NACIS 39th Annual Meeting
Tacoma, Washington
October 16–19, 2019
Hotel Murano ¦ 1320 Broadway, Tacoma Washington 98402
Register Now!
Do you love maps, data, visual storytelling, and cartographic design? Do you want to learn the latest in mapping design, production, and theory? Do you enjoy spending social time with your mapping peers, or want to make new friends and contacts in the cartographic community?
Then make your plans now to participate in the Annual Meeting of the North American Cartographic Information Society in Tacoma, Washington. Join professionals and enthusiasts from government, commercial, and not-for-profit groups along with academics, scholars, map/GIS librarians, artists, technologists, and students in our 39th Annual Meeting.
For a schedule of NACIS 2019, visit our Sched site.
For more details on the content and vibe of the Annual Meeting, visit the What to Expect page.
The Meeting will be held at the Hotel Murano from October 16-19, 2019. Our hotel reservation block sells out every year, so please make your reservations early to ensure you get the NACIS discounted rate of $189 per night. Get your reservations online at:
Hotel Murano registration
or call (253) 238-8000 and ask for the NACIS block rate.
Following are the costs for registration and other events:
Main Conference registration
Early registration (by October 6)
- Full conference* NACIS member: $295
- Full Conference* non-member: $395
- Full Conference* Student $105
- Wednesday evening only (plenary and reception) $40
- Thursday only, NACIS member (includes lunch): $135
- Thursday only, non-member (includes lunch): $180
- Friday only, NACIS member (includes banquet): $135
- Friday only, non-member (includes banquet): $180
- Guest ticket, for domestic partner or spouse (includes meals and receptions) $140
Late registration (after October 6)
- Full conference* NACIS member: $345
- Full Conference* non-member: $450
- Full Conference* Student $125
- Wednesday evening only (plenary and reception) $45
- Thursday only, NACIS member (includes lunch): $165
- Thursday only, non-member (includes lunch): $195
- Friday only, NACIS member (includes banquet): $165
- Friday only, non-member (includes banquet): $195
- Guest ticket, for domestic partner or spouse (includes meals and receptions) $140
*Practical Cartography Day, NACIS Night Out, and Workshops are not included in the Main Conference and each require separate registration.
Additional events
Early registration (by October 6)
- Practical Cartography Day: $115
- Practical Cartography Day, special student rate: $100
- NACIS Night Out: $35
Late registration (after October 6)
- Practical Cartography Day: $120
- Practical Cartography Day, special student rate: $105
- NACIS Night Out: $40
Workshops on Saturday (see Sched site)
- Half day: $30
- Full day: $60
NACIS 2019 Events
Keynote Speaker: Kate Harris
Kate Harris is a writer with a knack for getting lost. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Outside, The Walrus, and Canadian Geographic, with citations in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing. A former Rhodes and Morehead-Cain scholar, she studied the history of science at Oxford and biology and geology at UNC-Chapel Hill and MIT. She lives off-grid near the border of British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. Her first book, Lands of Lost Borders, is a Canadian national bestseller and won the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize and a Banff Mountain Book Award.
From the Siachen Glacier in contested Kashmir to the Chinese-controlled Tibetan Plateau, author Kate Harris has spent years exploring fraught borderlands, whether on a bicycle, on the page, or both. Weaving adventure, history, and reflections on her travels, Harris’ talk will examine the meaning of “exploration” on a mapped world.
NACIS Banquet Presentation: Open Source Mapping in a Closed Society
Foreign visitors and residents alike never had an easy time navigating around Turkmenistan – a restrictive and insular country considered one of the world’s three most closed societies – due to the lack of up-to-date, comprehensive maps of its cities or the roads that connected them. Allan Mustard, former United States Ambassador to Turkmenistan, describes the pitfalls, successes, and cultural challenges in his efforts to get U.S. diplomats, locally employed embassy staff, and Turkmen citizens to re-map the country by collecting crowd-sourced data and uploading it to OpenStreetMap.
