How to highlight specific country on your map

This article provides a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to highlight a specific country in any map that you use in MapTiler Cloud. The tutorial works with a modified toner style map and with the MapTiler Countries Dataset. This process is also very useful when working with the GEOlayers 3 plugin for Adobe Afer Effects.

Highlight a specific country on your map

1. Go to MapTiler Cloud, open the Maps section and click NEW MAP.

2. Select UPLOAD STYLE.
Keep in mind that there are also other ways how to edit a map, e.g. you can choose to modify one of the default maps by clicking OPEN EDITOR.

3. Upload your own style in a style.JSON file. Add name and description. 

4. Once your map style is loaded in the preview, click EDIT STYLE to customize your map.

5. Add a new data source to your map, click DATA SOURCES button at the top.

6. Select the Countries dataset from the men

7. Make sure it has moved the ACTIVE SOURCES at the top

8. Add a new Layer to your active layers at the top left

9. Select the "Countries" layer. Make sure it has the fill attribute (for polygons)

10. Move the layer to the 2nd position. That way it is underneath all other features (like water). Only the background layer is now underneath the countries.
11. Duplicate the countries layer, name it Countries-Canada to get an extra layer to play with.
12. Add a Filter: name == Canada, with "any filter matches" property
13. Change the paint properties of the layer, in our case to rgba(161, 255, 0, 1).
14. Notice that the MapTiler Countries dataset is not identical to other datasets 1:1, which is perfectly normal, assuming that MapTiler Cloud works with various data sources together. This can sometimes result in artifacts like you can see on the islands in the Arctic Ocea

15. In order to get rid of the articles, change the color of your background layer to the same color as is your water layers. This way you get the most detailed coastline without any artifacts.
16. Once you are done with your editing, SAVE the map and CLOSE the edito


17. Now go and PUBLISH your map.

18. Once your map is public, feel free to choose your way how to share it. You can use one of the following publishing methods:

• Embeddable viewer
• Vector style (OpenLayers, Mapbox GL JS, MapLibre GL JS, Leaflet GL)
• Mobile SDK (Android, iOS)
• Raster Tiles (OpenLayers, Leaflet, Cesium)
• Raster tile 512*512 with TileJSON or XYZ
• Web map tile service
• Static map API
• Tableau

Useful links

MapTiler Countries Dataset
Join MapTiler Countries with custom data