Maps and places
Open maps, historical maps, strange places and windows onto the world. 8 resources; API, key, license and embedding quoted from each site's own pages, checked Oct 23, 2026.
OpenStreetMap
Every road, building, bench and footpath is mapped by people, and you can download the whole planet and build your own maps from it.
API, no keyDownloadCommercial: conditions
David Rumsey Map Collection
You can zoom into centuries-old atlases at full detail and lay some of them over today's map to see how places changed.
DownloadCommercial: conditions
The True Size Of
Sliding Greenland down to Africa shows at once how badly standard web maps distort the size of places near the poles.
License unclear
Old Maps Online
Pan to any town and see which old maps of it exist across collections around the world.
License unclear
MapCrunch
One click puts you on an unknown road somewhere on Earth, which makes it a quiet, endless virtual trip and a natural base for guessing games.
License unclear
Atlas Obscura
It is a catalogue of odd, hidden and surprising spots you will not find in ordinary travel guides.
License unclear
WindowSwap
Each click drops you into a stranger's flat in another city, with the street noise and weather of that moment.
License unclear
Virtual Vacation
You can pick a city on a map and stroll, drive or fly through it in real footage, or test yourself by guessing where a random clip was filmed.
LiveLicense unclear
Side by side
| Resource | API | Key | Data download | Commercial use | Embed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenStreetMap A free, editable map of the world built by volunteers, whose full map database can be downloaded as open data. |
Official API · Free | No | Yes (pbf, osm-xml) | Commercial use with conditions | Embedding with conditions |
| David Rumsey Map Collection An online archive of over 151,000 scanned historical maps and images, many free to download, plus a Georeferencer for placing old maps on modern ones. |
API unclear | — | Yes (jpg, kmz) | Commercial use with conditions | Embedding unclear |
| The True Size Of A free browser map where you drag country, state and region outlines across a Mercator map to see their real size at any latitude, with area and population shown. |
API unclear | — | — | Commercial use unclear | Embedding unclear |
| Old Maps Online A search portal for scanned historical maps held by many libraries and archives, found by placing yourself on a modern map. |
API unclear | — | — | Commercial use unclear | Embedding unclear |
| MapCrunch A site that drops you into a random Google Street View panorama, filtered by country or by an area you pick on a map, with a daily featured view and a gallery. |
API unclear | — | — | Commercial use unclear | Embedding unclear |
| Atlas Obscura An online guide to unusual and little-known places around the world, with place pages, articles and a map. |
API unclear | — | — | Commercial use unclear | Embedding unclear |
| WindowSwap A web app that plays short videos of the view out of real people's windows around the world, one random window at a time, with paid extras such as a map and the full archive. |
API unclear | — | — | Commercial use unclear | Embedding unclear |
| Virtual Vacation A free site that collects long walking, driving, flying and window-view videos and live cams of cities, organised by city and map, plus a guess-the-city game. |
API unclear | — | — | Commercial use unclear | Embedding unclear |