Story Map Maker — Scrollytelling for Your Data
Tell a geographic story the way it deserves: one continuous map that flies between locations as the reader scrolls, with your text and images alongside.
Free to start. No credit card required.
A slideshow throws away the reader's sense of place every time it cuts. A story map keeps one map underneath the whole narrative and moves it, so readers watch the journey between chapters — how far, which direction, what lay in between. That spatial continuity is information a sequence of static images simply cannot carry.
Write your chapters in Markdown, give each one a location and a camera position, and Mapji handles the scroll-triggered flights. Add images, enable 3D terrain for mountainous ground, and publish to your own domain or embed the story inside an existing article.
Chapters in Markdown
Write each chapter with headings, lists, links, and emphasis — no HTML required.
Full camera control
Per-chapter zoom, bearing, and pitch, framed with sliders or by moving the map yourself; glide, fly or cut between locations, with an optional slow orbit.
Images & animations
Upload photos straight into a chapter — or paste or drop them in — and choose from several entrance animations.
Themed to match your site
Style the text panel with a Light, Dark, Glass or Minimal theme, an accent color, a default, Inter, serif or monospace font, and the map on either side.
How it works
Create a story map
Start a new site and choose the Story Map type.
Write your chapters
One location and one idea per chapter, written in Markdown.
Set each camera
Choose the zoom, bearing, and tilt the map should fly to for each chapter.
Publish or embed
Go live on your domain, or embed the story in an existing article.
Related map types
Story Map
Create narrative-driven maps that guide viewers through locations with scroll-based storytelling. Combine text, images, camera moves and a route between chapters.
Draw Map
Draw markers, lines, and polygons directly on your map with an intuitive editing interface. Import an existing file or create from scratch.
Time Slider Map
Animate data over time with an interactive timeline. Watch patterns emerge as you scrub through dates.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a story map be?
Six to twelve chapters is a comfortable range. Fewer than four and the format isn't earning its keep; past fifteen, scroll fatigue sets in. Keep each chapter short enough that the reader doesn't have to scroll twice within it, or the map sits still and the effect dies.
Can I add photos to each chapter?
Yes. Upload them straight into the chapter text, where they sit alongside the words — and a photograph of the place the map is flying to anchors it far better than prose alone.
Can readers link to one chapter of a story map?
Yes. Every chapter has its own address: add #chapter-3 to the story's link and it opens at chapter 3, and the address follows the reader as they scroll. Readers can also move between chapters with the arrow keys or the previous and next buttons.
Can the map tilt and rotate between chapters?
Yes. Each chapter stores its own bearing (0–360°) and pitch (0–85°) as well as zoom, so you can rotate a valley to run up the screen or tilt into terrain. Combined with 3D terrain this is the biggest upgrade available for outdoor stories.
Is a story map the right choice for a directory?
No. Story maps set the pace deliberately, which is right for narrative and wrong for browsing. If readers need to search or look themselves up, build a store locator or cluster map instead.
Can a story map play out over satellite imagery or a historical map?
Yes. Add a background layer and it stays under your chapter markers as the camera moves: a cloud-free Sentinel-2 mosaic or the global hillshade from the built-in catalog, or a scanned historical sheet that its archive publishes as a WMS or tile service.
Ready to build your map?
Join creators, businesses, and researchers building beautiful interactive maps. Free to start, no credit card required.
- No code required
- 10 map types
- Custom domains