Area Recon is your personal situation map. Turn on the data layers that matter, mark up your own zones, people, resources and routes, and save it all so you can pull it back up — or hand it to family — in a hurry.
Getting started
- Search or center the map. Open Settings (top-left) and type a ZIP under Zoom to my area, or just pan and zoom to where you live.
- Pick a base map. In Settings → Base map, switch between Streets, Topographic, and Satellite.
- Turn on layers. In the Map layers panel (right), open a section and check the boxes for what you want to see.
The layers panel
Layers are grouped so you can find them fast. Use the search box at the top of the panel to filter every layer by name.
- Live — things happening now: weather and storms, active hazards, conflict and security, health, space.
- Reference — the fixed picture: terrain and land, water, climate, natural hazards, hazard sites, infrastructure (power, fuel, comms, transport), and demographics.
- Threat risk and the other choropleth shadings color every county on a single factor (or the composite blend) — the same engine behind the Threat Report.
Only turn on what you need; layers load on demand and a cluttered map is hard to read.
Your zones, pins & routes
Everything you draw lives in Settings and is yours alone — it saves in this browser.
- My Zones — set your Home, then draw your AO (home & mutual-aid), AI (daily-life radius) and AA (threat-awareness radius). Each can hold several areas.
- Pins — drop People, Resources and Threats in their categories to mark who and what is around you.
- Routes — trace primary and backup routes between the places that matter.
Toggle any of it on and off from the My layers section of the layers panel.
Use your live location
Tap the ⌖ location button on the right edge of the map to drop a live “you are here” marker — it shows a GPS-accuracy ring and follows you as you move. Tap the dot to Set home here or drop a People / Resource / Threat pin at your exact position. Your coordinates stay on your device, and it’s most accurate on a phone, outdoors.
Take it offline
Recon and your saved maps can keep working with no signal — install the app to use it off-grid. The offline app is a subscriber feature.
Custom map layers
Bring in data from the rest of the site or your own files (Settings → Custom map layers):
- Save from a tool. On the Radio Coverage map, the hazard simulators and more, hit Save to Recon map — the result becomes a layer here.
- Upload your own. Add a GeoJSON, GPX or CSV file (property lines, GPS tracks, waypoints). It’s parsed right in your browser and never uploaded anywhere.
- Organize. Sort layers into groups (＋ New group), and use the ⚙ on a group to rename, move or delete. Toggle them on the map from My layers.
Saving & sharing
The buttons on the right edge of the map:
- ⛶ Full screen — expand the map to fill the window.
- ⎙ Print / PDF — export exactly what’s on screen, in color or ink-saver.
- ⇗ Share — copy a link that reopens the map set up just like this.
- ▢ Save layout (subscriber) — bookmark your active layers + view so it’s one click away and synced to your Digital Binder.
Tips
- Less is more. Two or three well-chosen layers tell a clearer story than twenty.
- Right-click a zone or route vertex to remove it; drag vertices to reshape.
- Your custom layers and drawings ride your saved layouts, so a saved layout brings its data with it to any device.
How to read particular layers
Most layers are what they say. These few are not, and reading them at face value gets you a wrong answer:
- Noncitizens is the ACS foreign-born non-citizen share. That includes lawful permanent residents and visa holders, and is not a measure of unauthorized status. It is a very different number from the one people usually assume.
- Political friction and Racial friction are derived measures of local contrast, not of conflict. They score how sharply a county’s 2024 presidential margin (or racial composition) differs from its immediate neighbors’ — high where sharply different areas sit side by side, low across a uniform region, whatever that region’s politics or composition happens to be.
- Threat risk is our own composite model, not a government figure — the same engine behind the Threat Report. Each county is ranked 0–100 nationally, on the blended score or on any single factor you pick.
- Food deserts is the share of a county’s population living in low-income, low-access census tracts (USDA ERS Food Access Research Atlas 2019). It is a tract-level measure rolled up to the county, so a low county number can still hide a bad tract.
- Foreign-owned land is total foreign ownership by county — mostly timber and farmland. It is not China-specific, despite how the subject usually gets discussed.
- Amish (% of pop) comes from the 2020 U.S. Religion Census; the settlement pins are approximate, marking major communities rather than exact boundaries.
- Submarine-cable landing areas and notable foreign-owned holdings are approximate and curated from public reporting, not authoritative registries.
- Livestock and crop layers are 2022 Census of Agriculture. A blank county means USDA withheld the figure to avoid identifying a single operation — not that there is none. Broilers and turkeys are birds sold in a year; everything else is a head count on one day.
Everything else, and the license terms for each source, is on the Sources page.
Good to know
Area Recon is a planning and awareness map, not a live command system. Live layers refresh periodically but can lag real events, and reference data is simplified for the web. Treat it as a strong starting picture — then verify anything you’d stake a decision on.
