First PMTiles Map

Learn how to display a massive dataset on an interactive map using PMTiles and MapLibre

What you will learn

This class will show you how journalists use free and open-source tools to:

• Convert massive shapefiles to the compact PMTiles format using tippecanoe

• Display the tiles on an interactive map using MapLibre GL JS

• Create a data-driven style that colors features based on their attributes

Who can take it

This course is free. Anyone with access to a computer terminal is qualified. You don’t need to be an expert programmer, but you will need to be comfortable using the command line and editing text files.

The documentation will assume you’re working on an Apple computer, but you can follow along on Windows or Linux by researching how to install the necessary software on your operating system.

Table of contents

• 1. What you will make
• 2. Downloading the data
• 3. Building the tiles
• 4. Creating the map
• 5. Styling the data

About this class

Ben Welsh prepared this guide for a training session at the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting’s 2026 conference. Some of the copy was written with the assistance of Anthropic’s Claude and GitHub’s Copilot. The materials are available as free and open source on GitHub.