Maps of Confederate Monuments around the United States

Slate map of Civil War memorials

Mapping Confederate Monuments in the United States

Protests related to Confederate statues and monuments dominated the news over the weekend.  Two Web pages are excellent resources for learning about the locations of these monuments around the country.

In 2015, Slate created an animated map that identifies memorials to the Civil War.  This map uses the Historical Marker Database, which identifies more than 13,000 locations related to the Civil War—both the Union and Confederate sides.  Users can view the animated map to watch how and where Union and Confederate markers were built over time.  Then users can zoom in to explore individual markers on the map and read the inscriptions of the monuments.

The Southern Poverty Law Center launched a campaign to catalog and map Confederate place names and other symbols across the nation.  An interactive OpenStreetMap identifies monuments, schools, parks, mountains, roads and other public places named for Confederate figures. 

The Center has identified 1,503 symbols:  718 monuments and statues; 109 public schools; 80 counties and cities; nine official Confederate holidays celebrated in six states; and 10 military bases.  Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia are the states with the most places, but Confederate place names are found in 31 states and the District of Columbia.

For more information about using current events maps for research and learning projects, please contact the Ball State University Libraries GIS Research and Map Collection.