River basin map of the contiguous United States

Art Meets Science

These Beautiful Maps Capture the Rivers That Pulse Through Our World

Cartographer Robert Szucs creates colorful maps of the watersheds that creep across states, countries, continents and the globe

The "Faces of Dudley" mural depicts residents of Boston's Roxbury neighborhood

This Map Details More Than 200 Massachusetts Sites Connected to African-American History

You can contribute to the project by suggesting new entries or proposing edits to existing ones via the project’s main hub

During the early Triassic epoch, Washington, D.C. was situated in a massive supercontinent called Pangea

This Map Lets You Plug in Your Address to See How It’s Changed Over the Past 750 Million Years

The interactive tool enables users to home in on a specific location and visualize how it has evolved between the Cryogenian period and the present

Cool Finds

Drone Captures Thousands of Years of Archaeology on Remote Scottish Islands

A drone survey of Canna and Sanday Islands collected 420 million data points, creating what may be the most detailed 3-D map of islands yet

Cool Finds

Easter Island Statues May Have Marked Sources of Fresh Water

A spatial analysis of the island’s moai and ahu seem to line up with ancient wells and coastal freshwater seeps

The ‘Pole of Inaccessibility’ Has Eluded Adventurers for More Than a Century

This winter, explorers will once again set out for the most remote part of the Arctic Ocean

A 1736 map of Scotland—with Shetland in a box.

New Law Puts Shetland on the Map—and Outside of a Box

Cartographers had previously been in the habit of representing the Scottish islands inside a box because they are located so far from the mainland

The vibrant Baltimore Oriole can be found migrating throughout large portions of eastern and central North America.

Scientists Can Predict When Birds Will Migrate Up to a Week in Advance

A new forecasting model using years of bird migration data and weather radar could help us protect migrating birds from harm

Northern Black Widow

New Research

Citizen Scientists Show Black Widows Creeping North In Canada

Study shows online observations can help researchers refine the range maps of many species overlooked by field biologists

New Research

This New Zealand Natural Wonder Is Probably Gone for Good

A new study reconfirms that the Pink and White Terraces were destroyed by a volcano in 1886 and can’t be dug up

New Research

New Map Chronicles Three Decades of Surface Mining in Central Appalachia

The data shows about 1.5 million acres of forest have been affected by surface and mountaintop mining since the 1970s

Marc Fries examines a magnetic board looking for iron particles recovered from the sea floor.

Trending Today

A Research Ship Is Hunting Meteorite Fragments Off the Coast of Washington

The research ship E/V Nautilus is combing through samples and sediment hoping to recover the first space rock from the ocean floor

John Wesley Powell by Edmund Clarence Messer, 1889

The Visionary John Wesley Powell Had a Plan for Developing the West, But Nobody Listened

Powell’s foresight might have prevented the 1930s dust bowl and perhaps, today’s water scarcities

A scene from Zaatari refugee camp, Jordan.

Teaching Refugees How To Map Their World Could Have Huge Benefits

A pilot project trained Syrian refugees at a Jordan camp to create maps—an invaluable tool in a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis

This Is the Longest Straight-Line Ocean Path Around the Earth

But don’t go hauling your boats out just yet

In the new book North on the Wing from Smithsonian Books, author Bruce Beehler (above left) follows the spring migration of songbirds.

Thirty-Seven Warblers in a Hundred Days

A Smithsonian ornithologist follows the songbird migration north from the Gulf of Mexico. A new book tells his story

Malacites of the Wanabaki Confederacy standing along the edge of the water at French village, Kingsclear, celebrating Corpus Christi Day, ca 1887.

Researchers Are Tracing Wabanaki Canoe Routes in New Brunswick

The First Nation routes were ancient “highways” that traversed rivers, creeks and streams

Google Japan Now Has Street View From a Dog’s Perspective

It’s like riding an Akita around Japan

This Newly Digitized 16th-Century Planisphere Is the Largest-Known Early Map

Explore continents, islands and unicorns with scholar Urbano Monte’s epic map that’s been digitally pieced together by Stanford’s David Rumsey Map Center

New map of the Havre volcano

New Research

Scientist Autopsy the Aftermath of the Largest Underwater Volcanic Eruption of the Last Century

In 2012, miles of floating rock appeared in the Pacific. Now, scientists have studied the Havre seamount eruption that caused the mysterious pumice ‘raft’

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