Independent companion to the official community challenge
Every 2026 theme, unpacked with original ideas, fitting tools and data you can actually reuse. Pick a day, make a map, credit your sources, and share it with #30DayMapChallenge.
OFFICIAL HOME30daymapchallenge.com/2026ABOUT THE PROJECT
#30DayMapChallenge is a daily social mapping project started in 2019 by Finnish cartographer Topi Tjukanov. Every November, people around the world respond to one theme each day and share their original maps with the hashtag. There is no sign-up, no required software and no pressure to complete all 30 days.
This MapTools section is an independent companion guide created to help more people take part. The themes and the challenge belong to the official project; our contribution is the original theme commentary, tool suggestions and data research on these pages.
OFFICIAL PARTICIPATION GUIDE
There is no registration and no central submission form. Publishing your map with the hashtag is how you participate.
Read “How it works” on the official siteMake an original map for that day’s prompt. You may prepare it in advance, and you do not need to complete all 30.
Name the data source whenever possible and be open about the tools and AI assistance you used.
Publish the map on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads or any platform you prefer.
Include the exact tag #30DayMapChallenge. That public post is your challenge entry — there is nothing else to upload.
THE 2026 CALENDAR
AFTER YOU POST
If you gather your challenge maps in a public GitHub repository, personal site, StoryMap, Observable collection or blog, you can ask the official project to list that collection. The preferred method is a pull request to galleries.yml; the maintainers also accept a submission issue or direct contact.
After posting publicly with the hashtag, you may send that original post to MapTools for editorial consideration. This is separate from the official challenge and does not register or submit your work to the organizers.
MAPTOOLS PICKS
You do not have to complete all 30. These themes are especially useful for testing a new mapping workflow or turning a planning question into a compact visual story.
Try a new toolCOMMUNITY MAPS
During the challenge, we will add a small set of thoughtful community maps to the relevant day. Every feature links to the original post and credits the author; we never copy someone else’s image without permission.
QUICK ANSWERS
There is no official submission form. Publish your original map on your preferred social platform on the themed day and include #30DayMapChallenge. That public post is how you participate.
Use any social platform you prefer and add #30DayMapChallenge. The official site links to activity across Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, X, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Yes. The official guidance allows advance preparation; the spirit is to publish one map on its themed day.
The official calendar defines every theme as an all-day date without a fixed time zone. This guide therefore uses your browser’s local calendar date and shows the detected time zone in the live card above.
Yes, with care and transparency. The official guidance asks participants to explain how they made the map. Day 10 is specifically reserved for a prompting-only experiment.
Topi Tjukanov started #30DayMapChallenge in 2019. MapTools is providing this independent tools-and-data guide and is not the organizer.
It is an optional way to suggest an already-published map for our daily editorial picks. It is not an official challenge submission, registration or organizer-run service. We link to the original, credit the author and seek separate permission before using an image.