Terrastories

Terrastories is a web application for communities to map, protect, and share stories about their land. It can be used by individuals or communities who want to connect audio or video content to places on a map. It is designed to be user-friendly and fun to interact with, allowing community members to freely explore without needing any technical background. Terrastories began when a team of geographers and software developers decided to start building Terrastories to help a community in South America map their place-based oral histories. The Matawai Maroons of Suriname, a community of formerly enslaved Africans who fled into the forests over three centuries ago and reside there today, wanted to map oral histories about when their ancestors first arrived in these lands. The community leaders were interested in having a tool that helps the young people get to know these places, their history, their culture, and who they are as a people. Terrastories was built to accommodate that need, which the team also heard about from other communities across the globe.