Contour lines

Contour lines for all of Austria as vector tiles, derived from the DTM. There are four generalization levels, each with its own interval, smoothing and index lines.

Use cases

Hiking and outdoor mapsContours with labeled index lines

OverlaysLines over the basemap or orthophoto

Route planningRead gradient and terrain shape

Planning mapsElevation bands in thematic maps

QGISVector tiles in desktop GIS

Specifications

Tilesethoehenlinien

File: hoehenlinien-20250915-2037a3df.pmtiles
Reference date: 2025-09-15
Format: mvt
Zoom levels: z10–z16
Bounds (WGS84): 9.5311 / 46.3723 / 17.1605 / 49.0210 (W/S/O/N)
License: CC BY 4.0

Live map

Click the map: attributes of features at the point.

Add to your map

new maplibregl.Map({
  container: "map",
  style: {
    version: 8,
    sources: { v: { type: "vector", url: "https://tiles.mapx.at/v1/tiles/contours.json" } },
    layers: [{ id: "contour_l", type: "line", source: "v", "source-layer": "contour_l", paint: { "line-color": "#b5651d" } }]
  }
});

TileJSON provides zoom range, bounds and attribution. Send the token with every request: add the transformRequest from First map to the map options. With PMTiles directly use url: "pmtiles://https://tiles.mapx.at/hoehenlinien-20250915-2037a3df.pmtiles?access_token=YOUR_TOKEN" (protocol as in the PMTiles guide).

Vector Tiles → New Connection, URL https://tiles.mapx.at/v1/tiles/contours/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf?access_token=YOUR_TOKEN, leave the style URL empty. Alternatively open the PMTiles file directly as a layer (QGIS 3.32 and later reads PMTiles over HTTP).

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" https://tiles.mapx.at/v1/tiles/contours.json
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" -o kachel.pbf https://tiles.mapx.at/v1/tiles/contours/14/8860/5730.pbf

Layer reference

`lvl`	Zoom	Interval	Index line	Grid	Smoothing (Gaussian σ)	Minimum length
10	10–11	100 m	500 m	20 m	60 m	600 m
12	12–13	50 m	200 m	10 m	25 m	250 m
14	14–15	20 m	100 m	4 m	10 m	100 m
16	from 16	10 m	50 m	2 m	4 m	40 m

There are no lines below z10. Filter by lvl in the style, otherwise several levels overlap at z12 and above if the client overzooms.

{ id: "hl", type: "line", source: "v", "source-layer": "contour_l",
  paint: { "line-color": "#b5651d", "line-width": ["case", ["==", ["get", "index"], 1], 1.4, 0.6] } }
{ id: "hl-text", type: "symbol", source: "v", "source-layer": "contour_l",
  filter: ["==", ["get", "index"], 1],
  layout: { "symbol-placement": "line", "text-field": ["concat", ["get", "ele"], " m"], "text-size": 10 } }

contour_l

Geometry: LineZoom: z10–16Layer: contour_l

Elevation contours in four levels of detail.

Field Type Description

ele number Elevation of the line in metres above sea level.

index

number

1 for index contours (major lines), otherwise 0.

Possible values	Meaning
`0`	Regular contour
`1`	Index contour (major line, usually labelled)

lvl

number

Detail level of the contour; equals the map zoom level from which it is shown (interval 100 m, 50 m, 20 m, 10 m).

Possible values	Meaning
`10`	Zoom 10–11, 100 m interval (index every 500 m)
`12`	Zoom 12–13, 50 m interval (index every 200 m)
`14`	Zoom 14–15, 20 m interval (index every 100 m)
`16`	Zoom 16, 10 m interval (index every 50 m)

Source and currency

Source: BEV ALS-DTM 1 m, reference date 15 Sep 2025 (same as the DTM).

Notes

Because of the smoothing, the line at coarse levels deliberately does not lie exactly on the raw elevation.
Lines end at the area edge (national border).
On steep faces 10 m lines are very dense; thinning is the style’s job.
Labeling via the attribute ele; there are no dedicated label points.

Attribution

Required under CC BY 4.0. MapLibre picks up the text automatically from TileJSON or PMTiles:

Höhenlinien: mapx.at, Datenquelle <a href="https://data.bev.gv.at/geonetwork/srv/ger/catalog.search#/metadata/5ce253fc-b7c5-4362-97af-6556c18a45d9">BEV – ALS-DTM 1 m</a> (Stichtag 15.09.2025), CC BY 4.0

More: License.

Cadastre DTM terrain model