Raw States is a map of the United States with a pin at the exact place where something happened: a viral video, a news event, a historic site. Every pin was placed by hand and checked against imagery and the public record. The map is free and works in any browser, on a phone or a desktop, without an account. This page explains the controls.

Moving around

Drag the map to pan and pinch or scroll to zoom. Pins appear as you zoom in. Tap a pin to open its card. The card shows the name, the place, the year and a short account of what happened there. The button at the top left of the map switches between the street basemap and satellite imagery. The location button asks your browser for your position and marks it with a dot, so you can see what is near you. Your position is never stored.

Searching for a place or event

The search box at the top of the map takes anything: a city, a state, a street, the name of an event, a person, a business, or a phrase from a video. Type and the matches appear below the box. Choose one and the map flies to it. Searches like "near me" or "nearby" use your location if you allow it. The list button shows every pin in the current view as a list, best first, which is the easiest way to read a dense city.

Past and Future

The switch at the top of the map has two settings. Past is the historical record: everything that has already happened, from the earliest sites to last week. Future is upcoming events: concerts, festivals, fairs and sports with a confirmed date and venue. An event whose next date has not been announced shows no date rather than a guessed one.

Filtering by date

On the Future map a date pill sits above the map and reads, for example, "Next 3 months". Tap it to pick a quick range, or set a custom pair of dates with the From and To fields. The same range can be edited in the Dates panel of the filters. On the Past map the filters panel lets you narrow by state, by category and by year.

Filters and layers

The filters button opens a panel with the categories on the map. Turn a category off to hide its pins and on to show them again. Clear resets a panel. Weather layers add radar and current alerts over the map. The Top 50 pill, where it appears, shows only the fifty most opened places, and the On Instagram pill shows only the places posted on the @rawstates account.

What a pin page shows

Every pin has its own page at rawstates.com/p/<pin>. Open it from the share button on a card or from a search engine. The page gives the name, the place, the year, the coordinates, the account of what happened there, and where one has been written, the finding of how the location was confirmed. Below that is a list of the history within reach: the pins nearest to this one, with the distance. The page can be shared, saved, printed or linked like any other web page.

Saving places

The save button on a card keeps that place in your saved list. Saving needs a free account, which exists for one reason: so your saved places and your submissions are kept together and come back when you sign in from another device. Sign in is by a link sent to your email, or with a Google account. There is no password to remember. Your saved places are listed under Saved places in the account panel.

Suggesting a place or a correction

The add-a-place button opens the suggestion box. Send a location, a video, a correction, or a tip about a pin that looks wrong. A suggestion is never placed on the map until it has been checked the same way as every other pin. How that check works is on the about page.

Adopt a Pin

Adopt a Pin puts a name on a pin's card. Open a card, choose Adopt this pin, enter the name to show and, at the higher tier, a website to link to. Payment is monthly and handled by Stripe. Each pin can be adopted by a limited number of people, and the card shows how many places are left. The name goes on the card once it has been approved, usually within the day. Adopting a pin changes nothing about its location, its text or its ranking.

The World map

The United States map is free. The World map is a paid tier that adds the same kind of pins outside the United States, placed and checked the same way. The world button in the header opens the offer and shows the current price. Everything described above works the same way on the World map.

Questions

Anything this page does not answer: write to hello@rawstates.com or use the contact page. Questions about data and privacy go to privacy@rawstates.com.