Green Map Icons
The Green Map® Icons are the heart of our global program. This collaboratively designed visual language identifies, promotes and links ecological and cultural resources on every Green Map. The award-winning Icons also link all the Green Maps together, helping green ideas and examples spread from city to city. The full range of interconnections between nature, society and the designed environment can be illuminated with our set of 125 GMS Icons.
Icons make the Green Maps easy to explore, regardless of the language and cultural orientation of the Mapmaker. Primarily, they represent beneficial green and cultural sites of every description, but there are also symbols for enterprise, infrastructure, information resources and toxic hot spots. There is general agreement on each Icon's meaning, but the local Mapmakers determine precise definitions for the Icons they use. Mapmakers are also continually inventing new local icons of their own, many of which get "adopted" into the globally shared set - young people especially enjoy creating new place-based symbols!
This iconography was conceived as an evolving language, changing as our understanding of sustainability grows. Version 2 of the Green Map Icons was released in 1999, after four years of development by Mapmakers all over the world. Many thanks to all who contributed and to those who are developing the next version of the Icons. You can download your own copy of our Icon Poster in Spanish/Portuguese (more languages are available at GreenMap.org).
The Green Map Icons have been digitized into a font, so they can be typed in from any keyboard. There is both a PC and a Mac version, and our Mapmakers have been able to use them with virtually every kind of software. There is also a special font for the 50 Youth Icons. Use of the copyrighted Icon font and the registered trademark "Green Map" are provided to all registered Green Mapmakers, subject to written registration agreement (find out more).
We have been told by experts that Green Map Icons are the only universal symbol system for maps in the world! We are happy to know this language is promoting community sustainability and involvement with the hometown environment.