Docs menu

Quick start

From zero to your first territory

Five steps. No app install required to start, no special hardware. Just a walk, run or ride you can export as GPX.

  1. 1

    Record a walk, run or ride

    Use whatever you already walk, run or ride with: Garmin, Apple Watch, Suunto, Coros, Strava, or any GPS app. As long as it exports a .gpx file with timestamps, it works. It has to be a recording of where you actually went: a route drawn in a planner carries no timing data, so it claims nothing.

  2. 2

    Upload it on the map

    Head to the map and upload the GPX file. No account is needed to try it, you can even use the sample loop on the map page to see how a capture looks before you upload a real one.

  3. 3

    Map-matching cleans up the trace

    Raw GPS wobbles off the road all the time. Your trace is snapped to the real street network before anything is claimed, so a shaky signal does not invent streets you never ran.

  4. 4

    Close a loop to take the inside

    A route that returns to where it started does not just claim the streets on the way round. The ground it encloses turns your colour too.

  5. 5

    Sign in to hold your ground

    Claims made while signed out do not stick around. Sign in from the map to keep what you take, show up on your town's leaderboard, and get a public profile page other players can see (and try to take back from).

A recorded route drawn as a solid orange line snapped to the real street network on the Capture The Map map
A trace after map-matching: snapped to the real street network before anything is claimed.
Every recording has to pass a plausibility check before it claims anything. If the matched pace is faster than a walk, run or ride could realistically go, it is rejected outright. A car pretending to be a run claims nothing.

Once you have a street or two, read how claims, takeovers and fade actually work, or jump straight to the Ghost Route to plot a route instead of guessing one.