{"id":79701,"date":"2017-09-27T12:10:03","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T12:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/product\/uncategorized\/working-with-and-customizing-esri-vector-basemaps-the-basics\/"},"modified":"2022-02-04T12:26:05","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T20:26:05","slug":"working-with-and-customizing-esri-vector-basemaps-the-basics","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/mapping\/mapping\/working-with-and-customizing-esri-vector-basemaps-the-basics","title":{"rendered":"Working with and Customizing Esri Vector Basemaps: The Basics"},"author":4491,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[22941],"tags":[22951,23171,23201,40161,23161,33541],"industry":[],"product":[36581,36551],"class_list":["post-79701","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mapping","tag-arcgis-content","tag-basemaps","tag-cartographic-design","tag-living-atlas-of-the-world","tag-maps","tag-vector-basemaps","product-arcgis-living-atlas","product-arcgis-online"],"acf":{"short_description":"Have you ever had that moment where you thought 'This basemap would work really well, if only ...'? Now you can edit them yourself.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p><strong>Updated December 20th, 2021:<\/strong>\u00a0 <em>An update to this blog and the linked Story Maps can be found <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-online\/mapping\/new-ways-of-customizing-esri-vector-basemaps\/\">here<\/a><\/strong>. The update includes additional features in the ArcGIS Vector Style Editor. More information on that can be found <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/apps\/mapping\/design-custom-basemaps-with-the-new-arcgis-vector-tile-style-editor\/\">here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Vector Tile Layers can be used to create multi-scale maps that are efficient, high-resolution and customizable.\u00a0Esri&#8217;s Living Atlas Content Team has created vector tile versions of most of our traditional basemaps (plus some new ones), and these work well in themselves.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Blog_Basemap_Collage.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-87381\" src=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Blog_Basemap_Collage.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"345\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But have you ever had that moment where you thought &#8216;This basemap would work <em>really<\/em> well, if only &#8230;&#8217;?<\/p>\n<p>These links take you to a sequence of story maps that introduce the mechanics of customization &#8211; using our basemaps as a starting point to build something perfectly suited for your work.<\/p>\n<p>Pt 1: <a href=\"https:\/\/arcg.is\/jKrSX\">Starting<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Pt 2: <a href=\"https:\/\/arcg.is\/1Srq01\">Colors<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Pt 3: <a href=\"https:\/\/arcg.is\/vvi04\">Lines<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Pt 4: <a href=\"https:\/\/arcg.is\/0aPTaC\">Labels<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It assumes that you have zero knowledge of working in this environment (editing JSON code), but even if you do know your way around a block of code, it will help you to understand how our maps are structured.<\/p>\n"}],"authors":[{"ID":4491,"user_firstname":"Andrew","user_lastname":"Skinner","nickname":"Andrew Skinner","user_nicename":"askinner","display_name":"Andy Skinner","user_email":"ASkinner@esri.com","user_url":"","user_registered":"2018-03-02 00:16:04","user_description":"Andy is a Cartographic Designer who has been building maps for 50 years. He has been working with Esri in Redlands for 16 years, most recently on the creation of some of Esri's vector basemaps, and the development of color ramps for ArcGIS Online. Prior to Esri, he was Manager of Cartographic Design at Rand McNally, and before that a Senior Cartographer at GeoSystems\/MapQuest. He is originally from England, and worked for a number of years at what is now the University of Derby before moving to the USA. Andy can be contacted at: askinner@esri.com","user_avatar":"<img data-del=\"avatar\" src='https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CartoonMe_2017_lr.png' class='avatar pp-user-avatar avatar-96 photo ' height='96' width='96'\/>"}],"related_articles":"","card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2017\/09\/BlogThumbnail_Basics.jpg","wide_image":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Working with and Customizing Esri Vector Basemaps: The Basics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/mapping\/mapping\/working-with-and-customizing-esri-vector-basemaps-the-basics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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