How to Cite a Map in APA, MLA, and Chicago

Learning how to cite a map correctly matters whether you are pulling a folded road atlas off a shelf, screenshotting a satellite view, or dropping a pin in Google Maps for a geography paper. Maps are visual sources with cartographers, publishers, dates, and scales, and each citation style treats those pieces a little differently. This guide walks through APA 7, MLA 9, and Chicago formats for print maps, online maps, and Google Maps, including the in-text forms and the tricky retrieval-date rule for dynamic maps.

What counts as a map source

A map can be a standalone published sheet, a plate inside a book or atlas, a digital image hosted on a library or government site, or an interactive service like Google Maps that redraws itself every time you load it. The information you collect is roughly the same across styles: the person or organization responsible for the map (cartographer, agency, or company), the title, the year or date, a label identifying the item as a map, and the source where you found it (publisher, website, or URL). When details are missing, every style has a fallback, which we cover below.

Before you start, gather the cartographer or organization, the title exactly as printed, the publication year, the scale if shown, the publisher, and the URL plus the date you viewed it for anything online. With those in hand you can build a reference by hand or run it through the APA citation generator and adjust the output.

How to cite a print map in APA, MLA, and Chicago

A print map is the most straightforward case. In APA, the cartographer or organization is the author, the year goes in parentheses, the title is italicized in sentence case, a bracketed [Map] descriptor follows, and the publisher closes the entry. MLA uses title case, places the map title in italics, adds the descriptive word “Map,” and lists the publisher and year. Chicago (notes and bibliography) treats the map like a published work with the cartographer, title, scale, and publication facts.

Notice that MLA leads with the title when no individual cartographer is named, since the organization is the publisher rather than the author. If a single cartographer is credited, list that person as the author in all three styles. You can compare these patterns against our MLA format guide and Chicago style guide when you format the rest of your paper.

How to cite an online map

An online map is one hosted on a website, such as a digitized historical map from a library collection or a thematic map published by a government agency. The structure mirrors the print version, but you name the website or hosting source and add the URL. In APA, when the author and the publisher are the same organization, such as the U.S. Geological Survey publishing its own map, you list that name once as the author and omit the duplicate publisher. APA does not require a retrieval date for stable online maps because the content is not expected to change. MLA names the website as the container and gives the URL without the https prefix. Chicago adds the URL at the end of the note and bibliography entry.

For government sources specifically, you may find our notes on how to cite a government website useful, since the agency-as-author logic carries over. If your map is really a static graphic embedded in an article, treat it more like an image or a figure and credit the source it came from.

How to cite Google Maps

Google Maps is a dynamic map: the view changes based on your search, zoom level, and the date you load it, and Google continually updates its data. Because the content is designed to change, APA requires a retrieval date for the version you actually saw. List Google as the author, use the year, give a description of the map view as the title in italics, add [Map], name Google Maps as the source, and include “Retrieved [date], from” before the URL. MLA and Chicago handle the moving-target problem with an access date as well.

Use n.d. in APA because Google Maps does not publish a date for individual views. Describe the view clearly enough that a reader could reproduce it, and keep the description in square brackets in APA since there is no formal title. The same retrieval-date logic applies to other constantly updated maps, so if you are unsure whether a source is stable, our guide on how to cite a source with no date explains when to reach for the access date. You can also build the citation in the MLA citation generator or Chicago citation generator and then tweak the descriptive title.

In-text citations for maps

The in-text forms follow the standard rules for each style. In APA, use an author-date pair in parentheses, with an ampersand for two authors and “and” in narrative sentences; see our overview of APA in-text citations for the full pattern. MLA uses the author or, when there is no author, a shortened title in quotation marks or italics with no comma and no year, as covered in MLA in-text citations. Chicago notes-bibliography papers cite with a numbered footnote on first mention and a shortened note afterward, while Chicago author-date papers use a parenthetical (Author Year). If you are weighing parenthetical against narrative placement, the parenthetical vs narrative citations guide breaks it down.

Common mistakes

• Leaving off the [Map] descriptor in APA. The bracketed label tells readers the source format and is required.
• Forgetting the retrieval date for Google Maps and other dynamic maps. Stable online maps do not need one, but constantly updated services do.
• Treating the publisher as the author in MLA when it is actually the publisher. Lead with the title if no cartographer is credited.
• Using title case for an APA map title. APA titles are sentence case even though MLA and Chicago use title case.
• Dropping the scale in Chicago. Including the scale, such as 1:168,960, is expected for cartographic sources when it is available.
• Copying a Google Maps short link instead of describing the view. Add a clear bracketed description so the citation is reproducible.

Tips for clean map citations

Record the cartographer, title, date, scale, publisher, URL, and access date the moment you find a map, because dynamic services can change before you write your draft. Match the citation style of your assignment exactly, and keep capitalization consistent within each style. When a map appears as a figure in your own paper, give it a caption and a full reference rather than relying on the in-text mention alone. For a refresher on the broader rules, our how to cite sources overview and the APA format guide tie everything together.

Maps reward a little care: once you identify the author, date, and whether the source is stable or dynamic, the rest of the citation falls into place across APA, MLA, and Chicago. Collect the details up front, apply the retrieval-date rule only where it belongs, and let a generator handle the formatting so you can focus on your analysis.