Mapbox

For detailed setup instructions for different integrations, refer to the following guides:

Try these prompts with Claude Desktop or other MCP clients after setup:

For coordinate-first queries —"what's near me","what neighborhood is this","what's reachable in N minutes"— useground_location_tool. It composes reverse geocoding, category search, and isochrone in a single call, adaptively choosing the right strategy based on the query, and returns typed records (names, addresses, coordinates, distances, reachability polygons) with citations.

Each of the four prompts below exercises a different strategy in one tool call:

- Neighborhood—"What neighborhood is 47.6097, -122.3408, and what's around me?"
- POI—"Coffee shops within a 10-minute walk of 40.7580, -73.9855"
- Region—"What can I reach in a 15-minute walk from 37.7749, -122.4194?"
- Routing—"Closest routable point to drop someone off at 34.0522, -118.2437"

- "Find coffee shops within walking distance of the Empire State Building"
- "I want to go from Seattle to Portland, is there a Starbucks along the way?"
- "Show me gas stations along the route from Boston to New York"
- "What restaurants are near Times Square?"

- "Get driving directions from LAX to Hollywood with current traffic"
- "How long would it take to walk from Central Park to Times Square?"
- "Calculate travel time from my hotel (Four Seasons) to JFK Airport by taxi during rush hour"

The MCP server exposes static reference data asMCP resources. Resources provide read-only access to data that clients can reference directly without making tool calls.

URI Pattern:mapbox://categoriesormapbox://categories/{language}

Access the complete list of available category IDs for use with the category search tool. Categories can be used to filter search results by type (e.g., "restaurant", "hotel", "gas_station").

- mapbox://categories- Default (English) category list
- mapbox://categories/ja- Japanese category names
- mapbox://categories/es- Spanish category names

- Clients with native MCP resource support: Use theresources/readMCP protocol method
- Clients without resource support: Use theresource_reader_toolwith the resource URI

Every geospatial tool in this server (directions, isochrone, search, and more) can display its result as a live, interactive Mapbox GL JS map viarender_map_tool— the server's single visualization primitive. It renders through theMCP Appsprotocol (@modelcontextprotocol/ext-apps) as a self-contained HTML panel directly inside the chat, with a Fullscreen toggle, in supported clients:

If you need a guaranteed static image in clients without MCP Apps support, usestatic_map_image_toolinstead — it returns a base64-encoded PNG/JPEG that every client can display.

Resource Fallback Tools (Opt-In for Non-Compliant Clients)

Resources are a core MCP feature supported by most clients (Claude Desktop, VS Code, MCP Inspector, etc.). However, some clients (like smolagents) don't support resources at all. For these clients, the server can provide "resource fallback tools" that deliver the same content as resources but via tool calls.

- resource_reader_tool- Generic fallback for reading any resource by URI
- category_list_tool- Provides access to category list (mapbox://categories)

By default, these tools are NOT included(assumes your client supports resources). If your client doesn't support resources, enable the fallback tools:

export CLIENT_NEEDS_RESOURCE_FALLBACK=true

- ✅ Set totrueif using smolagents or other clients without resource support
- ❌ Leave unset (default) if using Claude Desktop, VS Code, MCP Inspector, or any resource-capable client
- ❌ Leave unset if unsure (most clients support resources)

Provides access to MCP resources for clients that don't support the native MCP resource API. Use this tool to read resources like the category list.

- uri: The resource URI to read (e.g.,mapbox://categories,mapbox://categories/ja)

- Read default categories:{"uri": "mapbox://categories"}
- Read Japanese categories:{"uri": "mapbox://categories/ja"}

Note: If your MCP client supports native resources, prefer using the resource API directly for better performance.

Calculate the distance between two geographic coordinates using the Haversine formula.

- Supports multiple units: kilometers, miles, meters, feet, nautical miles
- Accurate great-circle distance calculation
- No API calls required

Example Usage: "What's the distance between San Francisco (37.7749°N, 122.4194°W) and New York (40.7128°N, 74.0060°W)?"

Test one or more points against a polygon or multipolygon, returning only those inside. Handles a single point or a batch in one call.

- Works with complex polygons including holes
- Supports multipolygons
- Batch-tests any number of points in one call
- Useful for geofencing, delivery zone validation, and customer segmentation

Example Usage: "Which of these delivery addresses are inside our service area?"

Calculate a destination point given a starting point, bearing, and distance using geodesic (great-circle) offset.

- Straight-line offset, not a routed path
- Useful for "find a point 5km north of X" or constructing search offsets
- No API calls required

Example Usage: "What's the point 10km northeast of the Space Needle?"

Calculate the compass direction (bearing) from one coordinate to another.

- Returns bearing in degrees (0-360°)
- Provides cardinal direction (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW)
- Useful for navigation and directional queries

Example Usage: "What direction should I head to go from here to the airport?"

Find the geographic midpoint between two coordinates along the great circle path.

- Calculates true midpoint on Earth's curved surface
- Useful for meeting point suggestions
- Handles long-distance calculations correctly

Example Usage: "What's halfway between San Francisco and New York?"

Calculate the geometric center (centroid) of a polygon or multipolygon.

- Works with complex shapes
- Returns arithmetic mean of all points
- Useful for placing labels or markers

Example Usage: "Where should I place a marker for this neighborhood boundary?"

- Supports multiple units: square meters, square kilometers, acres, hectares, square miles, square feet
- Accurate area calculation on Earth's surface
- Works with polygons of any size

Example Usage: "What's the area of this park in acres?"

Calculate the minimum bounding box (bbox) that contains a geometry.