What are maps? BizTalk maps

In a general and abstract way we can say that BizTalk maps are graphical representations of XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation).

In a general and abstract way we can say that BizTalk maps are graphical representations of XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) documents that allow us to perform, in a simple and visual manner, transformations between XML messages.

But in reality BizTalk maps are composed by two files: a map file (.btm) and a C# class file (.btm.cs). The map file, is basically the XML file that defines the correspondence and translation between the records and fields in one schema and the records and fields in another schema, i.e., it’s an XML with a particular dialect using links to express what is then generated into XSLT;