Mappit.ai — every place has a story: the world's news on a live, interactive map

Mappit — every place has a story

The world's zeitgeist on a map. Mappit turns the world's news into a living, interactive map. An always-on news engine continuously reads what is happening in nearly two thousand places — its own crawler, which reads the world's publishers directly and supplies more than nine in ten new stories, working alongside frontier AI from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI in the jobs a crawler cannot do — and pins each story to the place it is about, on an interactive, time-aware map of the planet. Zoom into any city and you see what's happening there right now — grouped by topic, colored by mood, drawn only from publishers that clear a reliability bar and weighted toward the most trusted, marked with how many independent sources found it, and with every source link checked so the stories you read actually lead somewhere real. Scrub the calendar backwards and the map replays how the world looked on any past day, because each day's record is kept rather than replaced.

On top of that news layer, Mappit adds live views of the physical planet — earthquakes, wildfires, air quality, and weather — and a market layer that plots stock movements at companies' real headquarters. A built-in AI guide named Marco answers questions about any place and cites its sources — the news there and, from an atlas of open data, its population, borders and statistics, each figure with its year and source. Seven map apps show the numbers beside the news: they color the world's countries and America's states, counties and congressional districts by the economy, population, health, conflict and the 2026 US elections, from open data, and play them back through time. Anyone can browse for free; a subscription unlocks the ability to create and share your own places, collections, and data layers. And AI assistants can read Mappit directly: add https://mappit.ai/mcp to Claude, ChatGPT or another assistant, free and without an account.

The core idea is simple and durable: place + time is the most natural way to organize what is happening in the world, and the value compounds every day as the record grows. The map is the interface; the permanent, corroborated, geolocated corpus of world events beneath it is the substance.

Mappit requires JavaScript for the interactive map. Every public place, pin, collection and profile also has a crawlable page — see the sitemap.

San José, Costa Rica

What's happening in San José, Costa Rica — 306 local stories, 0 community pins, live on the Mappit map.

Mappit's analysis

Geography & Setting

San José sits in the Central Valley of Costa Rica at 1,200 meters elevation, nestled among volcanic peaks and lush highlands. The temperate mountain climate—cool, with regular afternoon rains—gives the capital a perpetually spring-like feel that's shaped everything from its architecture to its pace of life. The city's natural setting is both blessing and constraint: beautiful views, but also vulnerability to seismic activity (the region straddles several fault lines) and occasional flooding during the rainy season.

History & Development

Founded in 1737, San José grew from a rural settlement into Costa Rica's de facto capital in the 1800s, eventually displacing Cartago as the nation's political and economic heart. The city developed around government institutions, markets, and universities rather than colonial grandeur—it's a place built for function more than ceremony. That practical DNA still shows in its urban character today.

People & Demographics

Home to 1.4 million people (making it the country's undisputed urban center), San José is where you'll find Costa Rica's professional class, students, artists, and migrants from across Central America and beyond. The metropolitan area is remarkably diverse by regional standards, though socioeconomic segregation shapes neighborhood character sharply—wealthy hilltop enclaves contrast with dense, economically struggling barrios.

Economy & Markets

San José drives Costa Rica's economy as hub for finance, tech, pharmaceuticals, and higher education. The city hosts the country's major universities, convention centers, and corporate headquarters. It's where trade deals happen—literally: this July, the Trade & Investment Summit will draw 400 international buyers to negotiate deals at the Convention Center. Tourism and business travel are significant, though many international visitors pass through en route to beaches and rainforests.

Culture & Character

The capital has a reputation as somewhat grey and chaotic compared to Costa Rica's natural attractions, but that sells it short. San José has a robust arts scene, university culture, live music venues, and food markets. Theater, galleries, and street-level energy in neighborhoods like Barrio Escalante reflect a city more culturally alive than its infrastructure might suggest. Coffee culture is everywhere—this is where decisions about the nation's most famous export are made and debated.

Current Currents

San José is wrestling with how to govern its nightlife and public character. A proposed entertainment regulation restricting live music and dancing has sparked pushback from venues, artists, and even the Ministry of Culture—a revealing moment about competing visions for an urban center that's trying to balance livability with vitality. Meanwhile, infrastructure upgrades (automated airport gates, traffic management tweaks) signal the city's slow modernization.