Image courtesy MapRVA
Before there was Richmond, there was a map.
In 1737, city founder William Byrd II commissioned civil engineer William Mayo to craft a map laying out a new 32-block town. From that parchment, a city bloomed. Nearly 300 years later, a group of volunteer cartographers is following in Mayo’s footsteps, creating new maps of Richmond using advanced technology.
MapRVA began in 2023 as a collective of hobbyist mapmakers with the goal of visualizing Richmond’s past and present through maps, says group co-founder Mike O’Brien. Using public mapping tools such as OpenStreetMap, the group tells the city’s story through cartography.
One of its major projects, called Yesterdays, takes a look back in time. Using thousands of photos from The Valentine museum, the Library of Virginia and other archives, group members have meticulously pinned the images to locations on the map where photographers originally took the shots, many from decades ago.
The ability to see how individual neighborhoods have evolved over more than a century, says group member John Pole, provides valuable context for locals living among history.
“Through working on Yesterdays, I’ve learned of numerous Richmond churches that were burned down during the Civil Rights Movement. I’ve learned about entire neighborhoods that were destroyed or bifurcated by the construction of highways through the city,” Pole says. “There is so much about Richmond and the world around us that we miss when we just see it through our daily lives.”
While projects like Yesterdays appeal to history buffs, much of the group’s work is happening in real time. MapRVA made waves in January 2025 during the city’s water crisis, when members crowdsourced data on water outages in the region and created a digital map. Group member Daniel Schep says site traffic jumped to the tens of thousands during the incident.
A pair of MapRVA’s current projects are also pertinent to local and statewide legislation. Sidewalks is the group’s ambitious attempt to map every sidewalk and crosswalk in Richmond, as the city takes action on rising pedestrian deaths. Mapping Surveillance charts the locations of automated license plate readers and other detectors as lawmakers attempt to rein in law enforcement’s use of the technology.
The emphasis on opening this data to the public is one of MapRVA’s core principles. “It’s almost an act of rebellion,” says group co-founder Jacob Hall. “A lot of geospatial data is locked up in some database. Our data is accessible to anyone to use for any purpose.”
The group hopes to launch new map layers this year; ideas include mapping community fridges and pantries, or neighborhood Little Free Libraries. Plans for future projects come from biweekly meetups around town and regular communication online. No experience with geospatial software is required, says Pole, who joined without a background in mapmaking.
“This isn’t anyone’s job. It’s a passion project built out of people who care about Richmond and care about the world around them,” Pole says. “It’s fulfilling and inspiring to even be part of a conversation with a group of such aspirational people.”
