The World Cartographic Forum was founded in 2017 as a body within the International Cartographic Association (ICA) to encourage national cartographic/mapping societies to discuss issues such as membership retention and organisational change, to share expertise on governance and good practice, and to build international links between societies.

The Forum supports the ICA’s mission to promote the disciplines and professions of cartography and GIScience in an international context, specifically through the conduit provided by national cartographic and mapping societies.

Membership of the Forum is open to any broadly national cartographic/mapping society and our Terms of Reference are as follows:

• We meet to exchange ideas and information concerning good management practice with the common aim of promoting cartography through national societies;
• We hold meetings to coincide with each International Cartographic Conference (i.e. biennially);
• Attendees at Forum meetings comprise society presidents (or their nominees) plus one other senior representative of each national-level cartographic/mapping society (i.e. a maximum of two representatives per society);
• The societies represented in the Forum include (but are not restricted to) national reporting bodies to the ICA, so that senior representatives from any national society open to individual members are welcome, regardless of their ICA membership status; and
• The Forum is served by a Chair (currently Dr Alexander Kent) and a Secretary (currently Dr David Fairbairn).