# Where can I find an interactive/automatic pin map of th world?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-an-interactive-automatic-pin-map-of-th-world/82639>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 19, 2001, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-an-interactive-automatic-pin-map-of-th-world/82639 "2001-09-19T18:20:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2001, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-an-interactive-automatic-pin-map-of-th-world/82639/1 "2001-09-19T18:20:33Z")

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I’ve been looking for something like this for a looong time. What I want is a map of the world that I can put on my website, and people can add their locations to it and a pin/marker will show up. I used to maintain a map by hand but that was a huuuuuge pain in the ass. I found a free service, (the one I set up is [here](http://www.24fun.com/cgi-bin/gmapview.pl?owneremail=opalcat@fathom.org&gmap=world&mapstyle=style1&urlsite=http://opalcat.com&welcomemessage=World)) but it has a few problems:

- it’s kinda ugly
- pins fade after time
- it’s remotely hosted, with ads
- no control

I want something that I can install on my server.

Anyone know of such a thing?

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**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2001, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-an-interactive-automatic-pin-map-of-th-world/82639/2 "2001-09-19T18:23:54Z")

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Check out [http://www.esri.com](http://www.esri.com).

Its a GIS site. It should have links to tons of data. However, I don’t know if you find any services that will help you support a “pin” site.

Don’t have the time to help any further

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**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2001, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-an-interactive-automatic-pin-map-of-th-world/82639/3 "2001-09-19T19:20:38Z")

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I built something like this a year or two ago. It wasn’t as difficult as I had anticipated. Get a nice sized image of a world map. Download a list of city names with latitudes and longitudes. I kept a detailed list of the cities in the United States and Canada, but only capitals or very large cities in other countries. When a city is selected by the end user, translate the lat/long to a pixel location within the map and add a “pin” image with javascript. I also let the user add cities to my list, if they could supply their own lat/long. I’m not sure where I’ve stored the code and images, but if you can’t find anything suitable on the web, I’ll try to dig it up for you.

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**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2001, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-an-interactive-automatic-pin-map-of-th-world/82639/4 "2001-09-19T20:03:33Z")

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cool, that would be awesome 🙂

enipla, not sure if that site will help with this project, but dang that’s a cool site anyway!! I bookmarked it 😃