Chapter 1. Creating Maps with Leaflet

Web-based mapping has evolved rapidly over the last two decades, from MapQuest and Google to real-time location information on our phones' mapping apps. There have been open source projects to develop web-based maps in the past, such as MapServer, GeoServer, and OpenLayers. However, Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) includes the Flex and Silverlight APIs; these create web-based maps from their ArcServer services.

Over the last few years, JavaScript has taken the online mapping world by storm. In 2013, there was a JS.geo conference. The library at the center of attention was Leaflet. This is a JavaScript library used to create interactive, web-based maps. With it, you can create a simple map in as little as three lines of JavaScript, or you can create complex, interactive, editable maps with hundreds of lines of code.

This book assumes that you have a basic understanding of HTML and CSS, primarily of how to link external .js and .css files and how to name and size a <div> element. It also assumes that you have a working knowledge of JavaScript.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics: