2027 U.S. Children’s Map Competition
The 2027 U.S. Children’s Map Competition is now accepting entries. This competition serves as the United States selection process for the Barbara Petchenik Children’s World Map Drawing Competition, sponsored by the International Cartographic Association (ICA). The 2027 theme is “Maps in Everyday Life.”
Children are invited to explore how maps help people navigate, understand, and interact with the world around them. Entries may represent maps used at home, at school, while traveling, during outdoor activities, in communities, or in other aspects of everyday life.
Eligibility
- Open to children residing in the United States.
- Participants must be under 16 years of age.
- Entries will be judged in the following age groups:
- Under 6 years
- 6 to 8 years
- 9 to 12 years
- 13 to 15 years
- Age group placement is based on the participant’s age at the time they enter the national competition.
Important Dates
- Entry deadline: January 22, 2027
- Exhibition of entries: All entries received by the deadline will be exhibited during the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, February 8-12, 2027, in New York.
- International competition: Up to six U.S. entries will be selected to represent the United States at the international Barbara Petchenik Children’s World Map Drawing Competition and exhibition during the 33rd International Cartographic Conference in Warsaw, Poland, July 2027.
Artwork Requirements
- Entries must relate to the theme “Maps in Everyday Life.”
- Entries must be an original work created by the child or children.
- Individual and group entries are welcome.
- Group entries may have up to three artists, and all artists must belong to the same age group.
- Entries must be created using traditional art materials such as colored pencils, crayons, markers, paint, collage materials, or similar media.
- Artwork must not exceed 11 x 17 inches.
- Artwork must include a recognizable map or cartographic element appropriate to the participant’s age.
Artwork Restrictions
Entries are not eligible if they:
- Use AI-generated content or AI image-generation tools.
- Are created using digital drawing, graphics, illustration, or design software.
- Contain political messages.
- Depict current international borders that are not recognized by the United Nations.
- Include folding parts, fragile materials, glass, laminated surfaces, or perishable items.
Judging Criteria
Entries will be evaluated on:
- Understanding of the theme
- Creativity and originality
- Communication and storytelling
- Cartographic content appropriate to the participant’s age
- Overall quality of execution and presentation
How to Enter
Step 1: Review the Competition Rules
Before submitting an entry, participants, parents, and educators should review the official international competition rules:
Barbara Petchenik Children’s Map Competition 2027 Rules (PDF)
Key requirements include original handmade artwork, no AI-generated content, no political messages, and a limit of three artists per entry.
Step 2: Complete the Online Entry Form
Submit an online entry:
2027 U.S. Children’s Map Competition Entry Form
Step 3: Print and Attach the Entry Forms
Print and complete the two required forms listed below. Attach both forms securely to the back of the artwork.
Step 4: Mail Your Artwork
Send entries to:
Colleen Conner
Esri Library
380 New York Street
Redlands, CA 92373
Entries must be received by January 22, 2027.
Contact
For questions or additional information, please contact:
Colleen Conner
U.S. National Coordinator
Important Notice
This website accepts entries for the United States competition only. Participants residing outside the United States should contact their national cartographic society, ICA representative, or national competition coordinator for information about participating in their country’s competition.
Explore Past Entries and Winners
Archives of previously submitted maps in the Petchenik Children’s Map Competition:
Books of maps from the Petchenik Children’s Map Competition:
- The World Drawn by Children (2021)
- Children Map the World (2015)
- Children Map the World (2005)
More Information
For more info on the international competition, please visit the website of the International Cartographic Association, the Commission on Cartography and Children, or the Commission’s Facebook profile. Check out the winning illustrations from previous competitions on the website of the International Cartographic Association. You can search and browse all maps entered in the competitions since 1993 in the Carleton University Library archive of the Barbara Petchenik Children’s Map Competition.
About Barbara Bartz Petchenik
Dr. Barbara Bartz Petchenik is among a number of pioneering women who contributed significantly to modern cartography across the globe. She is remembered predominantly for her interest and research into the theme of children’s maps and atlases. But this is by no means the only area that she specialized in. From 1962–1992, she contributed to about 60 articles, papers, reviews, and other map related research in cartographic typography and type legibility, communication aspects, historical cartography, and the psychological aspects of map design, among others. During her career as a cartographer, Barbara Bartz Petchenik believed in the power of maps to communicate a “larger, meaningful, reality.”
She grew up in a rural town in northern Wisconsin. She got her Bachelor of Science degree from University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in chemistry and English, and she taught geography there the year after she graduated. She then went to University of Wisconsin–Madison for graduate work. She intended to focus on physical geography but soon discovered cartography, and thus began her illustrious and prolific career in cartographic research and writing through collaborations with her mentor and friend Arthur Robinson. Together they established foundations for American cartography as we know it today.
Before obtaining her PhD, she was the cartographic editor with the Field Enterprises Education Corporation in Chicago where she was a cartographic researcher and designer for the World Book Encyclopedia. She is well known for research on children’s cognitive abilities with maps which began in earnest in the early 1960s through her work on the World Book Encyclopedia. Her research focused on maps designed for nine through fourteen-year-old children. She interviewed a thousand elementary school students and observed how they interpreted symbology, scale, coordinates, typography, and other map content. Their distinct perspectives differed from those of adults, and lessons on clarity and simplicity in cartographic design shaped her philosophy on cartography and map design in general. She used the word “miraculous” to describe children’s abilities to find meaning on maps in a unique way.
After earning her doctorate in 1969, she returned to World Book as a Staff consultant in Cartographic Research and Design. She worked at the Newberry Library in Chicago where she was co-author and cartographic editor of the The Atlas of Early American History. She later coauthored a scholarly, philosophical book, The Nature of Maps (1976), with Arthur Robinson. This is perhaps her most significant publication. Robinson and she also co-wrote two works about communications aspects of cartography, including the award-winning “The Map as a Communication System”. She became the senior sales representative of cartographic services for the R.R. Donnelly & Sons Company, a commercial map-making organization, as a sales representative to consult with clients on planning, designing and producing maps for publications, textbooks. She managed to write more than sixty articles, reviews and essays on cartography, about the theory and practice of map design and cognitive aspects of the discipline. Through all of this, she became a true trailblazer for women in cartography.
Barbara was involved in many cartographic associations and was a member of the US National Committee for the ICA. In 1991, she was the first woman to be elected to the ICA Executive Committee of the International Cartographic Association. She served as a vice president until her death after a short illness in June 1992. At that time, the U.S. appointed Judy Olson to the ICA EC to complete Barbara’s term (until 1995). In 1993, the biennial Barbara Petchenik Children’s World Map Drawing Competition was created by the ICA as a memorial of Barbara’s lifelong interest in maps for children. The aims of contest named in her honor are to promote children’s creative representation of the world, to enhance their cartographic awareness and to make them more conscious of their environment.
Sources
- Bevington-Attardi, Dierdre. 2021. Personal communication.
- Tyner, Judith. 2019. Women in American Cartography: An Invisible Social History. United States: Lexington Books.
- The Future Mapping Company. Women who shaped the world: Barbara Petchenik.