Get to know the Green Map Icons!
Already recognized in 65 countries, Green Map Icons bring a wide range of sustainability resources to light. These lively symbols identify, promote and link local resources in an eye-catching, easy to grasp manner that systematically connects themes and places in meaningful way.
Green Map Icons are in three genres: Green Living, Nature, Culture & Society, then divided into 12 categories to make it easier to consider what to chart on your map. These Icons highlight important assets, as well as challenges to community wellbeing. You can use Green Map Icons along with other symbols on maps and other projects.
Green Map Icons are at the heart of the Green Map movement!
Used by our entire network, this globally designed universal set of symbols:
- makes each Green Map easy to explore, regardless of the language and cultural orientation of the user.
- identifies, promotes and links a diverse array of sustainability sites along with special places that highlight cultural character.
- makes patterns of more sustainable development and resource inequalities between different areas easier to recognize.
- helps successful initiatives spread to new communities.
- helps bring urgent global environmental problems down to the local level, where they can be more easily grasped and changed.
Lending dynamism to every Green Map, the award-winning icons are also powerful tools for assessing the resources that are currently available, and to help plan for resilient, healthy communities.
Collaboratively designed! Co-designed by hundreds of Green Mapmakers since 1995, the meaning and importance of these icons can be further explored in the definitions and resources on this page. Designed to evolve with our understanding of sustainable development in the community context, we also provide the underlying ‘pattern language’ so you can create new symbols that harmonize with the Green Map Icons.
Our iconography is among our most distinctive and vital resources. It's one of the world’s first universal iconographies for maps! (There are orienteering map symbols that predate ours.) Now in Version 3, we look forward to co-creating the next in the near future!
Download the poster in English (more here)
Printable Poster (2 page PDF poster)
Complete Set Chart (170 Icons, 6 page PDF)
Icon Poster (11x 17 inches / A3 size PDF)
Icon Poster with Open Green Map colors (PDF)
Green Map Icons Definitions (PDF)
DOWNLOAD GREEN MAP ICONS
You can use the Green Map Icons in part or as a complete set in many different ways. These examples are only the beginning - discover more in our Archive and books.
Download the Green Map Icons with Form on Right
Green Map System provides a file containing all the sets of icons, including the fonts, definitions etc. When you download the icons, we collect your email address so we know who is using the resources we created. We will email you occasionally, and invite you to get more involved in this network and organization. Here you can find complete attribution and license information, including using our trademarked logo, credits and case-by-case non-conforming uses. We welcome your questions and comments - and if you did not receive our message, use this link to access the icons!
Download icon tools, posters in many languages, definitions, etc.
There are several formats for sharing the icons, including:
• Our Icon Posters, in several languages
• The Youth set of Green Mapmaking Tools, also in Español with Guide for working with youth and all-ages community projects
• Chart comparing these icons to the United Nations 2030 Goals for Sustainable Development (the SDGs)
• Local Icons have been made for print maps as seen here
• Check out other uses, including products, throughout this website.
Get your Green Map Icon Posters in many languages to print locally:
• اللغة العربية (Arabic Icons)
• Bahasa (Indonesian Icons explanation)
• 绿地图®图例 (Simplified Chinese, global version) 绿地图®图例 • 绿地图®图例 (China version) 绿地图®图例本地版
• 綠色生活地圖®圖示 (Traditional Chinese Icons) • 定義 (Definitions PDF)
• Nederlands (Dutch Icons) • Definities xls
• Français (French Icons) • Définitions • Nos icônes + Objectifs 2030 des Nations Unies (SDGs)
• Deutsch (German Icons)
• עִבְרִית (Hebrew Icons) • הגדרות Definitions
• グリーンマップ・アイコン(Japanese Icons) • 説明付きグリーンマップ・アイコン（制作 あいち - definitions PDF • ルと版権表示
• 한국어 (Korean Icons) • Korean - Hangul large poster • Korean 정의 Definitions - Hangul
• Português (Portuguese Icons), Definições
• Pусский (Russian Icons)
• Español (Spanish Icons) • Gráfico (blanco y negro - A3 PDF), Definiciones • para Comunidades y Jóvenes
• Svenska (Swedish Icons)
Share your Outcomes!
Your Green Map Project is important well beyond your own community! We invite you to share your story, whether you create a map, an event or a product with the icons and other Green Map resources. It’s an easy way to extend your audience and share your new initiatives with the Green Map network, year after year. Read a few of the Stories, gather your text, images (500 x 500) and links, and create yours!
and
Our network has shown us how important it is to share exciting developments. Being open means there will be inspiring surprises created by Green Map Makers from all parts of the world - if you have provided your email here or joined our newsletter list, you will be among the first to know about best practices, pilot projects and exemplary expressions that refresh our experience and build the movement.
Print Maps use the icons in various ways, but often together with each site's number, in listings, and as graphics. Our Style Guide will help you design a beautiful, powerful Green Map. Designed for residents, visitors, special events and themes, each is a ‘snapshot’ of a community as it makes progress toward sustainability.
Posters, sketch maps, print maps and other formats can be made alongside interactive maps, extending the engagement process. You can make stickers or hand-draw icons for workshop and classroom maps (there's a printable version with the Youth set linked above). Stencils for signage might be cut out in a Maker Space, or made the traditional way. Add a Green Map to a planning process for a green space or a research paper. Use our engagement tools to create a unique campaign or even a party with a purpose! Want to call out the SDGs, the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, in place in your community? Use this chart to help you
Green Map Icons are ready to use with several interactive mapping platforms, including CARTO, ESRI’s StoryMap, Google My Map and other platforms. Comparison and tutorials for each platform is under Interactive Mapping.
What makes a high impact Green Map, and what can you expect to accomplish?
In addition to developing the actual map, project participants strengthen their own capacity to communicate, organize, and produce though this process. Mapping is just part of the actions you can take, and each project benefits all your future efforts! Find out more in our Project Stories, which are linked, categorized and ready to inspire, or check out locally written stories in the Green Map Impacts book that share knock-on benefits of Green Map projects.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Green Map Icons poster from postcard 2018 | 7.74 MB |
 Green Map Icons poster (OGM colors) small | 840.5 KB |
Our Creative Commons License
Green Map Icons are provided with a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. This means you can freely use them on non-commercial projects of any kind, provided that you give credit to Green Map System and share your project in the same spirit in which you received the icons. This copyleft license is detailed here. +CC: If you have another intended use for our icons, brand and tools, do contact us in advance.
