04: Adding A Tile Basemap [C-grades and above]#
It would be really useful if we could have a base map, just so we can see where we are! Luckily, we can get this pretty easily, for the whole country even, without having to download it – but we have to add a plugin to get it. Plugins are optional add-ons to the main QGIS software.
Adding the Data#
From the menu, choose Plugins > Manage and Install Plugins. In the search box, type QuickMapServices; choose it from the list, and click Install Plugin.
When it’s done, click Close. Then, from the menu, choose Web > QuickMapServices > Settings. In the Settings window, click on the More Services tab, and click Get Contributed Pack.
Click OK on the confirmation, and Save to close the settings window when done.
Now, from the menu, choose Web > QuickMapServices, and you will see a large number of options. From the list choose Google > Google Road or OSM > OSM Standard.
A Google Road or OSM Standard layer will appear at the bottom of the Layers panel, and you will see the basemap in the map canvas – where it’s not covered by the vector data you’ve added.
Save the project again.
You might be wondering why we bothered to get separate layers for the rivers and lakes if we can just look at them on the basemap. The answer to that is that while yes, we can look at them on the basemap, we can’t do anything more than look. Having separate data layers for them means we can do things with them.