This day stood out to me. Kind of a different one from most. I wasn’t sure what to map. This is what I came up with — find hypnotist organizations around the world; determine how hypnotism is regulated around the world; provide an animated timeline of major milestones in hypnotism. (There is about 1200 year wait after the first major milestone, but instead of fixing it with another prompt I figured… maybe waiting will hypnotize the map reader… you’re getting sleepy.

Prompt tool: Web Mapper GPT
Dataset creation: Perplexity Plus

Original Prompt (Web Mapper GPT)

Can you give me a generic webmap schema that I can provide you with some datasets to create a map celebrating international hypnotist day?

Follow Up Prompt with Filled-In Schema

I have three datasets that may be fun to layer and use. Particularly if we join one or two of them to the Natural Earth Countries (no Lakes) dataset (attached as a zip).

I would like this to be calming and quirky. Kind of surreal and living down to the stereotypes of hypnotists. Not too serious but informational about Hypnotism.

Perhaps an animated timeline of the key events in hypnotism’s history, a layer showing schools around the world as points, and then laws and regulations (perhaps needs to be standardized a bit) in countries around the world as a categorical map of country polygons (would require joining to Natural Earth dataset on ISO 3 letter ALL CAPS country codes, I believe. Also, we could strip all the fields out of the Natural Earth countries dataset, except for Country Name, Population, and ISO 3 letter code.

[filled-in schema followed]

Sip Happens™ is a tongue-in-cheek, propaganda-style map created for International Straw Day that cheerfully celebrates convenience while quietly revealing its consequences. Built through iterative prompting, the map layers real-world microplastic data with sea turtle nesting sites, letting the horror emerge only as you zoom in. There are no straws on the map—just the conditions that make them lethal—because the point isn’t to shame a single object, but to highlight the systems that made it disposable in the first place. It’s bright, it’s playful, and if you linger long enough, it gets deeply uncomfortable. Just like progress. 🙂

See map here.

Created with Web Mapper GPT.
Datasets found using Perplexity Plus.

Original Prompt

I would like to create a tongue-in-cheek critical cartography map of plastic waste (in particular plastic straws) for International Straw Day.

Much of the world saw a viral video clip of a sea tortiouse with a straw stuck up its nose at some point.

I would like to design a sensationalist map that takes the piss out of the straw industry by highlighting:

– floating plastic waste in waterways
– sea turtle zones and habitat

The map can have these two types of datasets overlayed. It should highlight where the datasets overlap one another in particular.

I’m thinking the map can be in 1960s Americana style, sarcastically celebrating straw use and commercialism in marketing slogan type title while the map is actually showing how horrible plastic waste is and how it negatively impacts sea life (i.e,. turtles. The map should be a globe that the user can spin, if possible. Or Leaflet. Let’s mock up a color palette and title and subtitle and find two datasets that will work for this. Then we can create a schema and maybe a legend or some other elements, including perhaps an image of a dead turtles that are only visible when people zoom in far enough on the map or something.

Please come up with three creative, cynical, tongue-in-cheek sensationalist (but ironic) titles and visualization techniques to tell this story.

Below is a list of potential datasets we can use. When you come up with the narrative, titles, and visualizations, please make sure they can be built using 1-2 of these datasets. Thank you!

Today’s map leans deliberately quiet: a collection of places often cited as introvert-friendly — including cities and towns where pace, density, climate, or cultural norms tend to reward observation over human interaction. The map isn’t declaring winners or promising refuge, but it does try to spatially surface a feeling many introverts recognize: the relief of space, routine, and lower social friction. Some of these places are cold, some are remote, some are just politely indifferent—and that’s kind of the point. The purpose here is less about prescribing where introverts should live and more about noticing how geography quietly shapes social energy, expectations, and daily exhaustion.

As with all early entries in this yearlong project, this prompt-based map is imperfect and subjective, built from anecdote, light research (by another LLM I enlisted), and a bit of personal bias sneaking in through the back door.

If this map prompts a moment of recognition or nostalgia — or at least a calm nod rather than a loud reaction — it did its job. Bonus: feel free to download the GeoJSON of filtered places from the menu if you decide you want to remember where to run to in the future. 😉

View map here.

