AWS Open Data Elevation Tiles
AWS Open Data elevation tiles provide free, no-auth Terrarium-encoded terrain raster tiles from S3, making them one of the simplest free options for MapLibre 3D terrain.
Format
Raster-dem tiles (Terrarium)
Geometry
Raster DEM tiles
Coverage
Global
Resolution
Up to zoom 15 (~12m at equator in some regions)
About this dataset
Free Terrarium-encoded global terrain tiles served from AWS S3 Open Data, directly usable in MapLibre as a raster-dem source with no API key.
AWS hosts a freely accessible set of Terrarium-encoded terrain elevation tiles derived from Mapzen / AWS elevation data on their Open Data program. The tiles are available as a static S3 bucket with standard z/x/y URLs and no authentication required. This is a pure open-data endpoint ideal for MapLibre raster-dem sources.
How to download
- 1 Use the S3 tile URL template directly: https://s3.amazonaws.com/elevation-tiles-prod/terrarium/{z}/{x}/{y}.png
- 2 Add a raster-dem source in MapLibre with type 'raster-dem', the S3 URL, and encoding 'terrarium'.
- 3 Enable terrain: { source: 'your-dem-id' } in your map style.
- 4 No API key or account needed — this is open data served from AWS S3.
FAQ
Is the AWS elevation tile service reliable for production?
The S3 bucket is part of AWS Open Data and has no SLA or guaranteed uptime, but it has been stable for years. For mission-critical production, consider MapTiler or Stadia Maps for CDN-backed SLAs.
What is the origin of AWS elevation tile data?
The data was originally processed by Mapzen from multiple sources including SRTM, GMTED, and NED. AWS now hosts these tiles as part of their Open Data program.
What encoding do the AWS tiles use?
The standard Terrarium-encoded tiles are at the /terrarium/ path. Mapbox-encoded tiles may also be available at a different path. Use encoding: 'terrarium' for MapLibre.