From lunch programs to green cities to biodiversity, individuals and organizations worldwide tell place-based stories about local communities, challenges, and innovative solutions—with common threads across our people, the infrastructure we build, and the impacts on the natural world and environment.
From September 10 to December 12, 2025, we challenged you and storytellers globally to to elevate the challenges, and solutions, that mean the most.
And you delivered!
Over 450 storytellers from 55 countries submitted stories in 14 languages to the 2025 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition.
We are thrilled by the submissions we received for the 2025 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition. These selected finalists represent an outstanding subset of our global community’s work, celebrating the power of geospatial storytelling. Together, they inspire, educate, and inform by highlighting meaningful work underway in communities around the world.
Thank you to our many competition entrants, whether you’re recognized as a finalist here or not. We appreciate you and your good work.
Composing a geospatial story is no small feat.
The art of bringing together a narrative, maps, and multimedia to create a dynamic—and digestible—reading experience requires significant effort. And that’s why, each year, we continue to be blown away by our community and your growing skills in the art of geospatial storytelling.
The 2025 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition strove to further magnify the geographic approach by partnering with ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, deepening the challenge to tell a story with the science of where at its core.
Read the stories that stood out among the three competition categories: Environment, People, and Infrastructure. Then cast a vote for your favorite. (The public voting period is now closed.)
Research has the greatest impact when it is communicated clearly and thoughtfully, especially across platforms and communities that reach people of all ages, backgrounds, and levels of scientific familiarity. Using Esri’s storytelling tools, we are excited to present a shark narrative that is accessible, engaging, and rooted in real research, inviting audiences to learn how shark science is conducted and why it matters.
—From the authors of Sharks in the Graveyard, Environment finalist
ENVIRONMENT
Professional track
- A Fight for Survival (English, Spanish, Portuguese)
- Arctic Migratory Birds Pushed Over the Edge
- Big, Wild, and Connected
- Goals and Resources for the Appalachians
- Grevy’s Zebra Trust: Healthy Rangelands Program
- Mapping Chattanooga’s Urban Forests
- Sharks in the Graveyard: Spotting Sand Tigers in the Northwest Atlantic
Student track
- Echoes Beneath the Waves
- Fading Corals, Starving Coasts
- The Migration of Humpback Whales
- The Unseen Lives above Our Heads
- The Whiskered River-keeper
By bringing to life the stories of our Green Grantees; highlighting new greenspaces and trees that span neighborhoods across West and Southwest Philadelphia; and communicating the research that serves as our foundational theory of change, we show that relatively low-cost investments by health systems can yield high-impact results when community engagement is rooted in mutual respect and decision making. While working on Deeply Rooted, each of us has been moved by the commitment of our community partners to improving the lives of their neighbors and young people in Philadelphia. The creation of this story serves to uplift their work to a global audience, celebrating the spirit and resilience that reaches from Elmwood Avenue to Girard, Cobbs Creek to 52nd Street, and all blocks in between.
—From the authors of Deeply Rooted, People finalist
PEOPLE
Professional track
- Bridging the Plymouth Avenue Divide
- Connections to Long Island Sound
- Dear Diary, Adulting Just Got Too Expensive
- Deeply Rooted
- Memories of Home
- Windsor Listens: How 311 Empowers Our Community
Student track
- An Introduction to Research in Nunavut
- NPU Voices in Action
- The Last Big One: Reconstructing California’s Great Flood of 1861-1862
- When the Rot Sets In…
After living in Los Angeles during the 2025 fires, I thought I understood the damage. But through my internship with University of Southern California and Las Flores Water Company, a locally owned Altadena utility, I saw the scale firsthand. Sharing my story through the competition is a chance to show how local resilience and mapping intersect, inspiring broader recovery efforts.
—About From Ashes to Action, Infrastructure student finalist
INFRASTRUCTURE
Professional track
- Atlas of Public Power
- Beyond the Grid
- Building Resilient Stormwater Infrastructure
- Ceará Green Hydrogen Platform (English, Portuguese)
- Heritage Atlas
- Repower, Rebuild, Reimagine: Renewable Infrastructure
- The Pacheco Pass Wildlife Overcrossing Project
- The Port Arthur Flood Risk Reduction System
Student track
- From Ashes to Action
- Counting Buildings from Space
- Potential Sites for a New Youth Shelter in London, ON
Explore the finalists geographically in our 2025 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition story.
Visit the competition website on Earth Day—April 22, 2026—to meet the competition winners.
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