Adding Basemaps in QGIS: A Beginner’s Guide
What are basemaps?
A basemap is a foundational map layer that provides essential geographic context such as streets, boundaries, satellite, imagery, terrain, or topography. When you add your own spatial data in QGIS like shapefiles, points, CVS, rasters, a basemap acts as the background that helps you understand when our data is located in the real world.
Why use Basemaps?
Basemaps are extremely valuable because they
1. Make your map visually clear by showing familiar geographic features
2. Help you interpret your data in a real-world context
3. Improve the quality of maps created for reports, presentations, dashboards, and projects
4. Support better spatial analysis by allowing easy orientation and comparison with real-world locations
How to add Basemaps in QGIS step by step
Follow these simple steps to add any Basemap to your QGIS project.
Step 1. Open the Browser Panel. If the Browser Panel is not visible,
go to Views → Panels → Browser Panel.
Just tick the navigated options and you will see browser panel on upper side
Here you will see Folders, Drives, Database, and XYZ Tiles section.
This is where Basemaps links are stored.
Step 2. Create a new Basemap Connection.
1. In the Browser Panel, right-click XYZ Tiles
2. click New Connection.
3. Enter Name → OpenStreetMap → Google Satellite → ESRI Imagery → Paste the Basemap URL list provided in the next section.
Step 3. Use a Basemap URL.
Below are some reliable and widely used XYZ tile URLs you can use in your QGIS projects are as follows.
Use the following table.
| Basemap Name | URL |
| OpenStreetMap Standard | https://tile.openstreetmap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png |
| Google Satellite | http://mt1.google.com/vt/lyrs=s&x={x}&y={y}&z={z} |
| Google Hybrid (Satellite + Labels) | http://mt1.google.com/vt/lyrs=y&x={x}&y={y}&z={z} |
| Google Terrain | http://mt1.google.com/vt/lyrs=p&x={x}&y={y}&z={z} |
| ESRI World Imagery | https://services.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/World_Imagery/MapServer/tile/{z}/{y}/{x} |
Similarly you need to do for remaining BaseMaps.
Just give the connection name and require URL
1)ESRI
2) Google Hybrid (Satellite + Labels)
3) Google Satellite
Paste any of these URLs when creating XYZ connections.
Step 4. Add the Basemap to the map canvas
Once your connection is created, double click the Basemap name or drag it directly into the layers panel. The Basemap will be load instantly on your map canvas.
Step 5. Reorder and customize layers.
- Ensure Basemap stays at the bottom of the layer list.
- Your own data, shapefile, CSV points, rasters, polygons, etc. should remain above the Basemap.
- For transparency, right-click Basemap -> Properties -> Transparency. This helps make other layers more visible on the top of the Basemap.
1)ESRI
2) Google Satellite
3)
4) Google Terrain
5)Open Street Map Standard
Tips for choosing the right basemap.
- Use simple street basemap like OpenStreetMap when working with roads, city, boundaries, or network analysis.
- Use Satellite imagery, Google Satellite, or ESRI imagery when working on land cover, environment, terrain, or remote sensing.
- Use a topographic or terrain basemap for elevation-based or landscape studies.
- Always check the copyright license of basemap, especially if you are using them in reports or commercial projects. For offline work, the cache tiles or use download tile packages.
For an in-depth understanding, please refer to our book, “Academic Research Fundamentals: Research Writing and Data Analysis”. It is available as an eBook here, or you may purchase the hardcopy here .