So Planetiler uses a range of data sources to enrich the visual display of the map.
| source | license | used as default | included in repo |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenStreetMap (OSM) data | ODBL | yes | yes |
| Natural Earth | public domain | yes | yes |
| OSM Lakelines | MIT, data from OSM ODBL | yes | no |
| OSM Water Polygons | acknowledgement, data from OSM ODBL | yes | yes |
| Wikidata name translations | CCO | no | no |
| Overture Maps | Various | no | yes |
But this is not the reason why low-zoom details are missing, it’s simply OSM data missing / not being displayed.
Also, I can imagine this as one point where OSM might want to deviate from other vector tile projects, as OSM might want to require to only display 100% OSM sourced vector data. I don’t know how is it done in raster Carto.