Map Stories - The Data Behind Our World Map Posters

Where Our Map Data Comes From: The Sources Behind Every Mapographics Map

The scientific sources behind every Mapographics world map: NOAA, OpenStreetMap, NASA, WorldPop, IUCN and more.

Data art turns real datasets into images. See how a world map drawn from flights, rivers or night lights works without borders, labels or names.

Wooden frame, magnetic hanger or no frame? A quick guide to displaying a 70x50 or 100x70 cm map poster.

A simple guide to choosing a world map poster: size, Minimal or Spectrum style, subject, and how to hang it.

Gift ideas for map lovers: world map posters matched to frequent flyers, sailors, hikers, engineers, train fans and city dwellers.

Nearly 60 datasets harmonized into one map of every road on Earth – and because people live where roads go, it draws humanity itself.

Using Voronoi geometry, this map divides the world into territories nearest each airport – the largest cells falling over the emptiest land.

Every airport on Earth, expressed as hexagons scaled to density – a honeycomb portrait of how aviation covers the planet.

Terrestrial and maritime boundaries drawn as a delicate lattice – including the invisible lines that divide the oceans far from any coast.

Around 30,000 power stations catalogued and drawn as circles scaled to their output – a snapshot of how the world makes electricity.

The electrical grid may be the largest machine ever built. This map draws its high-voltage backbone across the planet.

Drawn from OpenStreetMap's volunteer-built database, every railway, subway and tram on Earth – a portrait of the industrial world.

The IUCN Red List records which species face extinction. Mapped as a grid, its distortions reveal where life on Earth is most under pressure.