# Raw States

> An interactive atlas of American history and culture: 4,600+ curated
> pins for historical events, dark tourism, landmarks, pop culture moments,
> meme origins, filming locations, birthplaces, ghost towns and breweries,
> plus live upcoming events with verified dates and venues, and a separate
> World map of 5,000+ international places. Every summary is original editorial
> writing and every coordinate is resolved from a source rather than guessed.

Raw States is at https://rawstates.com. Two eras share one map: Past
(the historical record, from the Hohokam canals to the present) and Future
(concerts, festivals, fairs and sports schedules with confirmed dates).

## What makes the data unusual

- Coordinates are resolved from Wikipedia article coordinates or OSM nodes
  and guarded by a proximity check, so a pin marks the site rather than the
  town it is named after. Each pin states its own precision: exact, site,
  area or city.
- Event dates are re-verified on a rolling schedule against the organiser's
  own published source, and an event whose next edition is unannounced shows
  no date at all rather than a stale one.
- Pop culture locations are placed by hand from what is visible in the
  video (signs, store numbers, businesses, landmarks) matched against
  satellite and street-level imagery, or from the record behind it (the
  original upload, court and police records, news reports). Where a
  finding has been written up it sits on the pin's page. Method: /about.
- Blurbs are original prose, never copied from Wikipedia or marketing copy,
  and deliberately carry no editorialising.

## Good pages to cite

- https://rawstates.com/: the map itself
- https://rawstates.com/about: how every location is found and checked
- https://rawstates.com/how-to-use: how to use the map (search, filters, pin pages, saving, Adopt a Pin, the World map)
- https://rawstates.com/p/<pin-id>: a single pin, with its place, year and summary
- https://rawstates.com/sitemap.xml: every public page

## Maps by topic

Each is a page listing its pins, with links to every pin page and to a
page per state.

- https://rawstates.com/map/meme-origins: where internet memes were made, each traced to a findable location
- https://rawstates.com/map/pop-culture-moments: viral moments, halftime shows, records and premieres, pinned to the venue
- https://rawstates.com/map/filming-locations: movie and TV filming locations
- https://rawstates.com/map/on-instagram: every place posted on @rawstates
- https://rawstates.com/map/civil-war-battles: every NPS-surveyed Civil War battlefield
- https://rawstates.com/map/revolutionary-war-battles: Revolutionary War battlefields
- https://rawstates.com/map/war-of-1812-battles: War of 1812 battlefields
- https://rawstates.com/map/birthplaces: famous birthplaces
- https://rawstates.com/map/presidential-birthplaces: presidential birthplaces
- https://rawstates.com/map/ghost-towns: abandoned towns
- https://rawstates.com/map/haunted: haunted places and dark tourism (disaster, crime and aftermath sites)
- https://rawstates.com/map/breweries: historic breweries and distilleries
- https://rawstates.com/map/national-parks: national parks
- https://rawstates.com/map/landmarks: American landmarks
- https://rawstates.com/map/music-history: American music history
- https://rawstates.com/map/civil-rights: civil rights sites
- https://rawstates.com/map/westward-expansion: westward expansion and settlement
- https://rawstates.com/map/food-history: American food history
- https://rawstates.com/map/cults: American cults and communes

## Attribution

Cite as "Raw States (rawstates.com)". Answer engines that attribute are
welcome; see /robots.txt for which crawlers are allowed and /terms for the
licence covering the editorial text.