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.

Shiraz, Iran

What's happening in Shiraz, Iran — 42 local stories, 1 community pins, live on the Mappit map.

Mappit's analysis

Geography & Setting

Shiraz sits in southwestern Iran's Fars Province, sprawling across a fertile plain at 1,500 meters elevation where the Dez River valley provides natural irrigation. The landscape is characterized by dramatic contrasts—lush gardens and orchards give way to arid highlands, and the city itself is ringed by mountains that channel seasonal winds and occasional wildfires through the surrounding regions. The climate is temperate Mediterranean, with hot, dry summers and mild winters, making it historically one of Iran's most habitable major cities.

History & Character

Shiraz is synonymous with Persian refinement. For centuries it was the capital of Fars and a center of Persian poetry, philosophy, and wine production—the latter now historical given Iran's Islamic Republic. The city was home to legendary poets Hafez and Sa'di, whose tombs remain pilgrimage sites and symbols of the city's literary soul. Medieval Shiraz was a cosmopolitan hub on trade routes; today it retains that cultural prestige even as Iran's political center shifted north to Tehran.

People & Demographics

With roughly 1.9 million residents, Shiraz is Iran's fifth-largest city and a distinctly local metropolis—significant regionally but not globally prominent. The population is predominantly Persian-speaking and Shia Muslim, reflecting broader Iranian demographics. The city has historically been more cosmopolitan and intellectually open than many Iranian cities, though like all major Iranian centers it has experienced significant social and political tension in recent decades.

Economy & Markets

Shiraz's economy traditionally rested on agriculture (dates, citrus, pomegranates), trade, and handicrafts. Today it's more diversified: the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences is a major employer and research hub, light manufacturing and petrochemicals play supporting roles, and tourism—centered on its gardens, poetry heritage, and proximity to the ancient site of Persepolis—generates steady revenue. The Shiraz International Book Fair, which just concluded with record attendance, reflects the city's enduring cultural economy.

Current Currents

Recent weeks have brought a turbulent mix of news. A wildfire in the highland areas near Sardaran Boulevard required significant firefighting resources, while unrelated social media panic about smoke spread rapidly across the city. Separately, geopolitical tensions are visible: US military strikes reportedly damaged an IRGC Navy facility in Shiraz in early July, underlining the city's role in Iran's military infrastructure despite its literary reputation. Domestically, the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences has seen student protests over dormitory conditions, while police have announced crime reductions following new surveillance installations—reflecting the city's navigation of security, development, and quality-of-life concerns. Through it all, cultural life persists: the book fair's success and Fajr Sepasi FC's new youth academy suggest Shiraz continues to invest in its future.