How to Calculate Map Tiles for Your GIS Project

When building tile servers, creating offline maps, or estimating storage costs, you need to know how many tiles your project requires. The Map Tile Calculator helps you plan your tile infrastructure with accurate estimates.

The Tile Math

The world is divided into 2^zoom × 2^zoom tiles at each zoom level. That means:

• Zoom 0: 1 × 1 = 1 tile (whole world)
• Zoom 5: 32 × 32 = 1,024 tiles
• Zoom 10: 1024 × 1024 = 1,048,576 tiles
• Zoom 15: 32,768 × 32,768 = 1.07 billion tiles

For partial areas (a bounding box), the tile count depends on which tiles intersect your area of interest.

Using the Tile Calculator

The Map Tile Calculator tool helps you:

1. Enter a bounding box — or draw one on the map using the Bounding Box Tool.
2. Select a zoom range — e.g., z0–z14 for a complete dataset.
3. Get instant counts — tiles per zoom level, cumulative totals.
4. Estimate storage — based on average tile sizes for different formats.

Storage Estimates by Format

Format	Avg size per tile	z0–z14 global estimate
PNG raster	~15 KB	15+ TB
PBF vector	~30 KB	30+ TB
JPEG raster	~25 KB	25+ TB
PMTiles (vector)	bundled	50–100 GB

Note that storage for pre-rendered raster tiles is much higher than vector tiles. A full global PMTiles archive of OSM vector tiles at z0–z14 is approximately 50–100 GB, which can be served efficiently from any static file host.

Related Tools

• Bounding Box Tool — Draw bounding boxes for tile calculation
• Coordinate Converter — Convert coordinates between formats