The Green Map System (GMS)

Green Map System is a globally connected, locally adaptable framework for engaged, sustainable community development. Since 1995, this nonprofit has invited voluntary, professional and municipal teams to create a fresh perspective of their hometown on the form of a Green Map that charts the city's environmentally significant places, projects, organizations and other resources. Utilizing our award-winning shared "language", a set of 170 icons that symbolize the different kinds of urban green sites, Mapmakers are independently producing uniquely designed print maps and interactive Open Green Maps that fulfill local needs, yet have a global linkage. The resulting Green Maps illuminate the interconnections between nature and the built environment, help residents of all ages discover beneficial ways to get involved with the urban ecology, and guide eco-tourists (even virtual ones) to successful greening initiatives they can replicate back home.

The goal of the Green Map System is to cultivate citizen participation and community sustainability in hundreds of places around the world.

In the first three years, GMS grew to become a new model for collaborative creativity that encourages urban-dwellers to identify, promote and link their cities' eco-resources. In 1998, 82 Mapmaking teams in 22 countries on six continents were officially participating; currently there are 386 active Green Map Projects and 298 published Green Maps. They are working in large and small cities worldwide, strengthening the local eco-network as part of the process.

By 2013, over 850 diverse teams in 65 countries have created their own Green Maps using the nonprofit's adaptable toolkit that includes youth, community and professional mapping resources. The award-winning social mapping platform includes over 350 interactive maps that can be embedded, exported and shared in social media as well as on the Green Map IPhone App and mobile website at m.greenmap.org. The Archive of 500 locally designed Green Maps is housed at the New York Public Library Map Room, and a book about the outcomes can be downloaded at GreenMap.org/impacts.