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Data Licence & Attributions

What you can do with mapbow data layers and exports, in plain English – and the credits we and you must give to the people who made the data.

Last updated 15 November 2026

In short

  • Use data layers in your maps, websites, apps, reports, presentations and internal analysis – including commercially.
  • Publish and share maps made with them, free or paid.
  • Keep the attribution with anything you publish or share.
  • Don't resell or redistribute the raw datasets as a competing data product.

1. What this licence covers

This licence applies to the built-in data layers in mapbow (places and boundaries by country), whether you view them in a map or export them to files. Your own content – things you draw, import or upload – is yours and is not covered by this licence. This licence forms part of our Terms of Sale and Use.

2. What you may do

  • Show data layers in maps you create, and share or embed those maps anywhere, including commercial websites and apps.
  • Use exported data in your own analysis, reports, presentations, publications, GIS projects, databases and software.
  • Combine the data with your own data, and modify, filter, style and analyse it.
  • Print maps and include map images in publications, with attribution.
  • Let people in your organisation work with data you exported for your projects.

3. What you may not do

  • Resell, sublicense or redistribute the raw datasets (or substantial extracts of them) as data, for example as a competing download, dataset or data API.
  • Remove or obscure the attributions below.
  • Imply that the data providers endorse you or your product.
  • Use the data where accuracy is safety-critical (navigation, emergency dispatch, legal boundary decisions) without verifying it against an authoritative source.

These restrictions apply to mapbow's compilation and service. They do not limit any rights you already have under the original open licences described below.

4. Required attributions

Most data in mapbow comes from open data projects whose licences require credit. Shared and embedded maps show the right attribution automatically, and every export includes an attribution file. When you publish exported data or map images elsewhere, include the relevant credits below.

OpenStreetMap

Points of interest (restaurants, hospitals, schools, shops, transport, tourism, nature and public services), municipalities, suburbs and localities, postcode areas, national parks and protected areas, parks, lakes, golf courses, cemeteries, cities, towns, villages, neighbourhoods and islands are derived from OpenStreetMap.

Credit: "© OpenStreetMap contributors". OpenStreetMap data is available under the Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0; see openstreetmap.org/copyright.

Share-alike. The ODbL lets you use, adapt and share the data, including commercially, provided you attribute it and keep it open. If you publicly use a derivative database – a modified or extended version of the data itself – you must make that derivative database available under the ODbL. Maps and images produced from the data ("produced works") can be published under any terms you like, with attribution. Combining the data with your own data in a map, without merging the databases, is generally a produced work.

geoBoundaries

Country borders, states and provinces, and districts and counties are derived from the geoBoundaries Comprehensive Global Administrative Zones (CGAZ) dataset.

Credit: "Boundaries: geoBoundaries (Runfola, D. et al. (2020) geoBoundaries: A global database of political administrative boundaries. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0231866)", licensed under CC BY 4.0. Boundaries are simplified for web display and do not imply any position on disputed territories.

World Cities and World Urban Areas

The Major Cities layer is derived from the World Cities dataset, whose metadata lists its sources as: Esri; Bartholomew and Times Books; U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (The World Factbook); International Organization for Standardization (ISO); U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research; GeoNames; U.S. Board on Geographic Names; U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA); BBC News; Global Mapping International; United Nations Statistics Division; UN-Habitat; and the U.S. Census Bureau. Population estimates are from the United Nations Statistics Division, UN-Habitat and the U.S. Census Bureau. The Urban Areas layer is derived from the World Urban Areas dataset.

Credit: "World Cities and World Urban Areas: Esri and its data partners". These datasets are provided under the Esri Master License Agreement; your use of these two layers is also subject to those terms.

Basemaps, imagery, terrain and search

  • OpenStreetMap basemap: © OpenStreetMap contributors; tiles by the OpenStreetMap Foundation, subject to its tile usage policy.
  • CARTO basemaps (Positron, Dark Matter, Voyager): © CARTO, map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
  • Esri basemaps (World Imagery, World Topographic, World Street Map and others): Esri and its partners, including Maxar, Earthstar Geographics and the GIS user community, as credited on the map.
  • OpenFreeMap vector styles: OpenFreeMap, © OpenMapTiles, data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
  • Terrain: AWS Terrain Tiles (Mapzen), derived from sources including SRTM, GMTED2010, ETOPO1, NRCan CDEM, 3DEP (USGS) and others.
  • Place search: results © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Basemaps are shown in maps and map images only; they are not part of the data you can export.

5. Accuracy

Open data is contributed and maintained by many people and organisations. It is extensive but never complete or perfectly current, and coverage varies by country and category. Data is provided "as is" – see section 7 of our terms.

6. Corrections

Spotted a missing or wrong place? Corrections made in OpenStreetMap appear in mapbow after a later data refresh. For anything else, email [email protected].

7. Questions

If you are unsure whether your use is allowed, ask us at [email protected] before you publish.