coming weeks.

How the OpenBounds Project Works

Gaia GPS sources the most current and detailed hunting data available directly from state wildlife agencies—then manages data submission and review for the project through the crowdsourced, collaborative, open source OpenBounds project on GitHub. Anyone can browse the OpenBounds data sources and processing scripts by visiting the project site.

How You Can Use the Data and Code

If you’re a developer, we invite you to explore the code. You may even want to copy the repository to make your own map or app. Mappers can also check out OpenAddresses, an open repository of high-quality, consistently-referenced address data that businesses, organizations, and individuals can use to match more than 100 million addresses to geographic coordinates. The amazing work of the OpenAddresses project inspired the OpenBounds project.

The data in OpenBounds is important to conservationists, wildlife professionals, outdoor adventurers, and many other people. We hope that, by collecting it one place, the OpenBounds project will make it easier for them to work and play. And like many other open source efforts, we hope the data can support other great tech projects.

Continued Work – You Can Help

The hunt unit boundaries will get updated on an ongoing basis. If you’d like to contribute, consider reviewing GitHub issues to see how you can help with data collection, or even work on the code.

You can also post your thoughts about the project to the Gaia GPS Community Forum, or email support@gaiagps.com with questions.

September 21, 2016

Gaia GPS New Maps

Gaia Topo – The Map for Backpackers

by Kate Dougherty September 9, 2016

written by Kate Dougherty

We’ve made Gaia Topo a default map source in Gaia GPS. It’s been out there for a while now, but today Gaia Topo is really an amazing map source. We wanted to take a moment now to tell you about the work behind this map, and summarize the big improvements we’ve been publishing through the turn of the seasons.

While Gaia GPS continues to offer a vast catalog of topo and other maps, we encourage you to check out Gaia Topo for your next backpacking trip. In many ways, Gaia Topo is the best global topo map, offering a functional and beautiful worldwide map with extraordinary detail at all scales, and built by a team of backpackers who relentlessly test and improve the map in a huge and ongoing effort.

Click here to view Gaia Topo live on gaiagps.com

Our Unique Take on a Global Topo

You’ll find many stylistic differences between Gaia Topo and other maps, but there are at least two areas that make Gaia Topo a unique and wonderful map source for backpacking.

Feet or Meters, Your Choice, Worldwide – One thing we want to highlight about GaiaTopo is that it’s the only global topo map that will show you measurements in either feet or meters. Every other global hiking map – from OpenHikingMap to Mapbox Outdoors – limits you to seeing contour lines, peak measurements, and other numbers in meters only. American users will appreciate being able to work with imperial units.
USGS Style – In designing Gaia Topo at its 1:24K scale, we hew closely to the familiar USGS style and maximize functionality for a high-contrast, detail-packed map that you can easily read in outside lighting conditions, without being overwhelmed. With USGS maps showing their age, lacking a full road network, and covering the US only, Gaia Topo often shines as the better map. And compared to other outdoor topos like MapBox Outdoors or OpenHikingMap, Gaia Topo has an unflinching focus on actually being outside, on the trail – without allowance for glamor or website-oriented design that might hinder functionality.

Yosemite Village in Gaia Topo - Before and After

Before and after of Yosemite Village in Gaia Topo.

A Community Effort

It turns out that the Gaia GPS team, users, and the global OpenStreetMap community all contributed to this collaborative project. Gaia Topo pulls together several data sources, and OpenStreetMap.org forms its core.

OpenStreetMap is a global movement that many Gaia GPS users and team members already participate in, and you can too. Over a million people worldwide have contributed their edits to OpenStreetMap, including trails, campsites, and other data of keen interest to hikers and other outdoor adventurers.

People can contribute by recording GPS data and notes with programs like Gaia GPS, or even by tracing features in satellite imagery to add them to the map. So if you ever find trails that aren’t marked in your area, you can really go a good deed for the world by recording your travels, and adding data to the open map on OpenStreetMap.org.

On the Gaia GPS team, lead developer Jesse Crocker built the first Gaia Topo that we released last summer, and did a significant amount of work over the last six months to improve the map and roll it out across iOS, Android, and gaiagps.com. Intern Aashima Talwar and Map Specialist Kate Dougherty also spent several months refining the design. Gaia GPS developer Alex Thissen has also spent a great deal of time working on the contour line rendering for the map, as well as debugging various issues.

Jesse Crocker, Lead Developer

Aashima Talwar, Intern

Alex Thissen, Developer

Kate Dougherty, GIS Cartographer

Another Year of Work Unleashed

We decided to blog about Gaia Topo now because we’ve greatly expanded work on the map and improved it in numerous ways since we initially released it about 15 months ago.

