It was 20 years ago today Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play when Mike Pegg first started writing about Google Maps. Which means Google Maps Mania is 20 YEARS OLD TODAY!
🎉 Celebrating 20 Years of Maps Mania: A Cartographic Journey
For twenty years Maps Mania has been tirelessly chronicling the evolving world of interactive maps. Since its inception on Wednesday, April 13, 2005 Google Maps Mania has been celebrating and showcasing the wonderful online interactive maps created by the cartographic community, and for two decades, Maps Mania has been one of the go-to destination for map lovers, geospatial techies, data journalists, and curious minds worldwide.
In this time tt has showcased everything from quirky custom visualizations to groundbreaking tools that have reshaped how we interact with space and place online.
So today, we celebrate not only Maps Mania but also the incredible journey of online interactive mapping over the last 20 years. Let’s take a look at some of the pivotal developments that Maps Mania has tracked - and perhaps help shape since 2005.
🌍 2005–2010: The Birth of the Mashup Era
When Google Maps launched in early 2005, it didn’t take long for developers to start “hacking” the platform, overlaying their own data onto the base map. This gave birth to the map mashup - an entirely new genre of DIY cartography.
Maps Mania was there from the start, curating early examples like:
- Real estate listings on maps
- Live transit tracking
- Crime mapping
- Flickr photo maps
Soon, APIs from Yahoo, Microsoft, and OpenStreetMap joined the party, and online mapping became an even bigger playground for creativity.
🧰 2010–2015: The Rise of Tools and Platforms
As the web matured, so did mapping. This era saw the emergence of powerful tools like:
Leaflet.js and Mapbox GL JS, enabling slick, custom maps in the browser
CartoDB (now CARTO), democratizing geospatial data analysis
D3.js, pushing the boundaries of data-driven cartography
Maps Mania didn't just report on these tools - it spotlighted how people were using them to tell stories, explore data, and visualize everything from climate change to historical journeys.
📱 2015–2020: Mobile, Real-Time & Story Mapping
With smartphones in everyone’s pockets, maps have now become more than just static guides - they have become live, reactive, and personal. Highlights from this period include:
- The explosion of story maps (via Esri, Knight Lab, and others)
- Maps for activism and crisis response (like during Hurricane Harvey or COVID-19)
- Location-based games and apps like Pokémon Go, changing public space experiences
Maps Mania tried to capture it all, curating the finest examples of maps that moved - both emotionally and physically.
🧠 2020–2025: AI, 3D & the Future of Place
In recent years, interactive mapping has leapt into new dimensions - literally and figuratively:
- 3D mapping with Google, Cesium and Mapbox adds realism and immersion
- Machine learning now detects buildings, roads, and land use from satellite images
- Digital twins of cities are enabling simulations for climate, traffic, and urban planning
- WebGL and immersive web tech are making maps feel more realistic
💚 A Labor of Cartographic Love
For 20 years, Maps Mania has been more than just a blog - it has been a living archive of the internet’s mapping imagination.
Here’s to the next 20 years of exploration. The world is always changing - hopefully, Maps Mania will continue to help make sense of it, one map at a time!