If you've ever read an issue of the Spatial Awareness newsletter, then you'll know that I keep track of a lot of people in the spatial industry. I get to see a huge amount of content from the spatial community, at least if it's shared on Twitter. As a result of this I have a huge backlog of content to share with you, which is partly the reason for creating this site; so I can share it more regularly.

What occurred to me is that perhaps not everyone is aware of the amazing selection of people in the spatial community on Twitter. There's pretty much something for everyone, and the quality of conversation and spatial visualisation is a constant source of inspiration.

With that in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to pull together a list of people that I either follow directly or regularly spot posting interesting stuff related to the spatial community.

The only rule here is that I'm only featuring individual people, so no company or product accounts. If there's interest I can follow up with another post on spatial companies to follow on Twitter, so leave comment below or DM me on Twitter if you'd like that.

I've also included a short one-liner about each person with my reasons for following them. I'm probably doing an incredible disservice to each of them! I've included a shameless example below.

If you want to see everyone's tweets all in one place then make sure to check out the actual Twitter list that I've put together for you to follow. I'll keep it updated as I feature more people in the future.


Robin Hawkes

Some random guy who stalks a lot of spatial people on Twitter. Also creates crappy visualisations now and then.

robhawkes (@robhawkes)
Senior Principal Engineer at @WoodMackenzie. Creator of @ViziCities. Prev Senior Engineer @UrbanSim, worldwide devrel @Mozilla. Obsessed with maps and data.

There are so many amazing people in the spatial community, but you may notice some of them aren't on this list. That's partly because I needed to draw a line somewhere, but also because I can only cover the people I actually know about and follow on Twitter. I wanted to be able to personally vouch for each and every recommendation here — which I can.

I also want to address the fact that this list is predominantly white people from the US or Europe. This is a symptom of my lack of exposure to the full diversity and representation within the spatial community. This is a problem that I am actively trying to resolve.

If you want to help me with this then please recommended people and organisations I should follow, either in the comments or messaging me on Twitter. It would be much appreciated.

TL;DR; Please forgive me if you aren't on here; I still love you! 🙏

— Robin


Alasdair Rae

A great source of maps and data visualisation predominantly focused on the UK.

Alasdair Rae (@undertheraedar)
Stats, maps, dataviz, cities, housing, transport, gifs, QGIS and occasional election stuff.

Andrew Tyrrell

New Zealand focused, recently tinkering with Blender-based spatial visualisation.

Andrew Tyrrell (@SouthArrowMaps)
Cartographer, GIS Specialist, Drone Pilot (Part 102), and General Map Nerd. Tweeting along the lines of #maps, #GIS, #cartography, #ArcGIS, #b3d, and the like.

Anita Graser

Python and QGIS, working a lot with movement data.

Anita Graser (@underdarkGIS)
#DataScience | #MovementDataAnalysis | #OpenSource Geospatial | @QGIS PSC Member | Creator of https://t.co/lxoFHU3TgX | Scientist at @AITtomorrow2day

Carl Churchill

Featured Carl back when he had 30 followers on Twitter. Great to see him at well over 1,000 now and still cranking out fantastic maps.

Carl Churchill (@Cchurchili)
Cartographer with Woods Hole Research Center [email protected] / [email protected] https://t.co/gC1qthWyql · https://t.co/keyhRnZbOL · https://t.co/NUGeeMxNpP

Charley Glynn

Great source for keeping up with all things Ordnance Survey.

Charley Glynn (@charley_glynn)
happy husband, doting dad, Everton fan, darts fan, music, film & design fan, Product Manager @ordnancesurvey #WeAreOS

Craig Taylor

Taking spatial data and turning it into art. Always an inspiration.

Craig Taylor (@CraigTaylorViz)
Data Visualisation Design Manager @Itoworld

Cristina Poiata

Featured Cristina late last year after seeing her lovely 30DayMapChallenge entries.

Cristina Poiata (@cristinapoiata)
Co-founder and designer who codes at @zcreativelabs. Interested in #dataviz #maps #typography.

Daniel Coe

Another great follow if you're into the artistic slant on spatial visualisation.

Daniel Coe (@geo_coe)
Exploring the aesthetic side of science, nature, and geography

Daniel P. Huffman

Single-handedly responsible for the recent influx of Blender-based visualisations.

Daniel P. Huffman (@pinakographos)
Your friendly local poly, gender nonconforming mapmaker. You can support my teaching at https://t.co/kLy9LXEsUk. Operates @AlphaCentQuotes.

David Garcia

Beautiful maps and raising awareness of colonial biases in cartography.  