The latest release applies unique styles to different categories of trails and paths, and shows the bridges over them. It also renders many new amenities, including:

campsites
restrooms
drinking water fountains
parking lots
viewpoints
lighthouses
information centers

Before and after of Curry Village, Yosemite National Park in Gaia Topo.

The map replaces generic points with intuitive icons wherever possible, and outlines national and state parks, nature reserves, and protected areas in dark green to make them easier to spot and identify. Land cover data on wetlands, meadows, scree, glaciers, beaches, bare rock, and landfills also appears at higher zoom levels.

Before and after of Mt. Rainier National Park in Gaia Topo.

Gaia Topo also includes:

slipways and airstrips
intermittent streams
dams
reservoirs
labels for islands and islets
military installations (red hatches)

You may also notice that rivers, streams, and creeks appear wider at higher zoom levels.

Before and after of the Warrenton, Oregon area in Gaia Topo.

Vector Versions Too

In addition to Gaia Topo, iOS users also have access to Gaia Topo (Vector), which makes downloads smaller and rendering crisper. You can find this additional layer in the app in the More Layers Menu.

Because of the challenges associated with vectors on mobile devices, this map isn’t as beautifully rendered as the “raster” version, but it has its advantages, and it will improve over time too.

Ideas for Map Enhancements?

Do you have ideas about how to improve the map? You can post your thoughts on the new design and enhancements you’d like to see in the Gaia GPS Community Forum. If you have any other questions or feedback, you can also email support@gaiagps.com.

September 9, 2016

Gaia GPS New Features New Maps

Gaia GPS for iOS version 10.7

by Ruthie Irvin July 7, 2016

written by Ruthie Irvin

Gaia GPS for iOS version 10.7 boasts several great fixes, and offers a better alternative default map source to display in place of an unavailable main source.

In the past, the MapQuest OpenStreetMap source displayed in lieu of an unavailable map selection. Now, the the in-house GaiaTopo, based on OSM data and stylized with the Gaia GPS user base in mind, acts as the default fallback source instead.

Other important updates include:

When you choose to remove a map source from the Layers list, a warning gets displayed if you have downloaded maps associated with it (because deleting a source deletes the downloads too).
Some map preview icons didn’t display properly in the past, but that got resolved in this version
Fixed folders sync issues that occurred if the app got backgrounded during a sync
Fixed an occasional Apple Watch crash that occurred when viewing track stats
Fixed issue causing waypoints with custom names to assume an auto-name designated by the app when edited or moved

We’d love to hear from you at support@gaiagps.com with your feedback about the new version, and if you have any feature requests, chime in on the Gaia GPS Community Forum and let other users vote and comment on your idea.

July 7, 2016

Gaia GPS New Features New Maps

Import Custom Map Sources on gaiagps.com

by Ruthie Irvin June 28, 2016

written by Ruthie Irvin

Now available on gaiagps.com—import custom map sources directly to your online account with a TMS URL. Read here to learn more about finding a TMS URL.

Until now, only iOS users had the ability to add TMS sources to Gaia GPS, and doing so required testing the TMS URL, converting the data into a TileJSON file, then importing that file into the app via iTunes.

Using the gaiagps.com custom map source import feature, skip those steps—test the TMS source right from the website and save it to your account with the click of a button.

Add , View, and Manage Custom Map Sources

Find the Map Sources data summary page listed in the username drop-down menu on gaiagps.com. From there, you can navigate to the “add map source” form and manage your imported maps.

Click the “+ Import an External Map source” button to reach the form.

—found on https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/mapsources

Follow the instructions provided to format the TMS URL properly for import.

—Replace numbers in the TMS URL with the {x}/{y}/{z} variables in whichever order gives a correct preview directly below

You can preview the custom map source near Berkeley, CA by default, or input a different set of Lat/Long coordinates to view it for your preferred area.

If everything looks right, save the source to your account with a single click. You can always email support@gaiagps.com for help, too.

—If the preview looks good, click “Add this map source” to save the custom map to your account

Sync, File, and Share Custom Map Sources

Once you import a source, you can view, file, or share the import right from the Map Sources data summary page.

To view and download selections of the custom map source in Gaia GPS, run a sync from your device and then add it from the Imported category. To learn how to add map sources to view in the app, follow the instructions in these Help Center articles:

June 28, 2016

New Maps

Mapbox Outdoors in HD

by Kate Dougherty May 27, 2016

written by Kate Dougherty

GaiaPro subscribers can now access Mapbox Outdoors.

