Customizing your map: layers, colors and icon sizes

Aqua Map gives you a lot of control over how your chart actually looks, from adding extra data layers like satellite imagery, to adjusting depth coloring, to fine-tuning the size of every icon and text label on screen. This page walks through all of it.

Additional layers

Here's the full list of extra data you can add on top of the basic nautical chart, all available from the main Settings page.

• Land data, the complete land-side cartography: streets, highways, buildings, forests, and more.
• Online satellite images, a satellite imagery layer over the map, with an opacity slider appearing on screen once enabled.
• Paper charts overlay, additional raster charts layered over the vector charts, also with an opacity slider. Available only in certain areas.
• Tides & Currents, tide and tidal current stations shown as icons on the map. Currently available for North America and Oceania only.
• Fishing charts, a dedicated set of charts built specifically for fishing, currently available in the US and Italy. See the Fishing Charts settings page for the full details.
• Marine forecast, weather data overlaid on the map, surface currents, wind, waves, gusts, sea surface temperature, and salinity. See the Marine Forecasts page for the full breakdown.
• Weather buoys, icons showing real-time weather conditions at buoy locations. Also covered on the Marine Forecasts page.
• AIS targets, targets received through your Wi-Fi connections. See the AIS Integration page for details.
• USACE surveys, US Army Corps of Engineers hydrographic survey data. See the USACE Surveys page for details.
• Navigational info, official safety data from national coast guards and maritime authorities. See the Navigational Info page for details.
• Live Sharing, showing other Aqua Map users on the map. See the Live Sharing page for details.
• ActiveCaptain, community data from ActiveCaptain. See the ActiveCaptain page for details.
• Waterway Guide, community data from Waterway Guide. See the Waterway Guide page for details.

Map coloring

You'll find three ways to adjust your map's coloring from the main Settings menu.

• Map appearance, Day or Night drawing style, or "Auto" to match your device's Light or Dark setting. Night mode works best in low-light conditions, under direct sunlight the contrast can end up too low.
• Depth coloring, "Standard" mimics traditional paper charts, blue for shallow water, fading to white past 20m. "Natural" mimics real sea colors instead, white for shallow water, darkening to deep blue past 3.500m. Neither option applies to areas using Raster charts.
• Safety depth, sets the threshold for blue-shaded depth areas. Anything deeper than your safety depth shows as white, anything shallower stays shaded blue. Also doesn't apply to Raster chart areas.

Map visibility

There's a dedicated page for adjusting the size of most icons and text on the map, reachable from the main Settings menu. Options are grouped into clear categories to keep things manageable, and a "Restore Defaults" button at the bottom resets everything back to its original size.

Map data

This first group covers the elements that make up the base cartography:

• map icons size, adjusting most icons in the base cartography proportionally, keeping smaller icons smaller relative to larger ones. Some land data icons stay fixed at a small size regardless, to avoid clutter;
• map texts size, working the same way for text elements, proportional scaling, with some land data text kept intentionally small.
• use patterns for map areas, filling certain areas, like restricted zones or anchorages, with representative icon patterns. It improves clarity at the cost of some extra visual clutter, so it's worth toggling based on your own preference.

User data

This group covers everything that belongs to you: routes, tracks, and markers.

• Marker icon size, your preferred marker icon size.
• Show marker names on map, displaying each marker's name just below its icon.
• Track/route width, the line thickness used for tracks and routes on the map.

Additional data

This group covers every extra data layer you can overlay on the base chart. If a setting here appears grayed out, it just means that data type isn't currently enabled.

• Live Sharing icons, size for other users' icons on the map.
• Tide & Current icons, size for tide and current station icons.
• AIS target icons, size for AIS target icons. Changing this also changes the size of the boat name text shown alongside them.
• ActiveCaptain icons, size for ActiveCaptain icons, which may also affect the object name text size if that's enabled. A separate ActiveCaptain name on map switches controls whether those names display at all, only visible at detailed zoom levels when enabled.
• Waterway Guide icons, size for Waterway Guide icons, with the same relationship to text size. A separate Waterway Guide names on map switch controls whether object names display, also only at detailed zoom levels.
• Weather stations icon, size for weather buoy icons.
• Weather icons, size for weather overlay icons (surface currents, wind, waves, gusts, sea surface temperature, and salinity).
• Navigational info icons, size for Navigational Info icons, which also affects the buoy number text shown nearby. A separate Display lines and areas switch lets you show every object type or limit the display to points only, useful for reducing clutter.

Want to see it in action?

For a full walkthrough of customizing your map, check out our video tutorial.