Prompt Cartography Tools

Dataset created using Perplexity Plus.
Created with Web Mapper GPT.

Web Mapper GPT Prompt

Hi. I have a dataset of extremely remote places around the world. I want to create a map for International Day of Introverts using this dataset.

Here is the dataset. I would like to map this using Leaflet and a basemap that shows physical geography and terrain over human geography. Perhaps something quite minimalist. Maybe it will benefit from a mask that makes it look like a snowout or something.

I want this map to be spartan. Minimalist point icons on a very light map.

This should be mobile first. Floating over the top-left of the map should be a minimalist title entitled: “Wanna get away? Remote places for introverts.” Subtitle: “#365DaysofMaps”

No header top bar across the top. The title should be prominent and floating over the mapped area.

Underneath the title should be two icon buttons, on top of one another:
– Button 1 = Filters
When clicked, results in a non-obtrusive popup that allows the user to multi-select places based on two attributes: Climate Type; Country
– The filters can be coupled; i.e., filters are (AND) based. Example: “Desert” AND “Libya” (not sure this is a real one, just an example of what I mean)
– Button 2 = Credits & Attribution
When clicked, results in a non-obtrusive popup that is the same size and look as the Legend one. In here we will have the following information in a stylized format:
– Prompt Cartographer: Ian Muehlenhaus
– LLM Tools:
– Map Implementation: Web Mapper GPT (with <a href=”https://webmapgpt.com”>)
– Dataset Creation: Perplexity (with <a href=”https://www.perplexity.ai/search/i-would-like-to-create-a-datas-bgw4d8c4ToWMGExJ1pn1MQ#6″>)
– APIs Used:
– List all APIs used by you to create the map with links to the sites in bullet format
– In italics and lighter font: “This map was designed as part of the #365DaysOfMaps on behalf of the International Cartographic Association Commission on Map Design.” Please but the TAG in <strong> tags but keep it the same lighter black color as the surrounding text.

Some interactivity notes:
– Again, make this look good work well on Mobile, please. Mobile first!
– When a user clicks on a place, an info window from the bottom should appear that shows the following information about the place in a minimalist but styled for visual hierarchy manner:
– Name of Place
– Country (tag icon perhaps
– Climate (tag icon perhaps)
– Population
– Description
– Image (if availabe, if 403, etc, skip)
– Sources:
– Description source <a href=description URL field or similar>
– Image source (when image is included = image URL field or similar)

Info window should minimize or disappear when the user clicks anywhere else on the map.

Using this information, please create a Spec sheet in JSON we can refer to again and again. Also, can you think of any major things I’m missing here?

This map is being designed to show off how powerful you are as a GPT to encourage people to start prompt cartography earnestly. Please provide critical feedback about the map and add any advice or information for the schema that is missing. Happy to oblige. Thank you!

To start our commission’s #365DaysOfMaps journey, I built a little quirky map that looks at how different cultures mark the “start” of the year — spoiler: January 1 is just one contender among many.

This map isn’t fancy, it isn’t exhaustive, and it’s certainly not going to win any design awards, but it invites us to pause and notice how our sense of time is cultural, historical, and sometimes a little arbitrary. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that even a simple map can spark curiosity.

Day one: done. Only 364 to go… what could possibly go wrong?

Map available here.
Data created with: Perplexity Plus
Map created using: Web Mapper GPT

Original Web Mapper GPT Prompt

Hi there. I would like to make a special map celebrating the New Year.

To do so, I have created a dataset of unique celebrations around the world (by country and US states, Canadian provinces, and Australian provinces).

I have a vision of a mobile-first map that allows people to explore the world on their phone and easily click on a country or state, province, etc. to see information about how people celebrate New Years Day uniquely in a given place.

The map design should be 2026 modern! 🙂 Similar to ChatGPT’s site in font and gray scale or Google Gemini’s site (gemini.google.com). The map is merely a fun conversation starter, a time-waster map to be shared on social media and perhaps chatted about amongst friends.

The dataset I created has an ISO country abbreviation field (two and three digit fields). I would like to join my dataset to the Natural Earth Dataset (medium resolution). I have uploaded that country-level dataset here. (states won’t join, obviously, and that’s okay.

My first question is this: can you join these datasets together based on country ISO abbreviation and export a new combined shapefile?