𝐌 𝐀 𝐏 𝐌 𝐀 𝐊 𝐄 𝐑 (@mapmakerdavid)
Working for the @mappingministry. Doing a PhD in Geospatial Science. I love making maps of my home, the Pacific. If the ocean is unsettling, then be the ocean.

Dylan Babbs

Animated 3D maps in Web browsers.

Dylan Babbs (@dbabbs)
⚡️📍Independent Consultant. Tweeting: maps, tech, viz, mobility, javascript. Worked: @here. Studied: @uw. Reach out via DM for design/geo/viz/front-end projects

Eleanor Lutz

Constant stream of fantastic visualisations and detailed tutorials.

Eleanor Lutz (@eleanor_lutz)
@nytgraphics fellow

Elliot Hartley

The source of truth for all things CityEngine.

Elliot - CityEngine Pro 🌍🇪🇺🇬🇧🇨🇦 (@elliothartley)
MD/CEO of @GarsdaleDesign #schoolgovernor - @CityEngine #Geodesign Instructor #GIS #Planning #3D #3DGIS #BIM #visualization #geomentor #sedbergh blog @GeoPlanIT

Greg Fiske

Great visualisations and spatial content.

Greg Fiske (@g_fiske)
Putting science on the map @WoodsHoleResCtr (soon to be Woodwell Climate Research Center). MapAdvocate | Large Spatial Data | Bike To Work | Insta: greg.fiske

Gretchen Peterson

QGIS and lots of good spatial conversation.

Gretchen Peterson (@PetersonGIS)
For the love of cartography. Check out QGIS Map Design 2nd ed.

Helen Atkinson

Primarily focused around data journalism.

Helen Atkinson (@baskerhel)
Visual data journalist @TheEconomist

Helen McKenzie

Lovely maps, predominantly UK oriented.

Helen McKenzie (@Helenmckmck)
Map geek 🌍🌐🗺 GIS, cartography & @steer_DfM team leader at @Steer_Group - all views mine. Map shop @ https://t.co/Xpu9HzIMGa

John Murray

Artificial intelligence and machine learning within spatial data.

John Murray (@MurrayData)
Data Scientist & Research Fellow @geodatascience @LivUni #opendata advocate #AI #geospatial #datascience #GPU #HPC & occasional other posts. RT≠endorsement.

John Nelson

Do not follow him 😉 (but really, do.)

John Nelson (@John_M_Nelson)
Maker of maps. Talker of making of maps. Purveyor of gumption. Mitten State. I make map videos now? https://t.co/RUnX4dNoL2 (views mine, etc.)

Jonni Walker

A literal wizard with making beautiful things using Mapbox Studio.

Jonni Walker (@jonni_walker)
Ordnance Survey Favourite Geo Visualisations 2019 • VISME 25 Best Data Visualizations 2019 • Ken Field's Best Maps of 2019 • Best of the Visualisation Web x 8

Joshua Stevens

Creates stunning spatial visualisations related to Earth observation.

Joshua Stevens (@jscarto)
Data visualization and cartography lead @NASAEarth. Dad stuff everywhere else. Sees design as lubrication for cognitive machinery. Views my own.

Laura Gerrish

Featured Laura's fantastic Arctic map in the newsletter last year.

Laura Gerrish (@laura_gerrish)
GIS and Mapping Specialist at British Antarctic Survey @BAS_News. Music lover. Keen traveller.

Lauren Tierney

Great maps and data journalism.

Lauren Tierney (@tierneyl)
Graphics Reporter @PostGraphics @washingtonpost. Previously @NatGeoMag @NatGeoMaps @NACIS_Atlas. Board member @NACIS. Map-maker and geographer. @uoregon alum.

Liam Mason

Scotland and everything marine-related, including maps.

Liam Mason (@marinemaps)
Maps & dataviz for @scotgov @marinescotland • @bdmlr medic • amateur aerialist • Often on #legoadventures. he/him

Madison Draper

Cartography and design. Responsible for a selection of lovely Mapbox styles.

madison draper (@mzdraper)
very excited geographer

Mike Hall

Constantly creating beautiful illustrated maps.

Mike Hall (@thisismikehall)
MAPS ∙ ILLUSTRATION | Commission enquiries: @_illustrationX | #maps #mapping #cartography #illustration

Nadieh Bremer

Truly inspirational data visualisation, and not just spatial.

Nadieh Bremer (@NadiehBremer)
Freelancing Data Visualization Designer. Graduated Astronomer. Love D3 | R | hexagons | travel | cats | paper art. https://t.co/p9c107MelP

Oskar Stålberg

Fascinating behind-the-scenes of his spatial-ish procedural building game.

