For several years, Esri has made available a suite of basemaps that can be used through ArcGIS Online and other apps to create maps and apps. These multi-scale basemaps have been delivered as pre-rendered image tiles (JPG or PNG format) to optimize performance. These basemaps have proven to be very useful and popular, with several billion tiles served each month, but they have some limitations (e.g. users can not customize map, low-res image tiles not optimal for display on high-res devices, etc.).
Available Vector Basemaps
To provide additional options for users, this set of vector basemaps is available from Esri. These basemaps are delivered as vector tiles (PBF format) that are rendered client-side based on a style file that is delivered with the vector tiles. The vector basemaps can be displayed in current, desktop web browsers and, in the near future, various desktop and mobile apps. Users are able to customize the look and feel of the vector basemaps by creating custom styles that are used to render the vector tiles.
The set of Esri vector basemaps in GCS WGS84, available through this group, includes nine different map styles built using a single vector tile service. The group includes vector basemaps in multiple styles, some that closely resemble existing Web Mercator Esri basemaps (e.g. Streets, Topographic, Light and Dark Gray Canvas), and others that are new (e.g. Streets at Night, Navigation, and Imagery Hybrid). The vector basemaps in GCS WGS84 are available as both web maps, which can be used as a basemap for adding other layers, and as tile layers, which can be added to existing maps either as a basemap or overlay layer.
Imagery and World Hillshade
Two additional raster maps and layers are included in this group, World Imagery and World Hillshade, both in GCS WGS84.
Precise Tile Registration
These maps and layers use the improved tiling scheme “WGS84 Geographic, Version 2” to ensure proper tile positioning at higher resolutions (neighborhood level and beyond). The new tiling scheme is much more precise than tiling schemes of the legacy basemaps Esri released years ago.
Learn More about Vector Basemaps
To learn more, including how you can customize the Esri vector basemaps, you can refer to the blog posts tagged with "vector basemap".