Maps for America

About Maps for America

Create A Map

Post Articles and Locations to a Map Group

Add a Spreadsheet of Locations to a Map

Create "About" Pages

Create Colored Markers

About Maps for America

This website was inspired by Sunlight Labs' Apps for America Contest.

Create A Map

Anyone can create a new map. When you create a map, you become the administrator of the pages relevant to that map. You decide whether your map is public. That is, you determine who can see your map (everyone or just group members), and who can post articles and comments on your pages. You are the administrator of the group that views and contributes to your map.

This is a new service. Soon this process will be automated. For now, to create a new map, please email the website administrator and you will receive further instructions.

Post Articles and Locations to a Map Group

Every map has group of people that contribute articles and data to it. To post an article or plot locations on a map, you must be a member of that map's "group". You can join groups when you register to login, or visit the Groups page, and click "Join" or "Request Membership".

If you are already a member of the group you want to contribute to, simply:

1. Log in
2. Below your user name in the sidebar click: Create content
3. Under Create content click Location, or Address List
4. Beneath the body of your post and above the save button you will see "Audience" check boxes. Check the box to select the group/map you wish to contribute to.

Add a Spreadsheet of Locations to a Map

To add a batch of addresses to a map at once, follow the instructions under "Post Articles and Locations to a Map Group". Under Create content select "Address List".

Your spreadsheet should include six columns in this order: Name, Street, City, State, Postal Code, Info. Data is required in the first 5 columns, the Info column is optional. Text in the Info column will appear as the information about the corresponding address when a visitor clicks on it. This is a good place to provide a brief explanation about the location and credit the source of your data. (Feel free to use our Excel template to create your spreadsheet.)

Save your spreadsheet as a comma delimited (CSV) file, open it in a text editor, copy and paste in your data. See the step-by-step instructions below if you need help creating a CSV file.

Before you save your Address List, be sure to check "Publish addresses as points on map/website". Otherwise your list will be processed and available for download, but your addresses will not be plotted on the map.

It may take a day or two for your data to process. Once your data is processed you can download the results, including geocodes, political districts and legislators, for each address. Download results from your My Account page.

Preparing your List of Addresses as a CSV file:

1. Create a spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, and OpenOffice.org spreadsheets all work fine) using our Excel template or formatting your Addresses to fit in the following 6 columns:
• Name
• Street
• City
• State
• Zip
• Info
2. When you are finished creating your list of addresses, click Save As. Look for the File Type option (near the box where your type the name of your file) and select Comma Separated Values or CSV.
3. Now open your CSV file in any text editor.
• Windows: Use Note Pad. To open Note Pad click the Start Menu. Select Programs, then Applications, then Note Pad
• Mac: use TextEdit. If you don't have TextEdit on your Dock, open a Finder window. Then click Applications. Then find and double click TextEdit.
4. You should see all the data from your spreadsheet in text format, with each column separated by a comma. Select All and Copy. (To Select All click Edit, Select All, or simply click Control+A .)
5. Now go to the Maps for America website and in the left sidebar click: Create Content, Address List. Then paste your data into the box labeled "Comma separated list (CSV) of addresses".

Create "About" Pages

To create "About" pages that appear in the side bar next to your group's map, data table and articles, you must be a group administrator. If you are a group administrator, creating an About Page is just like creating an Article. Follow the instructions under Post Articles and Locations to a Map Group and select Page.

Create Colored Markers

Create colored map markers for your locations by adding a Marker Color tag to any location. Simply log in and click on the location you wish to edit (note: you must have permission to edit this location, usually this means you must be the person who created it). Then click the Edit tab next to the location's name at the top of the page. (The Edit tab is only visible if you have permission to edit the selected location.) Under Marker Color select a color from the drop-down list of options. Then SAVE.

Note: Once you color code one location, it's a good idea to color code all locations with the same Description. Otherwise locations with the same Description and no selected color may appear with the same color marker, while others continue to appear with the default marker color.

Tip: Click any tag hyperlink to generate a list of all the locations with the same tag. This is an easy way to generate a list so you can click through consistently color coding all of them. For example, from Heal Utah's Nuclear Fuel Cycle map if you click on a nuclear reactor, a caption will pop up and you will see several tags (hyperlinks) underneath the reactor's name. One of the tags is nuclear reactor. If you follow this link, you will see a list of all the nuclear reactors.