gitRmap / "Guitar Map"

A semi-automated map of locations, which you can add your own points to. Designed for those who are new to GIS, but know a little bit of Git.

Quick Start:

• Go to https://github.com/nickbearman/gitRmap/
• Fork: Click Fork, Give your map a name, Click Create fork
• Setup GitHub Pages
  • Deploy from branch - main - set folder to docs/,
  • Go to Actions, click I understand my workflows, enable them.
• Edit the file data/locations.csv
  • Make your changes, Click Commit Changes, a brown dot - means it is running, a green tick means it is complete.
• Wait ~1min for GitHub Actions to run
  • Click Actions - see 2 entries - update locations and pages build and deployment
  • Wait for them to complete.
  • Update locations should take ~1min.
  • Build pages and deployment should take <1 min
• When complete, go to https://(username).github.io/gitRmap/ to see your map

More detailed tutorial and YouTube video available.

FAQ:

How do I setup gitRmap?

• Fork the repo at https://github.com/nickbearman/gitRmap. Follow the instructions in the README.md file, or check out this YouTube video.

How do I add a point?

• Add a row to locations.csv. Add your City, State and Country in the relevant columns (State is not always required). You do not need to add the coordinates in lat and long - these will be added automatically.

How do I edit the attribute data shown?

• The attribute data shown in the popup (Name, Job, Contact etc.) is dynamically created based on the columns in locations.csv. The standard column are city, state, country, lat and long. If you have no other columns, there will be no popup. (Rename locations-no-popup.csv to locations.csv and see what happens). If you have extra columns, they will appear in the popup. The column named contactlink will be rendered as a HTML link.

What if I don't want any popups?

• Remove all the extra columns, so you only have city, state, country, lat and long. Then no popup will be created.

How do I update to the latest version of gitRmap?

• Updates will be made to the gitRmap repo at https://github.com/nickbearman/gitRmap. Use Sync Fork in GitHub to get the updates to your repo. See this YouTube video for details.

History:

This was inspired by Michele Tobias's Travelling GIS Chat Book map setup in 2023 (https://github.com/MicheleTobias/traveling-gis-chat-book) which is a automated Leaflet webmap, where users can provide locations (city, state, country) in a CSV file, and GitHub actions will create the Leaflet map using an R script.

In April 2025, I was at the Open Science Retreat where I was asked to create a web map showing a series of points with some pop-up text. This is a simple map for a GIS user to create, but the people who were asking were not GIS users, but they did know Git. Instead of just creating the map for them, I wanted to give them the tools to create the map themselves. I tweaked the Travelling GIS Chat Book map for them to create the Open Science Activism Map.

This worked, but wasn't really complete and wasn't something people could pick up and use. In Dec 2025, I applied for £500 from OSGeo:UK's GoFundGeo to make this happen, and this was funded. Thanks to OSGeo:UK!