Frequently Asked Questions

Tag The Map is a real-time collaborative mapping experience where teams, friends, or colleagues pin places they have visited on a world map — all at the same time. A host creates a session, shares a unique code, and everyone joins to reveal the group's collective travel history. It is perfect for team building events, icebreakers, and virtual gatherings. Join a session to get started.

Ask your session host for the unique session code. Then visit the join page, enter the code, choose a display name and colour, and you will be placed directly on the live map. No account is required to join as a participant.

No — you can join any active session as a guest without creating an account. Simply use the session code your host provides. An account is only required if you want to host your own sessions or access your session history in the members area.

The session code is provided by the person who hosted the session. Hosts can find it in their sessions dashboard. If you are a participant, ask the host to share it with you — via chat, email, or on screen during your meeting.

To host a session you need an account with Host access. Once approved, sign in and visit your sessions dashboard to create a new session. You will be given a unique code to share with participants. If you do not yet have Host access, contact us to request it.

Sessions support multiple concurrent participants. For most team building events the default limits are more than sufficient. If you need higher capacity for a large event, get in touch and we can discuss options.

Yes — as a host you can close a session for new edits at any time from your sessions dashboard. Closing a session prevents further pins being added but participants can still view the final map. You can also fully end a session to archive it.

Closed sessions can be re-opened from your sessions dashboard if you need to allow additional pins or corrections. Once a session is permanently deleted it cannot be restored, so only delete sessions you no longer need.

Hosts can remove a participant while a session is running. On the session map, find them in the participants panel and press the options button on their row, or right-click the row, or press and hold on a touch device. Choose remove and confirm, and the participant and all of their tags disappear from everyone's map immediately. Only the host can remove people, and the host cannot be removed. Removal is not a ban: the person can rejoin with the session code while the session stays open.

Once you have joined a session, click or tap anywhere on the world map to drop a pin. You can add a short note to describe the place or a memory associated with it. Your pin will appear on everyone else's map in real time.

Yes — when you drop a pin you can include an optional short note, such as the name of the place or a memory associated with it. Notes are visible to all participants in the session when they click your pin.

You can remove any pin you have placed during an active session. Click your pin on the map and select the remove option. Session hosts can also remove any participant's pin if needed.

Country highlighting uses reverse geocoding to identify which country a pin falls in. Pins placed in remote areas, at sea, or on disputed territories may not trigger a highlight. If your pin location looks correct but the country is not highlighted, try placing it slightly closer to the centre of the country. Our country data is regularly updated.

Two steps, and we make neither judgement ourselves. Which country a point falls in is decided by Natural Earth, whose country boundaries we ship with the site and test each pin against. What counts as a country is decided by ISO 3166-1, the international standard of country codes. We do not draw borders or edit the list. There is a fuller explanation on how we decide countries.

Because ISO 3166-1 is a list of territories, not of sovereign states. The familiar figure of 195 counts UN member states plus two observer states. The standard we follow carries 249 assigned codes, plus Kosovo, and the extra entries are places like Bermuda, Guam, Hong Kong, Greenland, Jersey and Antarctica. So a pin in Guam counts as Guam rather than as the United States. That is the standard's answer rather than ours. See how we decide countries.

No, and it is built so that it cannot. We apply one mechanical rule and report what it returns. The clearest illustration is what is missing: Northern Cyprus is not in our list because ISO has not assigned it a code, while Kosovo is, because it has one. We did not weigh those cases against each other. If a place appears in a way you would not have chosen, that is the standard and the map data speaking, and no offence is intended. If something looks wrong, please tell us.

Pins are stored for the duration of the session. Guest participants do not have personally identifiable data attached to their pins — only the display name and colour chosen at join time. Hosts control session retention and can delete sessions at any time. See our privacy policy for full details.

No. Guest participants only provide a display name (which can be a nickname or initials) and choose a colour. No email address or real name is required. Account holders provide an email address for login purposes only. We do not collect unnecessary personal data. See our privacy policy for more.

Active and recently closed sessions are retained so hosts can review them. Sessions that have been inactive for an extended period may be automatically archived according to our data retention policy. Hosts can delete their own sessions at any time from the sessions dashboard.

No. We do not sell or share your personal data with third parties. Location pins are only visible to participants within the same active session. We use standard third-party services for hosting and map rendering but do not pass identifiable user data to them. Full details are in our privacy policy.