Every map embeds choices: what to show, what to omit, what to centre, who is included as a stakeholder, who decides on the legend. Most of these choices are invisible to the people who use the resulting maps as inputs into their daily lives — and into democratic decisions, from a local town-planning vote to a national policy debate.

This panel asks who, and through what processes, should be in charge of those choices, and how communities like OpenStreetMap, official mapping agencies and emerging civic-cartographic movements can collectively raise the democratic stakes of mapmaking.

La République des Cartes ("The Republic of Maps") is a French civic initiative launched by IGN, the national mapping agency and fifteen partners to put cartography at the service of democratic participation, territorial decision-making and popular education.

Its first "Jour de la Carte" ("Map Day"), held on 4 February 2026, brought together around 115 grass-roots events across France: in town halls, schools, public libraries, design schools, urban-planning agencies and citizen collectives. The 2027 edition aims at 500 - 1000 events and at extending the movement internationally.

Behind the initiative is a simple intuition. Maps are everywhere in our daily lives. They shape what we see, what we don't see, and the choices we make as citizens. Yet most people never get to make a map, question one, or discuss one collectively. La République des Cartes gathers a broad coalition to change that - cartographers, designers, elected officials, teachers, researchers, urban planners, and partners ranging from Banque des Territoires, Vinci Group (La Fabrique de la Cité and Leonard), OVHcloud, Ubisoft, DocaPoste, LaPoste, NoDesign and a lot more.

This talk will share what we learned from the first edition, the strategy and ambitions for 2026-2027 and the open-licensed tools that have been built and tested in the field - including a 60-minute discussion workshop, an exhibition kit and a collaborative board game.

For the OpenStreetMap community, this is also an invitation. The 2027 edition will be meaningful if it connects more with the people who actually make maps. The worldwide OSM community is among the most legitimate, organised and demanding of those communities, and we are explicitly looking for ambassadors and partners who would like to bring a Map Day event to their territory, in their own language, in their own way.

The 40-minute slot will be split: about 20 minutes for the presentation, 20 minutes for a participatory segment based on the first part of our "Map that we need" workshop, so that the audience leaves with a concrete tool - and ideally a few new ideas about which maps the OSM ecosystem could help bring to life.