Cape Cod is one of the few places whose outline you can draw from memory: an arm bent at the elbow, with the fist curled around Cape Cod Bay. The four posters below start from that shape and then move in, to the Outer Cape, to Provincetown's streets, and to the sandbars south of Chatham.
The maps below are real exports from the Carto-Art editor. Each one keeps its complete composition, framing, palette, typography and title, behind a customization link that loads it into the editor. Move the frame, change the title, or swap the colours, then download the result. The map data comes from OpenStreetMap, and the exports keep that attribution in the image.
The whole arm of Cape Cod
For the wall where one picture of the Cape is enough.
The frame runs from the mainland shoreline at the top left to the sandy tip of Monomoy at the lower right. Cape Cod Bay sits inside the hook, Provincetown is at the curl, and the Cape Cod Canal shows as a thin line cutting across the neck at the western edge, where the Cape meets the mainland. The canal is about 7.4 miles long and joins Cape Cod Bay to Buzzards Bay, which is the water at the lower left. Part of Martha's Vineyard appears at the bottom left, fading under the title. There are no streets and no labels: land is pale, water is a single deep teal, and the outline does the work. The palette is Coastal, the title is the default serif, and the format is a 4:5 portrait.
The Outer Cape, Orleans to Provincetown
For the person whose Cape is the Atlantic side.
This one drops the canal and the Upper Cape and gives the hook the whole page. Provincetown's curled tip is near the top, the narrow forearm runs south along the Atlantic shore, and the land widens again near Orleans at the bottom of the frame. Cape Cod Bay fills the large bowl on the left; open ocean is on the right. Streets are a thin network with no names, and park land is filled in a pale green, so the long, empty stretch of the Outer Cape reads differently from the denser land at the bottom. The National Park Service's Cape Cod National Seashore runs through six towns along this Atlantic shore, from Provincetown down through Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham and Orleans to Chatham. The palette is Sage, the type is Cormorant Garamond, and the format is a 2:3 portrait.
Provincetown, street by street
For a dark, close-up gift map of one town.
This is the tightest frame of the four. Commercial Street and Bradford Street run side by side along the bay, the town grid sits behind them, and the Route 6 bypass crosses the upper left in copper. Street names are on, so you can read Pearl Street, Winslow Street, Howland Street and Shank Painter Road, plus the West End label near the bottom. The bay fills the right side. The town name is carried by the title instead of a second label on the map, and the centre coordinates are printed under the subtitle. Race Point and Long Point are outside the frame. The palette is Gold Standard on near-black, the type is Montserrat, and the format is square.
Chatham and Monomoy
For the shore people who spend their time near the elbow.
Chatham sits at the top of the frame, where the mainland shoreline turns, and a long thin strip of sand runs south from it with a broader tip at the bottom. That strip is Monomoy, a sand spit extending southwest from Chatham. In this render it is drawn with a gap or two along its length, so inspect it in the editor before you print. A large bay sits behind the barrier beach in the upper part of the frame, and the open Atlantic fills the right side. Roads are on at a light weight; no town labels print at this zoom, so the title does the naming. The palette is Autumn Wash, the title is Playfair Display, and the format is a 2:3 portrait.
Make the map yours
Every map in this post can be changed. Work in this order:
- Set the framing. On the whole-Cape map, nudge the centre west if you want the canal and Buzzards Bay to have more room, or east if the Chatham elbow matters more. On the Outer Cape map, keep the Provincetown hook near the top and leave the bottom clear for the title.
- Choose your colours. Light palettes with a blue water colour suit the Cape: Coastal, Sage and Autumn Wash are used here, and Ink & Paper or Warm Gray are quieter options. A dark palette works best on the close-up of a single town.
- Add a title. Try "PROVINCETOWN" with a year, "OUR CAPE HOUSE" with the town name as the subtitle, or the name of a beach or village you want the poster to be about.
- Inspect the result. Look at small text, thin roads and the edges before exporting. On the Provincetown map in particular, check that no street name runs under the title.
Downloading and printing your map
Carto-Art exports your map as a digital PNG image. You can print the file at home or send it to a print provider. A download does not include a physical poster or frame.
Choose your intended paper size before exporting and match the image's aspect ratio to the print: fitting a portrait image into a wider frame means cropping or borders. The whole-Cape shoreline map is a 4:5 portrait, the Outer Cape and Chatham maps are 2:3 portraits, and the Provincetown map is square.
The editor's print presets export at 300 pixels per inch, from a 12 inch long edge up to 36 inches. A 12 × 18 inch print, for example, needs a 3,600 × 5,400 pixel image. Check the dimensions of your downloaded file against your printer's requirements.
At print sizes, fine street labels are the first thing to become hard to read. If the small text matters, choose a tighter crop with fewer labels before exporting.
Free exports are available within the current plan limits and include a small cartoart.net watermark; Carto Plus removes the watermark and the export limits. Your account page shows what your plan includes.
Questions about your Cape Cod map
Which part of Cape Cod does each poster cover?
The first poster covers the whole arm, from the canal at the neck to Monomoy at the elbow. The second covers the Outer Cape from the Provincetown hook south to Orleans. The third is Provincetown alone. The fourth is the Chatham shoreline and the Monomoy sand strip.
Can I centre the poster on my own town?
Yes. Open any of the customization links and move the frame in the editor. Zoom out for a regional shape like the first two posters; zoom in until street names appear for a town-sized map like the Provincetown one.
Which format suits a hallway?
The 2:3 portraits, the Outer Cape and Chatham maps, are the tall ones and fit a narrow wall best. The whole-Cape map is 4:5, which is closer to a standard portrait frame. If you want a landscape Cape, change the format in the editor and check where the title lands.
Will street names stay readable?
Only on the Provincetown map, which is the one with street names on. The Cape-wide and Outer Cape maps are deliberately shoreline-style, with no readable street text at all.
Open the whole-Cape poster in the editor and make it yours, or start from a blank map of anywhere at cartoart.net/editor.
