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Over the past three decades, significant shifts in both the theory and practice of cartography and indeed in the definition of the map itself have transformed the role of mapping within geography, while maps and map making have become a focus for important contemporary connections between cultural geography and various art practices. This essay reviews these developments, paying special attention to Anglophone examples. The critique of cartography’s claims to science and revisionist art historical scholarship are first discussed, followed by comments on the changing relations between geography and cartography and the impacts of new technology on map making and use as these have been democratised through virtual cartographies. Growing artistic interest in researching and documenting spatial and environmental questions that involve use of many of these mapping practices is set in its historical context and related to geography’s changing academic practices.