# How to Make an Equal Earth Map Online (Free, No Sign-Up)

A step-by-step walkthrough of building a world map on the Equal Earth projection in the browser: paint or import your data, switch projection, add a legend, and export it print-ready.

> Editor: https://ohmymaps.com/ · Versão em página: https://ohmymaps.com/blog/make-an-equal-earth-map-online/

The UN's September 2026 resolution
[recommended equal-area projections](/blog/un-equal-earth-map-resolution/) for
maps used in teaching, media and digital products. If you make those maps, the
practical question is what it takes to actually produce one.

In [Oh My Maps!](https://ohmymaps.com/) it takes one click, and this walkthrough
covers the whole thing: the data first, the projection second, then export.
Nothing here needs an account and nothing gets uploaded, because the editor runs
entirely in your browser.

## Step 1: build the map before you touch the projection

Start in the default view and get your content in. This matters for a practical
reason: switching projection later re-renders the same document, so anything you
do now survives the switch. Working the other way round wastes no effort either,
but it does mean you spend the whole build looking at edge shapes that will move.

![A coloured world map on the Natural Earth projection, the editor's default starting view](/blog/posts/projection-natural-earth.svg)

You have two ways in.

**Paint by hand.** Click a country to apply the current colour. Useful for
categorical maps and for a quick comparison you want to make a point with.

**Import a spreadsheet.** Paste or drop a two-column table of region and value,
and the editor matches the names and shades the map for you. This is the path
for anything where the numbers are the story, and it is covered in depth in
[the choropleth guide](/blog/choropleth-map-from-spreadsheet/).

For an equal-area map, the second path is the more likely one, because the whole
reason to insist on exact area is that a reader is going to compare shaded
regions.

## Step 2: switch to Equal Earth

Open the **Projection** section in the sidebar and choose **Equal Earth**.

![The Projection section of the sidebar with Equal Earth selected, beside the coloured world map](/blog/posts/equal-earth-projection-picker.webp)

The map redraws immediately. Your painted countries, imported values, labels,
legend and colours are all unchanged; only the geometry underneath them moves.
Compare the two frames and you will see the shift straight away: the far north
contracts, Africa and South America occupy more of the picture, and the outline
gains Equal Earth's rounded edges and pole lines.

If your audience needs the contrast made explicit, export once on Mercator and
once on Equal Earth and put them side by side. That comparison is the argument
the resolution is making, and it is more persuasive as two images than as a
sentence.

## Step 3: label what needs naming

Turn on labels for the regions you want named. Placement is automatic, so you
are not dragging text boxes around, and the layout adapts to the projection you
picked rather than being frozen from the previous one.

Keep this restrained on an equal-area map. Shape distortion near the edges means
labels there are sitting on stretched landmasses, and a crowded rim is where an
Equal Earth map looks worst.

## Step 4: add a legend

If the map carries values, add the legend. It reads from the same bands your
choropleth uses, so it cannot drift out of sync with the colours on the map, and
it is included in the export.

## Step 5: export

Export to **SVG** for anything going into print, a slide deck or further editing,
since it stays sharp at any size. Export to **PNG** for the web and for social
previews. The format trade-offs are laid out in
[the export guide](/blog/map-export-format-guide/).

Your work is saved in the browser as you go, and you can share the finished map
as a link that carries the whole document in the URL, which is useful when a
colleague needs to check the map rather than a picture of it.

## A note on which equal-area projection

The resolution names Equal Earth, but it calls for equal-area projections
generally. France complied by adopting Eckert IV instead, and Mollweide would
answer it equally well. If your institution has a house standard, follow it. If
it does not, Equal Earth is the reasonable default, because it is the one the
text names and because it was designed specifically to look like a map people
recognise rather than to win an argument about mathematics.

The reasoning behind that choice is in
[the Equal Earth explainer](/blog/equal-earth-projection-explained/), and the
question of whether your particular map should be equal-area at all is in
[equal-area vs compromise projections](/blog/equal-area-vs-compromise-map-projections/).

<div class="cta">
  <p><strong>Make one now.</strong> Import your data, switch to Equal Earth, export it. No account, nothing uploaded.</p>
  <a class="cta-button" href="https://ohmymaps.com/">Open the editor</a>
</div>

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Related reading:
[How to make a custom world map online](/blog/how-to-make-a-custom-world-map-online/)
and
[The true size of Africa](/blog/true-size-of-africa-mercator/).