There are two very useful and simple tools that will allow you to have your maps of anywhere in the world and personalize and illustrate them for whatever you need. On the one hand, a website where you can find blank maps for free use so that you do not fall into being able to infringe any copyright regulations. And on the other, we will talk about another website that will help you draw on them.
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royalty free maps of the world
On one hand, you have royalty-free and blank maps so you can edit them your way. We are talking about the OpenStreetMap website, which is Open Data (a free access data service), licensed under the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) and the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF).
You can freely copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the data and you are asked to give them recognition indicating the website of origin of these maps: “© OpenStreetMap Contributors”.
To use it, go to this link. To choose the country or town you are looking for, you can use the search engine on the left or you can move around the map with the mouse. When you are in the place you have selected, that specific map is surrounded in orange and you can also choose if you prefer to see it in another way where it puts layers, in the right column. For example, you can see it in relief or with road maps.
These maps also offer legends if you select it on the letter ‘i’ in the right column. In some of the reliefs, beyond the basic one, no caption available.
Then you can share the link of that specific area of the map or you can click on export. when selecting the option to export, surrounds your map in a rectangle and, manually, you have to define how you want that rectangle to be. When you define it, click on OverPass API and the download of the place you want to have your map will start.
edit your maps
And now, with this base you can edit these maps with another tool: DataWrapper. You have several options when editing.
`On the one hand, you can paint in different colors regions or countries. If you want to display data like unemployment rates or election results on a map. You load the previously collected map or you can even use the ones that Datawrapper offers you. You enter here and you can load your map or choose one of those that the web offers you. You can select which continent. And after this you start with the colors according to, for example, statistics.
Another option is to put symbols on the maps. In this link you can start that process. There you can upload your map or choose one of the ones that Datawrapper offers you. Then you can upload data to introduce them in the map in CSV file to take them to that map and introduce symbols according to what you want to show.
The last option is to add icons and labels to your map (called “markers”). They are called location maps. You can indicate events in a city or places of interest to visit.