Oskar Stålberg (@OskSta)
Gamedev. Made @BadNorthGame with @rtm223, @MartinKvale, @RawFury. Now making #Townscaper, a procedural town building toy. Go buy it on Steam!

Owen Powell

Stunning spatial visualisations, often produced in Blender. The visualisation at the top of the page is one of Owen's! 👌

Owen Powell (@owenjpowell)
Senior Consultant at Arup. Cartography, automation, visualisation

Paul Naylor

More insight into the world of Ordnance Survey, plus maps.

Paul Naylor (@cartocraftsman)
Husband, dad, visualiser of data @OrdnanceSurvey #WeAreOS Love maps 🗺, design 🎨, music 🎵 & Southampton FC ⚽️. Opinions are all mine.

Raluca Nicola

Loads of amazing interactive maps and data visualisation.

Raluca Nicola (@nicolaraluk)
Exploring 3D web cartography | Product Engineer with the ArcGIS API for JavaScript team

Ramiro Aznar

Constantly sharing top-quality spatial content.

Ramiro Aznar (@ramiroaznar)
Environmental Biologist and Geospatial Data Engineer. Tech support and metrics at @planetlabs. Previously @CARTO. Tweets in Spanish and English.

Sarah Bell

Lovely maps, including many that are hand drawn.

Sarah Bell (@sarahbellmaps)
Lead Cartographer @esri’s Maps for Adobe • Dataviz Designer • synesthete •

Scott Reinhard

Stunning spatial visualisation in Blender.

Scott Reinhard (@scottreinhard)
Graphic Designer + Cartographer Scott Reinhard Maps Currently Graphics Editor @nytgraphics Previously @2x4, @mcachicago MGD alum @ncstate

Sean Conway

More stunning spatial visualisation in Blender.

Sean Conway (@geo_spatialist)
Orthoimagery Technical Expert with @QuantumSpatial - IG/Twitter @geo_spatialist - Reddit u/fluffybuddha

Shan He

Creator of Kepler.gl, need I say more!

Shan He (@heshan_cheri)
Coder, Data artist, Co-Founder of unfolded, architect at large. Creator of https://t.co/cHIgLTq1Mt, Founding member of Uber's data viz team

Stephen R Smith

Quality maps and spatial content.

Stephen R Smith (@TheMapSmith)
⚡Striking Cartography⚡ How can I help you? ツ Currently: Web GIS @greeninfo | Previously: Transportation, Telecom, Defense, Disaster, and Academic GIS. He/Him

Steve Bennett

Mapbox guru on Stack Overflow, as well as maps and trees.

Steve Bennett😷 (@stevage1)
Freelance datavis, Mapbox, webmap and opendata guru for hire. Built https://t.co/NbyrTj5XsR https://t.co/UO9WtScReD https://t.co/3P01ScBS7e More: https://t.co/G7eViqbh5A https://t.co/nmD1fgM7cW

Taylor Baldwin

Lovely maps, often related to urban areas.

Taylor Baldwin (@taylorbaldwin)
creative coding • classical & electronic music • coffee • data vis • formerly @uber @buzzfeed @nytimes r&d

Tom Armitage

Quality tutorials on map-making with QGIS.

Tom Armitage (@MapNav_Tom)
Data Viz, Maps, GIS and Geology. FOSS4G UK 2019 Co-Chair. Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh School of GeoSciences. Views are all mine.

Tom Chadwin

Creator of qgis2web plugin for QGIS.

Tom Chadwin (@tomchadwin)
Stop that

Topi Tjukanov

Where to start. QGIS artist. Map-maker and creator of the 30DayMapChallenge.

Topi Tjukanov (@tjukanov)
Building things out of lines points and polygons with #opensource tools at @GispoFinland

Tyler Morgan-Wall

Data visualisation and maps using R.

Tyler Morgan-Wall (@tylermorganwall)
Dataviz, R, and maps. Developer of rayshader, rayrender | PhD in Physics from @JohnsHopkins | @Penn | he/him

Vladimir Agafonkin

Creator of Leaflet and countless other high-performance spatial tools.

Vladimir Agafonkin (@mourner)
Engineer at @Mapbox, creator of @LeafletJS, open source enthusiast, algorithms geek, speaker, singer-songwriter (@obiymydoschu), father of twin girls, Ukrainian

Will Geary

Spatial visualisation and data related to transportation.

Will Geary (@wgeary)
Curious person. Mobility data scientist at @_GoRevel. Data science & visualization, geography, transport, population. Prev: @Mapzen @UN @CUSEAS @DukeU