Migrate to Mapbox GL JS v3

Mapbox GL JS v3 enables the Mapbox Standard Style, a new realistic 3D lighting system, 3D models for landmarks, building and terrain shadows and many other visual enhancements, and an ergonomic API for using a new kind of rich, evolving, configurable map styles and seamless integration with custom data.

Update Dependencies

Mapbox GL JS v3 is supported in most modern browsers. Mapbox GL JS v3 is backwards-compatible and existing layers and APIs will continue to work as expected. To use the new Mapbox GL JS v3 in your project, you need to import it using the Mapbox GL JS CDN or install the mapbox-gl npm package.

<script src='https://api.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/v3.1.2/mapbox-gl.js'></script>
<link href='https://api.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/v3.1.2/mapbox-gl.css' rel='stylesheet' />

<div id='map' style='width: 400px; height: 300px;'></div>
<script>
undefinedmapboxgl.accessToken = 'undefined';
const map = new mapboxgl.Map({
	container: 'map', // container ID
	center: [-74.5, 40], // starting position [lng, lat]
	zoom: 9, // starting zoom
});
</script>

To use Mapbox GL JS, you need to have a Mapbox access token. This access token associates your map with a Mapbox account. For more information on creating and using access tokens, see our token management documentation.

Explore New Features

The Mapbox Standard style

We're excited to announce the launch of Mapbox Standard, our latest Mapbox style, now accessible to all customers. The new Mapbox Standard core style enables a highly performant and elegant 3D mapping experience with powerful dynamic lighting capabilities, landmark 3D buildings, and an expertly crafted symbolic aesthetic.

With Mapbox Standard, we are also introducing a new paradigm for how to interact with map styles. When you use this style in your application we will continuously update your basemap with the latest features with no additional work required from you. This ensures that your users will always have the latest features of our maps. You can get more information about the available presets and configuration options of the Standard style in the style documentation.

• The Mapbox Standard Style (mapbox://styles/mapbox/standard) is now enabled by default when no style option is provided to the Map constructor. Or, you can still explicitly set the style by passing the URL to the style option of the Map constructor.

• The Mapbox Standard Style offers a dynamic way to personalize your maps. The map's appearance can be changed using the map.setConfigProperty method, where you reference the Standard Style as basemap, followed by the configuration property, like light preset or label visibility, and then specify the desired value.

• The Mapbox Standard style features 4 light presets: "Day", "Dusk", "Dawn", and "Night". After the style has loaded, the light preset can be changed from the default, "Day", to another preset with a single line of code:

map.on('style.load', () => {
    map.setConfigProperty('basemap', 'lightPreset', 'dusk');
});

Changing the light preset will alter the colors and shadows on your map to reflect the time of day. For more information, refer to the Lighting API section.

Similarly, you can set other configuration properties on the Standard style such as showing POIs, place labels, or specific fonts:

map.on('style.load', () => {
    map.setConfigProperty('basemap', 'showPointOfInterestLabels', false);
});

The Standard style offers 6 configuration properties for developers to change when they import it into their own style:

Mapbox Standard is making adding your own data layers easier for you through the concept of slots. Slots are predetermined locations in the style where your layer will be added to (such as on top of existing land layers, but below all labels). To do this, we've added a new slot property to each Layer. This property allows you to identify which slot in the Mapbox Standard your new layer should be placed in. To add custom layers in the appropriate location in the Standard style layer stack, we added 3 carefully designed slots that you can leverage to place your layer:

Set the preferred slot on the Layer object before adding it to your map and your layer will be appropriately placed in the Standard style's layer stack.

map.addLayer({
    id: 'points-of-interest',
    slot: 'middle',
    source: {
        type: 'vector',
        url: 'mapbox://mapbox.mapbox-streets-v8'
    },
    'source-layer': 'poi_label',
    type: 'circle'
});

Important: For the new Standard style, you can only add layers to these three slots (bottom, middle, top) within the Standard style basemap.

Like with the classic Mapbox styles, you can still use the layer position in map.addLayer(layer, beforeId) method when importing the Standard Style. But, this method is only applicable to custom layers you have added yourself. If you add two layers to the same slot with a specified layer position the latter will define order of the layers in that slot.

When using the Standard style, you get the latest basemap rendering features, map styling trends and data layers as soon as they are available, without requiring any manual migration/integration. On top of this, you'll still have the ability to introduce your own data to the map and control your user's experience. If you have feedback or questions about the Mapbox Standard style reach out to: [email protected].

Our existing, classic Mapbox styles (such as Mapbox Streets, Mapbox Light, and Mapbox Satellite Streets) and any custom styles you have built in Mapbox Studio will still work like they do in v2, so no changes are required.

Lighting API

The new Standard style and its dynamic lighting is powered by the new Style and Lighting APIs that you can experiment with. The following experimental APIs can be used to control the look and feel of the map.

In GL JS v3 we've introduced new experimental lighting APIs to give you control of lighting and shadows in your map when using 3D objects: AmbientLight and DirectionalLight. We've also added new APIs on FillExtrusionLayer and LineLayer to support this 3D lighting styling and enhance your ability to work with 3D model layers. Together, these properties can illuminate your 3D objects such as buildings and terrain to provide a more realistic and immersive map experience for your users. Set these properties at runtime to follow the time of day, a particular mood, or other lighting goals in your map.

Style API and expressions improvements

We have introduced a new set of expressions to enhance your styling capabilities:

• Introduced hsl, hsla color expression: These expressions allow you to define colors using hue, saturation, lightness format.
• Introduced random expression: Generate random values using this expression. Use this expression to generate random values, which can be particularly helpful for introducing randomness into your map data.
• Introduced measureLight expression lights configuration property: Create dynamic styles based on lighting conditions.
• Introduced config expression: Retrieves the configuration value for the given option.
• Introduced raster-value expression: Returns the raster value of a pixel computed via raster-color-mix.
• Introduced distance expression: Returns the shortest distance in meters between the evaluated feature and the input geometry.

Mapbox GL JS v3 also introduces a new set of paint properties:

• background:
  • background-emissive-strength
• circle:
  • circle-emissive-strength
• fill:
  • fill-emissive-strength
  • fill-extrusion-ambient-occlusion-ground-attenuation
  • fill-extrusion-ambient-occlusion-ground-radius
  • fill-extrusion-ambient-occlusion-wall-radius
  • fill-extrusion-flood-light-color
  • fill-extrusion-flood-light-ground-attenuation
  • fill-extrusion-flood-light-ground-radius
  • fill-extrusion-flood-light-intensity
  • fill-extrusion-flood-light-wall-radius
  • fill-extrusion-vertical-scale
• icon:
  • icon-emissive-strength
  • icon-image-cross-fade
• line:
  • line-emissive-strength
• raster:
  • raster-color-mix
  • raster-color-range
  • raster-color
• text:
  • text-emissive-strength

Known issues and limitations

To report new issues with Mapbox GL JS v3, create a bug report on GitHub.

• Discontinued WebGL 1 support. WebGL 2 now mandatory for GL JS v3 usage, aligned with universal browser support.
• During 3D globe and terrain rendering, GL JS aims to batch multiple layers together for optimal performance. This process might lead to a rearrangement of layers. Layers draped over globe and terrain, such as fill, line, background, hillshade, and raster, are rendered first. These layers are rendered underneath symbols, regardless of whether they are placed in the middle or top slots or without a designated slot
• In Safari 17 private browsing mode, Apple's Advanced Privacy Protection introduces noise into key fingerprinting areas like 2D Canvas and WebGL and may cause unexpected terrain spikes in GL JS v3.