The City of Women Subway Map

Barcelona, like New York and London, now has a reimagined subway map designed to celebrate and recognise the lives of some of the city's most remarkable women. The Barcelona City of Women subway map highlights the extraordinary contribution of women to the Catalan capital.

On the Ciutat de Dones map every station on Barcelona's metro network and all the stops on the city's railway network has been replaced with the name of a woman. The map is a joint project of Barcelona City Council and Haymarket Books. An advisory editorial board decided on which women to celebrate on the map with the help of a number of organizations and women groups based in Barcelona.

If you click on the name of a woman on the interactive version of the map you can learn more about her achievements and why she has been recognised by the Ciutat de Dones project. In total 153 women have been recognised on the map (limited by the number of stations). Among the women celebrated on the map are the opera singer Montserrat Caballe, philosopher Simone Weil, and director Carla Simón.

The City of Women London Tube Map is a reimagining of the iconic London Underground map, in which all the station names have been replaced with the names of notable women.For example Swiss Cottage station has been renamed for the poet Sylvia Plath and Hyde Park Corner has been renamed for Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the UK suffragette movement. 

The map, released for International Women's Day, is the culmination of a project led by the actress Emma Watson, the journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge and the writer Rebecca Solnit.The City of Women London Tube Map was inspired by a similar map created by Rebecca Solnit, Molly Roy and Lia Tjandra for New York. Their City of Women New York City Subway Wall Map replaces the names of all the stations on the New York Subway with the names of notable woman who have a New York connection. 

You can buy a copy of the City of Women New York City Subway Wall Map (20 x 20 Inches) from Haymarket Books.

The interactive version of the City of Women London Tube Map allows you to click on a station name to learn more about the woman celebrated at that station. Many of the women shown on the map have a personal connection with the area where they have been placed on the map. For example the singer Amy Winehouse replaces Camden Town on the map, because she lived and regularly performed in this north London neighborhood. You can also buy poster sized prints of the London map from Bookshop.org or Waterstones.

One reason why the Barcelona, New York and London Subway maps have had to be reimagined to celebrate the achievements of women is because women are so rarely recognized by having squares, roads or stations named for them - unlike men. You can see this imbalance in the recognition of men and women in city road-names and place-names in the maps listed on the Maps Mania post The Sexist Streets of the World.