2. Creating Interactive Maps

2.1. Introduction

There are a plethora of Python packages for interactive mapping and geospatial analysis [Wu, 2021]. Different packages have different APIs for creating maps and visualizing data, which could be a barrier to beginners. Geemap provides a unified API for creating interactive maps and visualizing data, making it very easy to switch plotting backends with only one line of code.

In this chapter, we will learn how to create interactive maps using one of the six plotting backends. We will also walk through practical examples of adding basemaps to an interactive map. There are hundreds of basemaps available, which can be easily added to an interactive map with a single line of code.

2.2. Technical requirements

To follow this chapter, you will need to install geemap and several optional dependencies, such as keplergl