Telling Stories with Maps

The Northwestern University's Knight Lab has released a new tool, called StoryMapsJS, to help users create mapped stories.

Perhaps the best way to understand a StoryMapJS created map is to look at the provided example. The StoryMapJS site includes a demo map that explores the mean center of the US population from 1790 to the present day. The map presents a series of map markers each of which are associated with an explanatory slide, which is displayed under the map.

Users of the map can progress through the slides chronologically by clicking on forward or back buttons or can load a slide by clicking on any of the map markers. StoryMapsJS therefore appears to be a good creation tool to use for maps that have a chronological progression, for example for mapping a journey, trip or historical development.

StoryMapJS is currently in an early Alpha release. Currently you need to download the framework from GitHub. Eventually however you should be able to just load the library and append the location data via a JSON file.