First released in April 2014, and revamped this May, Mapbox Outdoors combines OpenStreetMap (OSM) data with land cover, contour lines, and 3D terrain. Besides OSM, Mapbox Outdoors integrates 24 different data sources from 13 organizations – the resulting map focuses on the backcountry, but has complete data for even urban areas.

Add Mapbox Outdoors to Gaia GPS

You can find Mapbox Outdoors in Gaia GPS under the GaiaPro Base Maps category. Check out these instructions:

Yosemite National Park, California.

Schladming Ski Resort, Austria.

Joining the GaiaPro Map Lineup

Most maps in Gaia GPS don’t require a GaiaPro subscription, but Mapbox Outdoors joins the GaiaPro lineup because they cost a recurring, metered fee to use. And Gaia GPS tends to spike these metered fees, because the app allows bulk downloads.

Today, the following premium basemaps require GaiaPro:

Mapbox Outdoors (added May 2016)
Mapbox Streets (added May 2016)
IGN France (added May 2016)
Mapbox Streets & Satellite/Aerial (the original two GaiaPro sources)

Later this summer, Swisstopo and Ordnance Survey will also likely come to GaiaPro (licensing in progress), and the base app has also benefitted from a recent flurry of less expensive map acquisitions, such as Luxembourg, HD topo maps, and HD roads maps.

Ideas for Map Sources?

Do you have any ideas for maps to add to Gaia GPS? You can post your thoughts about additional map sources to the Gaia GPS Community Forum. If you have any other questions or feedback, you can also email support@gaiagps.com.

May 27, 2016

Gaia GPS New Maps

France IGN topo maps return to Gaia GPS

by Ruthie Irvin May 25, 2016

written by Ruthie Irvin

If you plan to backpack in France, Gaia GPS now has another great topo map source for you—France IGN topo maps. Similar to USGS topos, these beautiful, accurate, hand-drawn maps come from a government agency charged with the task.

GaiaPro Exclusive—Because France Needs Your Support

You’ll need a GaiaPro subscription to access the France IGN topo, because unlike the Luxembourg and Spain sources we recently added for all users, we have to pay IGN France a metered fee to use these maps.

Thanks in advance for using discretion when downloading the source, because a single user could incur serious charges.

How to Add France IGN Topo

To add the France IGN Topo, check out the Add Map Sources articles (iOS/Android).

To access the source on gaiagps.com/map, run a sync with gaiagps.com from your device after adding IGN France in app.

France IGN Topos Return

Some users might remember that Gaia GPS previously included France IGN Topos, but recently licensing requirements interrupted access.

After that, many people inquired about the France IGN Topo source, so we hired a French-speaking liaison to help us license the maps for use in Gaia GPS.

The Best Outdoor Map Collection

Especially in the last month, Gaia GPS has expanded to include more great maps for the outdoors:

Spain IGN Topos
HD Versions of every Thunderforest source
Additional HD and MapBox sources not previously available
Full suite of Luxembourg sources

We always look out for new sources to make this the best outdoor map collection, so let us know what’s missing. Take a minute to add your ideas for other sources to the Gaia GPS Community Forum.

If you have any other questions or feedback, reach out to us at support@gaiagps.com.

May 25, 2016

Gaia GPS New Maps

Introducing Luxembourg Maps in Gaia GPS

by Brandon Fralic May 23, 2016

written by Brandon Fralic

Six new Luxembourg maps, now available for all Gaia GPS users. Sourced from the official Luxembourg Geoportal, these maps include a current topographic layer, satellite (aerial) photos, a land parcel layer, and three historic topographic layers.

You can find each new Luxembourg map layer in the app in the More Layers menu, under the International sources category. Use the following instructions to add them:

Add map sources in Gaia for iOS
Add map sources in Gaia for Android

Luxembourg Topo Layers
Compare the current Luxembourg Topo layer to historic topos from 1907, 1927, and 1964. Screenshots below show the current Luxembourg Topo (left) compared to an historic 1907 topo layer (right).

Luxembourg Aerial 2013 and Luxembourg Land Parcels
You can also use Gaia GPS to access satellite photo images of Luxembourg (left) and Luxembourg Land Parcels (right). For more information on finding land parcels, visit the Luxembourg Geoportal.

We want to provide the best, most up-to-date maps available, and constantly search for ways to improve the Gaia sources list. Add your requests for additional map sources to our Community Forum.

If you have any other questions or feedback, reach out to us at support@gaiagps.com.

May 23, 2016

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