Mastering Maps with QGIS
Like Duolingo, but for Mastering Maps with QGIS. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
180 levels across 8 sections, about 360 minutes end to end, roughly 72 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Your First Professional Map, Visualizing the Weather, Tracking Change Over Time, Solving Location Problems, Making Maps Look Beautiful, Working with Real-World Data Formats, Advanced Analysis Tricks, and The Science Under the Hood. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Mastering Maps with QGIS
- QGIS uses file paths to locate data
- GIS links visual shapes to underlying database information
- Moving source files breaks the link to the project
- Drawing programs only store visual coordinates, not spatial attributes
- The Layers panel controls the 'stack'
- The Browser is for file navigation
- Points should be on top of lines and polygons
- Identifying the primary functional areas of the QGIS interface
- Polygons at the top of the list will obscure smaller features beneath them
- The visual logic of the Layers Panel
- The .qgs/.qgz file only contains project settings
- The Pan tool moves the view
- The raw data files (e.g., GeoPackage, Shapefile) must be included with the project file
- The Pan tool is distinct from selection tools
- QGIS is a viewer/interface for data
- Layer symbology (colors/styles) is saved in the project
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Mastering Maps with QGIS the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What makes a GIS shape different from a simple drawing in a program like Adobe Illustrator?
Get it right to open this lesson and 179 more in the app.
Where Mastering Maps with QGIS takes you
Stop just looking at maps and start building them. Learn to track weather patterns, analyze local changes, and solve real-world problems using the world's most powerful free mapping tool.
- 1
Your First Professional Map
- Getting QGIS up and running
- Adding a beautiful background map
- Drawing your first points and lines
- Exporting a map you can share
- 2
Visualizing the Weather
- Finding free weather data online
- Mapping rainfall across a region
- Using colors to show temperature shifts
- Creating heat maps for storm intensity
- Animating a moving weather front
- Dealing with messy climate spreadsheets
- 3
Tracking Change Over Time
- Comparing 'Before' and 'After' satellite images
- Measuring how much a forest has shrunk
- Mapping urban growth in your city
- 4
Solving Location Problems
- Finding the best spot for a new park
- Calculating walking distances to schools
- Mapping flood risks for local homes
- Identifying 'food deserts' in a neighborhood
- Creating a service area for a business
- 5
Making Maps Look Beautiful
- Choosing colors that don't confuse people
- Adding clear labels that move automatically
- Designing professional legends and scales
- Using 3D views to show mountains and valleys
- 6
Working with Real-World Data Formats
- What are Shapefiles and GeoJSONs?
- Connecting to live web map services
- Turning a GPS phone track into a map
- Importing data from Google Earth
- Cleaning up broken or missing data
- Merging different data tables together
- 7
Advanced Analysis Tricks
- The power of the 'Buffer' tool
- Clipping and cropping your data
- Automating repetitive tasks with models
- 8
The Science Under the Hood
- Why the world looks flat on a screen
- Choosing the right Coordinate System
- The difference between Pixels and Vectors
- How GPS satellites talk to your map
- The history of Open Source mapping
8 sections · 36 units · 180 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Mastering Maps with QGIS is taught in the The Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Mastering Maps with QGIS today.
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