Last month, we posted about a map of Georgetown that was unclear about what, exactly, it was mapping. We eventually got to the bottom of it, but the experience gave us the idea to create a mystery map of our own. Can you guess what this one is showing?

All maps made with data from the District government’s open data portal with additions by the author using satellite imagery.

The maps in this post show the locations and sizes of a certain something in the District. Here are two clues for what it is:

  1. A national environmental non-profit recently named Washington, DC the number one city in the US based on how many of these it has.
  2. First Lady Michelle Obama is a huge supporter of these and started something similar at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

A zoom into Ward 3 for a closer look.

A zoom into Ward 6 for a closer look.

Answer update: The map shows the location of community gardens in DC! The size of each circle represents the number of individual garden plots (the larger the circle, the more garden plots).

The Trust for Public Land ranked DC as the number one city in America for community gardens and counted over 2,500 individual garden plots in their 2015 City Parks Fact Sheet. Michelle Obama has been a champion of community gardens, urban farming, and local food, even starting a garden on the South Lawn of the White House.

85 commenters got guessed correctly, the first five being eli, Patrick Mc, ARM, Corey H., and Scoot!

Tagged: dc, maps, technology

Scott Kaiser is an environmental planner specializing in urban watershed management and building climate resilient communities around the world. He has a strong interest in the application of geospatial technologies to better inform resource management decisions and is an all-around urban planning nerd.