About PocketWorld

A live map built for understanding

PocketWorld is an independent project built around a simple idea: Earth is our shared home, and clear public information can help people see one another with more curiosity and less distance. We want the project to make the world a little easier to understand and to celebrate what people can create when they care, explore and build together.

PocketWorld is an independent live-data product that brings public information about Earth into one consistent visual workspace. The core experience is an interactive globe where a visitor can move from aircraft and vessels to satellites, weather, natural hazards, geography, radio and television without learning a different interface for every source.

The purpose is not to make the largest possible directory. It is to make complex public data easier to inspect: where an observation came from, when it was received, what is known, and what remains unknown. PocketWorld keeps source attribution and freshness close to the map because a live-looking marker without context can be misleading.

What the product includes

• Flights: public ADS-B observations with callsign, position, altitude, speed and route metadata when those fields are available.
• Ships: recent AIS positions, navigation fields, vessel identity and movement history where source coverage permits.
• Space: orbital objects propagated from current TLE catalogs, plus launches, spaceports and observatories.
• Disasters and weather: current agency records for earthquakes, storms, fires, volcanoes, floods, air quality and other hazards.
• Media: a searchable directory of public radio and TV endpoints with country, language and availability filters.
• Open data: documented JSON endpoints and embeddable views for developers, classrooms and newsrooms.

How PocketWorld adds value

Upstream providers expose different schemas, units, timestamps and availability rules. PocketWorld validates coordinates, normalizes units, merges likely duplicate events, caches expensive catalogs and presents a shared interaction model. It also distinguishes an observed value from inferred metadata. For example, an aircraft route is not drawn when the airport pair is unknown, and an empty disaster feed is not replaced with unrelated headlines.

The complete processing approach, update behavior and known limitations are documented on the methodology and data sources page. Public endpoints and examples are available in the API reference and open-data guide.

Free access and responsible use

The public site does not require registration. The map and APIs are intended for exploration, education, journalism and prototyping. They are not certified navigation, air-traffic-control, emergency-response or trading systems. Anyone making a safety-critical decision must use the responsible authority and an appropriate operational source.

Corrections and accountability

PocketWorld does not silently rewrite third-party observations. Source names and timestamps are retained so discrepancies can be traced. Broken streams, wrong labels, stale metadata and accessibility problems can be reported with the Feedback button in the application footer. Reports that include a page URL, source name, timestamp and screenshot are the easiest to reproduce.

Contact

The current public contact channel is the feedback form inside PocketWorld. We have not launched a public project email address or social-media account. See Contact for what to include in a report.