This year at the Open Source Geospatial Foundation‘s annual meeting, mappers from around the world have entered their work in a contest. A panel of map experts will select the winners in the categories of best data integration, best software integration, best cartographic display, best static map (digital display), best anti-map, best web map application and most unique map.

But you can help decide which map wins for the people’s map category. We’ve got some of our favorites in this gallery, but there are many other good maps, so be sure to check out the full gallery and cast your vote.



The contest was organized by the Marauding Cartonerd, Kenneth Field, and it drew a lot of really nice maps. As Field says on his blog, “We’ve had over 70 submissions and I have to say that as someone who often bemoans the lack of quality in modern cartography, I’ve been hugely impressed. There are some truly impressive maps and on the whole, the collection represents a time-slice of map-making that showcases the state of the art as it stands.”

At the conference, which is being held this week in Nottingham, UK, Field chose to display the maps digitally, rather than pinning paper maps all over the walls. The maps can be seen on an “iPad Wall,” which is basically a grid of linked iPads that cycle through all the maps. Field says the decision was initially controversial, “but in the new age of cartography, I felt that giving space to new map-makers and focusing on digital media seemed appropriate.”

As organizer, Field didn’t enter the contest, but he did contribute some great maps to the conference’s map gallery, including the one below, an “interactive space-time cube” of Napoleon’s march on Moscow.