Make new Tilemill map match default Mapbox label styles

Question

I want to make a map in tilemill that matches the way that labels are displayed in this example, down to the countries that get labels at each zoom level, which country gets abbrev. vs. full title, using lines to connect labels to smaller countries, etc.

That seems to be the default Mapbox label style (I notice that this Mozilla map acts exactly the same way), since there are no customizations there. However, when creating a new Tilemill map, there are no labels at all. What do I need to do to add labels in exactly the same way as that Mapbox example (i.e., the Mapbox default label styles)?

Answer 1

TileMill2 offers basic map data from OpenStreetMap, including labels. TM2 was also used to create Mozilla's map. You can create a map that's purely a label layer, as well as change the fonts and styling. If you're using OS X, it's suggested you build TM2 from the binary.

Note: TM2 is available as a repo and is currently a public beta. TM2 uploads to mapbox.com will be made publicly available within the coming months.

Answer 2

Here is the style I am using, should get you started. For me, I didn't want my layer that overlayed on top of the mapbox tiles to overlap the default labels.

You can see how it looks here

The labels, however, are a pixel or two off quite a few situations. Out of frustration, I gave up on getting it 100% perfect. Keep in mind also, that the default mapbox styles seems to be evolving.

A bit of a trick is to make the halo a bit bigger than you need. This can conceal/blend with the labels you are overlaying.

Fonts:

@sans_lt:           "Open Sans Regular","DejaVu Sans Book","unifont Medium";
@sans:              "Open Sans Semibold","DejaVu Sans Book","unifont Medium";
@sans_bold:         "Open Sans Bold","DejaVu Sans Bold","unifont Medium";
@sans_italic:       "Open Sans Semibold Italic","DejaVu Sans Italic","unifont Medium";
@sans_bold_italic:  "Open Sans Bold Italic","DejaVu Sans Bold Italic","unifont Medium";

@place_halo:        fadeout(@bluish_white,5%);

@town_text:         #444;
@town_halo:         @place_halo;

OSM places styling, osm data imported using the OSM Bright imposm scripts

#place::small[type='village'][zoom<13][zoom>9],
#place::small[type='suburb'][zoom<13][zoom>9],
#place::small[type='hamlet'][zoom<13][zoom>9]{
  text-name:'[name]';
  text-face-name:@sans;
  text-placement:point;
  text-fill:@town_text;
  text-size:9;
  text-halo-fill:fadeout(@town_halo, 25%);
  text-halo-radius:3;
  text-wrap-width: 50;
  text-allow-overlap: true;
  [zoom>=10] {
    text-size: 11;
  }
  [zoom>=11]{ text-size:11; }
  [zoom>=12]{
    text-size:12;
    text-line-spacing: 1;
  }
}

Hope this helps, I think this may be the best we can get until vector tiles land. If you figure out the exact style they use, it would be great to hear.