Research Guides: Sound and Audio: Sound Maps

What are Sound Maps?

Sound maps are immersive sonic and visual tools designed to re-establish the location of audio recordings. Most geographic soundscape archives are built through a collective submission process, in which participating phonologists record audio in the field and upload content remotely. Sound maps may chart the soundscape of a particular urban area, delve into the sonic facets of the ocean (i.e. explore elements of noise pollution and cetacean songs) or reveal the acoustic ecology of rural landscapes.

Online Sound Maps

Aporee Spatially charted field recordings of public spaces around the world	London Sound Survey Sound recordings of places, events and wildlife in London	Nature Soundmap Professionally recorded nature soundscapes
British Library A variety of aural maps, including dialects, soundscapes and wildlife recordings	MoMA Studio Sound Map An interactive sound map from the Museum of Modern Art	Seoul Sound Map Sounds from one of the world's largest cities
CetMap Resource from the NOAA with whale recordings and noise pollution data	Montréal Sound Map Urban sound map in French and English	Sons de Barcelona A collection of recorded noise from one of the world's loudest urbanscapes
Klankenbos Sound Forest Uses auditory and aesthetic art to create an unusual experience.	NASA \| Earth Songs Archive of the sounds of our planet	Sounds of New York City (SONYC) A hybrid, distributed network of sensors and citizens for large-scale noise reporting.