Tuesday Night Meetup: 7 Seas Brewing, 2101 Jefferson Avenue, Tuesday October 15, 7:00-9:00 pm
Just got in town and want to meet or mingle with some fellow NACites? Come to 7 Seas Brewing and sample one of their many beers or non-alcoholic offerings. 7 Seas is about a 15 minute walk south of the Hotel Murano in a historic brewery building.
Conference Opening and Keynote, Wednesday October 16, 7:00-8:00 pm
The Conference kicks off with a welcome from your NACIS president, followed by a keynote presentation from Kate Harris (see box above).
Welcome Reception and Map Gallery Opening, Wednesday October 16, 8:00-9:30 pm
Have a drink and a light snack in the Map Gallery while chatting with your fellow map makers and enthusiasts. Browse the student and professional maps and posters on display and get an early start on deciding which ones you’ll vote for!
NACIS Annual Business Meeting and Lunch, Thursday October 17, 12:00 pm
Find out what’s going on in NACIS and how it operates, meet the new officers and Board members, and in the process consider how you might get involved more in your Society. Lunch is on us!
Fun Run and Walk, Thursday October 17, 5:30-6:30 pm
Get some exercise and explore some of Tacoma in the Sixth Annual Fun Run & Walk! Routes will be available (with maps, of course) for both runners and walkers in this casual social event.
NACIS Night Out: Swiss Restaurant and Pub, 1904 Jefferson Avenue, Tacoma, Thursday October 17, 6:30-9:30 pm
NACIS Night Out is one of the premier social events of our annual meeting. Relax with your mapping buddies and peers and make new friends and connections. This year we’ll be at the cool and quirky Swiss Restaurant and Pub. Dinner and a drink are included in the registration price. Tickets may be limited so sign up with your conference registration.
Lunch Bunch, Friday October 18, 12:00 pm
For Friday’s lunch, you’re on your own. So if you want to join fellow NACIS members for lunch, we’re reserving tables at a few nearby restaurants, with each one led by a veteran NACIS member to talk about anything that comes up. A great opportunity for first-timers or those who want to network or be social. Sign up sheets will be available at the registration desk on Thursday – sign up by 10:00 on Friday to get a seat in the restaurant you like!
NACIS Banquet, Friday October 18, 6:00-9:00 pm
Enjoy a relaxing dinner followed by speaker Allan Mustard talking about mapping the blank spaces in Turkmenistan (see box above). Then say thanks to the many volunteers that made the meeting possible, and find out who won the student mapping award competitions!
Geodweeb Geopardy!, Friday October 18, 9:00-10:30 pm
Take part in an entertaining NACIS tradition as Dennis McClendon channels host Art Fleming in a carto-oriented version of the TV show Jeopardy! Join a team by signing up at the registration desk for your chance at winning some fabulous mappy prizes. Or get a drink at the cash bar and join the audience to cheer the players when they get a tough one right, or good-naturedly heckle them when they blow it.
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A NACIS 2018 Story Map
Learn what it is like to attend a NACIS annual meeting from this story map about the event.
Conference Recording and Streaming
In 2019, NACIS plans to continue recording and streaming Practical Cartography Day and the Main Conference Sessions, so that the knowledge we share in Tacoma can have an impact around the globe. But we need your support to keep doing so. Please consider sponsoring all or part of a presentation, so that even those who can’t make it in person can benefit from our time together. Maintaining a video archive of our conference will be a valuable resource for all now and into the future.
Please donate here — and thanks!
Questions about Tacoma NACIS 2019?
Here are your resources:
Main Conference, Workshops, and anything else program related: veep@nacis.org
Practical Cartography Day: pcd@nacis.org
Map Gallery: posters@nacis.org
Field Trip: veepelect@nacis.org
Registration and payment (conference registration will open in July): business@nacis.org