Whale's Metro: Subway Map

262 cities in 83 countries, drawn as paper-and-ink maps that work with no signal. Tap two stations for a route. Free.

262 cities. 83 countries. One map you can read.

Whale's Metro draws the subway, rail and light rail network of 262 cities the way a good paper map is drawn — cream paper, ink lettering, a touch of vermilion — and puts every one of them in your pocket, offline. 19 American networks are in here — New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles among them — and so is everywhere you fly to.

It works with no signal, no SIM, no account and no download after you install. That is the whole point: the moment you need a subway map is the moment you land somewhere your phone has stopped working.

THE MAP Every line in its official colour, drawn as vectors, so pinch in as far as you like and it stays crisp. Interchanges carry a badge for each line that stops there, and in the cities that number their stations the badge is the number on the sign. Where two lines share track, both colours show. Out-of-station walks are drawn as dotted links, and the route planner uses them. Rivers, lakes and coastline are drawn in, so the map looks like the place.

FIND A STATION • Type a station in English, in the local script, or in the way it sounds — "Shinjuku", "新宿", "Syntagma", "Σύνταγμα" • The whale flies you there and points at it • Your recent stations are remembered, per city

PLAN A ROUTE • Tap a station, then another: the fewest-stops route is drawn bold and everything else dims • Interchanges, walking connections and a journey-time estimate on the card • Share the route as text — to a friend, or to your own notes

READ THE SIGNS • Station cards show the name as it is written on the platform, in English, and romanised where the two differ • Tap the speaker to hear the name spoken, in the cities where iOS has a voice for the language • Highlight one line to trace it end to end

PICK A CITY • Cities you use are pinned to the top; swipe to pin or unpin • Nearby cities surface on their own when you arrive • Browse by likelihood, by country, or A–Z

MADE FOR TRAVEL • Fully offline, every city, every time • Day or night: paper, or ink on slate • iPhone and iPad • Free, supported by one small banner — and no banner at all when there is no ad to show

WHERE IT WORKS London, Paris, Tokyo, Rome, Mexico City and Seoul — and 250 more cities across 83 countries and every inhabited continent. All of them offline, drawn in the same hand, with the same route planner.

GOOD TO KNOW Is it accurate? Station positions come from OpenStreetMap, which is maintained by people who live in these cities. The drawing, the layout and the typography are ours. Does it cost anything? No. No subscription, no city to unlock. We keep nothing about you: there is no account and no server. The one banner comes from Google, and when iOS asks you can decline tracking — the map behaves exactly the same either way. Who makes it? Handtechnics, a small independent studio making travel and language apps since 2012.

Download it before you land.