Tools for Your Community

Check out the basics of Green Mapmaking, then explore this section of the website. Our most popular tools include the co-designed Green Maps Icons and suite of mapping and engagement resources.

Our nonprofit organization’s award-winning icons, tools, platform and tutorials help people create engaging, effective Green Maps and related projects. As guides to local nature, culture, social justice and resources for sustainable living, Green Maps elevate the hometown environment, site by site. Each project spurs awareness, action and change. Going open with a Creative Commons 4.0 license supports our mission of involving everyone in our common future.

When you use the Green Map Icons, please create a Story to share your work with global audiences and generate new partnerships and eco-experiences. Be solutionary! You can engage and inspire with Green Map resources, and create interpretative signage, videos, consulting projects, art and community-engaged planning processes. Your Project Story will encourage others to contribute to participate! Everything is possible, and your leadership is the key. Stories are easy to create, see the FAQ.

Your Green Map Project will join hundreds of others, made by 1000 diverse project teams in 65 countries since 1995. Many joined this network when the ‘Greenhouse’, our first content-managed website, was active, and grew to become a rich resource, full of beautiful work made in all parts of the world - we are still gleaning the best resources from it (contact us about accessing it).

Now, we are redefining 'Mapmaker'. We are literally opening a space for new ideas and kinds of projects by framing the term as ‘Map Maker’. We welcome your thoughts about this, and your help.

Mapping Platforms

We have a new, custom built platform, now available in Beta - see OGM2 and use it at new.OpenGreenMap.org! Back in 2009, we named our first mapping platform the ‘Open Green Map’ because we designed it to be open for the public to add images, viewpoints and new sites. OGM was an award-winner, and we are proud that people in 40 countries have utilized it to produce more than 500 interactive maps. Now eclipsed by robust, well-maintained and durable mapping platforms, we have studied how the various options work in light of our network’s divergent needs. Check out the tutorials we developed with CARTO, Google My Maps, Esri ArcGIS and more. These platforms can incorporate Green Map Icons, OGM data and other open data feeds to expedite your mapmaking, local partnerships and network development. Yes, you can use the Green Map Icons with other platforms and applications, and pitch in on the development of our next platform, too (details to come!).

Your knowledge, experience and open expression is important to your local community, and to the world. Let’s help make our home planet a better world. Think global, map local!