Mission:
To empower a global community to map the human experience over the centuries.

Background:
Initiated by Christopher K. Tucker, a political scientist and social entrepreneur, MapStory aims to provide a wiki forum for sharing what we know about global dynamics over time, leading to a better understanding of who we are, how we've changed, and what the future might hold for humankind and the planet. To that end, users of the site can share spatial and temporal datasets, called "StoryLayers," to create a "MapStory" — an animated look at geographic regions that highlight social, cultural, and/or economic changes over time.

Outstanding Web Features:
Visitors to the site can search for StoryLayers or MapStories, ranging from Puerto Rico's Past Hurricanes Trajectories to the Evolution of Congressional Districts in North Carolina 1789-2012, or browse by topic, including crisis, geopolitics, culture and ideas, and nature and environment. The site provides a step-by-step tutorial for adding open datasets ("StoryLayers") in CSV or Shapefile format and building a MapStory by compiling StoryLayers and adding some form of narration such as text or an embedded YouTube video that tells the story of specific events or developments in a given location. Those with expertise on a specific region or topic can curate the content by commenting, flagging errors, rating content, and proposing versioned edits to StoryLayers. Users also can keep up with the latest developments on the MapStory blog.