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Introduction

maproll is a small HTTP service that turns geographic data into static map images. You give it a scope (which geography), values keyed by ISO codes, and styling — and you get an SVG or PNG back. The result is cached behind Cloudflare and embeds anywhere an <img> tag works: a README, a Notion doc, a Slack message, a static dashboard, a marketing page.

It is intentionally small:

  • Two endpoints. GET /map.{svg,png} for embedding via URL, POST /render/map for richer payloads.
  • Server-side only. No client-side JavaScript, no browser canvas, no headless Chrome. Renders are deterministic strings.
  • Cache-first. Every render returns Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable and an ETag. Browsers, CDNs, and Cloudflare cache aggressively.

What it's not​

  • Not an interactive / slippy / tile map.
  • Not a GIS platform or map editor.
  • Not a Mapbox or Google Maps replacement.
  • Not a BI dashboard.

If you need pan/zoom, vector tiles, or a designer-grade studio, use Mapbox or D3 directly. maproll is for the case where you want a clean map image and you want it now.

What it ships with​

  • Six themes (3 light, 3 dark) tuned for choropleth contrast.
  • Five projections including Natural Earth, Albers USA, conformal conic, Mercator, equal Earth.
  • Three color scales (sequential, diverging, categorical) with four classification strategies.
  • Cartographic primitives: markers (30-icon library), great-circle routes, region labels, north arrow, scale bar, graticule, legends.
  • Pattern fills, per-region color overrides, proportional symbols, annotations (hover tooltips).

What's next​