Ancient Trees

Every tree on the map is checked against two independent sources, and every one of them is free to find, read and walk to.

Ancient Trees maps the remarkable old trees of the world's cities, and shows you the ones near you.

Open it anywhere and the map fills with the trees around you: a yew that was old when the church beside it was built, a plane whose trunk takes four people to reach around, an oak that has stood through everything that happened on the street it shades. Each one has a page telling you what it is, roughly how old, and why it is worth the walk.

WHAT YOU GET

Trees near you, on a map you can search by place, by species or by name.

A story for every tree, written to be read rather than skimmed, and honest about what nobody knows: where an age has never been measured, the page says so and asks you.

Directions to the trunk. Where a location is rough rather than exact, the page tells you before you set off, because sending you to the wrong spot is the one mistake worth avoiding.

Your own collection. Photograph a tree while you stand in front of it and it joins your trees, ours and your own alike. Signed out they stay on your phone; signed in they follow your account to a new phone, and nobody else can see them.

WHERE THE TREES COME FROM

Every tree is verified against at least two independent sources before it goes on the map, and where the sources disagree the page says which and why. Official registers of protected and monumental trees are read directly. Photographs carry their own open licence and credit.

Nothing here is a wholesale import of a municipal tree inventory. A tree earns its place by being worth crossing town for.

WHEN WE ARE WRONG

We will be, and readers are how it gets fixed. Every page has a way to report a wrong pin, a fallen tree or a mistaken species, and corrections are made the same day.

An account is one email address. Sign in and your collection follows you to a new phone; delete the account and everything goes with it.