Country boundaries as layer

[matths]

So first things first: great work and thank you very much for the project!

I was about to create my own styles variation with https://maputnik.github.io/.
Then I noticed I can only color the entire landmass and then the borders between countries, but there are no individual countries, so to speak.

So this is more of a question than an issue: Would it be easy to include the individual countries with their outer borders in the vector tiles so that I can output them, color them using JS, etc.? So similar to the example map MapLibre documentation is using: https://maplibre.org/maplibre-gl-js/docs/

If this is not possible, how would you approach this?

[hyperknot]

Hi! Great question, but totally unrelated to the project. I recommend asking it here:
https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-gl-js/discussions

Also, have a look at the expressions in the MapLibre demo style as well. I believe you need to use GeoJSON for it, for example from https://geojson.xyz/

You can go into Inspect mode and see what data is present in the vector tiles:

[matths]

Hi Zsolt!

I would not think, that it's totally unrelated to the project. The project includes the step, where it creates vector tiles from Openstreetmap Data (which are later hosted, etc.). This is done using planetiler. And in the resulting tiles there are vector informations for country borders, but there seems to be just one big pot of the boundary level 0 vectors and not "named" portions for each country.
I don't know enough about that that Planetiler step and I am asking if this step could maybe configured differently to support country polygons. So I do not know if OpenStreetMap Data is providing the stuff and I do not know if Planetiler can be configured to put these in layers of their own. But i would really appreciate it.
The geojson way to add as additional layer on top of the map is not so great, as the "resolution" of the country polygons in the geojson is much worse than what we have in the vector tiles right now.
The commercial MapTiler folks seem to have that https://www.maptiler.com/countries/ but I would prefer this part of the free map.

I did inspect the vector tiles using this: https://stevage.github.io/vector-inspector/#?url=https://tiles.openfreemap.org/planet/20250101_001001_pt/5/16/9.pbf&loc=3.42/31.73/-64.84

And using the same tool, we can see that the maplibregl demotiles are structured completely different:
https://stevage.github.io/vector-inspector/#?url=https://demotiles.maplibre.org/tiles/1/0/0.pbf&loc=3/25.86/4.33

Cheers, Matthias

[hyperknot]

OK, not strictly unrelated, it is a good question if this is possible or not using the hosted tiles. I believe the answer is not, as this data is not present in the OpenMapTile specification, which this project is using. (If anyone knows this differently, please correct me on this.)

Because this is not present in the OpenFreeMap data, you'll need to use an external dataset. For example the very same which is running on demotiles:
https://github.com/maplibre/demotiles

[matths]

I agree there are still two (probably more) attempts to approach my needs:

1. I still think, a valid way could be to enhance the OpenFreeMap Vector Tiles with a custom layer, as the information about countries should be available in the used source data from OpenStreetMap. There's some custom layer example here: https://github.com/openmaptiles/planetiler-openmaptiles?tab=readme-ov-file. So maybe we can find someone who is able to do this. I think you might be able to host the result. ;)

2. About the Maplibregl Demotiles, I can't find out who and how did generate those. It feels wrong to just use them. That's why it is more charming if we have this layer in die OpenFreeMap tiles. I've read somewhere the data source is "National earth" which is also used by planetiler next to OSM.

I have not yet given up on option 1.

[matths]

About (2.) I was pointed to https://github.com/maplibre/demotiles

Even if they were made with proprietary software, they are probably based on the open “Natural Earth” data and you can easily use or fork them.

I was even able to add missing "countries" like england, scotland, wales and norther ireland using GeoJSON which I found here: https://github.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/blob/master/geojson/ne_10m_admin_0_map_units.geojson

I think I can go this way for now. It would still be interesting, how the planetiler part in (1.) exactly works and if it offers more room for customization and configuration, but I should ask in the PlaneTiler repo.