The International Cartographic Association has released the Atlas of Sustainability, a 48-page document that depicts via insightful maps and snapshots, the current state of progress toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Impressively, the Atlas was put together in just one week as the outcome of the 2025 Design Challenge, an annual mapping workshop run by the University of Wisconsin (UW).

Thirty-eight student cartographers from 26 countries participated, forming into small groups to tackle each of the SDGs.

“This diversity greatly enriched the Atlas, both in terms of cartography and in terms of the process of negotiating meaning, choosing narratives, and making shared decisions about design,” write Eric Losang and Vit Voženílek from the ICA Commission on Atlases, in the foreword.

According to Robert E. Roth from the UW Cartography Lab, “We broke the 2025 Design Challenge into six 90-150 minute units, each with its own learning objectives centring active learning as well as creative prompts to iteratively advance the Atlas design”.

“Thus, while the workshop stretched over a week, actual student design occurred in roughly 12 hours of creative bursts with gaps for critical reflection (and attendance of other courses).”

The result is an overview of SDG activities and needs across the globe, imaginatively displayed as series of maps with accompanying text that tackle such issues as:

• SDG 2: Zero hunger, by looking at the effects of floods, droughts and malnutrition around the globe;
• SDG 3: Good health and wellbeing, through seeing how many health workers are available per 10,000 people versus how many are needed, and how unequally they are spread across the world;
• SDG 4: Quality education, by comparing education, literacy and gender-based pay gaps;
• SDG 5: Gender equality, via a look at gender inequality in mobile phone usage, with a particular focus on Africa;
• SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production, through insights into plastic waste in South East Asia; and
• SDG 13: Climate action, via a map of fire incidence around the world.

The editors of the Atlas hope to build on its success by developing a model curriculum for running SDG-related mapping workshops around the world to raise awareness of and action needed to advance the SDGs.

“The Atlas of Sustainability invites us to see atlas-making not only as a means of compiling knowledge but as a catalyst for learning, action, and social connection,” added Losang and Voženílek.

“It is a timely reminder that maps matter — and that when made collectively, with care and conviction, they matter even more.”

The Atlas is available for free download (PDF, 86 MB).