What Is Data Art? How a Map Can Show the World Without Borders

Look at a Mapographics poster from across the room and it is a pattern. Step closer and you realise the pattern is the world - drawn not by a mapmaker's choices but by millions of measurements. That is what we mean by data art.

What is data art?

Data art uses real data as the raw material for an image. Instead of illustrating a subject, the data draws itself: every line is a measurement - a flight path, a river, a road - placed exactly where it was observed. The artist's job is to choose the dataset, the scale and the colours, then get out of the way.

Why we leave out borders and names

Labels tell you what you are looking at before you have looked. Without them, the pattern leads. Draw only roads, and the continents appear because people build roads where they live - read the story in Every Road on Earth, on One Map. Draw only rivers, and the land is outlined by its drainage, with deserts and ice left blank - see Every River on Earth, Measured by Satellite. Draw flight routes, and the busy corridors between regions glow while quiet regions stay dark: The Map With No Borders. Draw the lights seen from space, and cities become constellations: What City Lights Reveal About Us.

How to read a data map

• Look for density. Where lines or points crowd together, something is happening - trade, people, power.
• Look for gaps. Empty space is information too: deserts, ice, deep ocean, wilderness.
• Look for edges. Coastlines often appear on their own, without being drawn.
• Check the dataset. Every map is a portrait of a particular moment and a particular source. Ours are listed in where our map data comes from.

From dataset to print

We work from high-resolution source data and draw each dataset as simply as we can, so the finest lines stay crisp on paper. Minimal maps show one dataset in one colour; Spectrum maps layer several in full colour. Everything is designed in Oslo, Norway, and printed to order on 200 gsm museum-quality paper in 70x50 and 100x70 cm.

Ready to find the one that makes you look twice? Browse all our world map prints.