# European Alps Map

The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, and stretching approximately 1,200 kilometres across eight Alpine countries: France, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, and Slovenia.

![The DeFROST Map for the European Alps coverage area, as per the Alpine Convention](/files/-LsbG6PG-Q_572jDxpfJ)

Due to the key importance of this area in Europe and globally in terms of population, visitors and human activity, DeFROST operates and serves a daily snow cover map with 20 meters resolution for its extent.

{% hint style="warning" %}
If you make any request for a tile outside the above covered area, the DeFROST server will return a 404 Not Found response code. 
{% endhint %}

### Map Characteristics

The table below summarizes this map's key characteristics: 

| **Map Characteristics** |                                                                                                        |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Spatial resolution**  | 20 meters                                                                                              |
| **Update time**         | Daily at 3AM CET                                                                                       |
| **Tile zoom levels**    | 13 zoom levels                                                                                         |
| **Tile size**           | 256x256 pixels                                                                                         |
| **Default coloring**    | <p>From light blue (#35e9e6) to bright pink (#ff01fb)</p><p>The coloring spreads from 1cm to 2.5m+</p> |
| **Covered area**        | Alpine Convention                                                                                      |

### Map Endpoint

To display the DeFROST European Alps snow cover map as a layer over the base map of your choice, use the URL string below as the Tile Server endpoint:

```http
https://maps.defrost.io/{z}/{x}/{y}.png
```

Pay attention to the fact that as any DeFROST endpoint, JWT Authentication is required for the Tile Server. This means **a valid JWT token has to be set in the HTTP Authorization request header**. Read more about Maps Authentication in the [Maps Overview section](/defrost-maps/maps-overview.md#maps-authentication-json-web-tokens).&#x20;


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