Marked in Red is an in-progress MMIWG2S awareness map.

Marked in Red is being built as a public-interest map and case context tool for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two Spirit, and relatives. The goal is to make patterns easier to see while keeping the work grounded in care, consent, and source transparency.

MMIWG2S describes a long-running crisis of violence, disappearance, under-investigation, and under-reporting affecting Indigenous communities across the United States and Canada. A map cannot tell the whole story, but it can help people understand the scale of the issue and find trusted paths to learn more.

This is a demonstration build using sample data only. Real records are expected to be sourced from NamUs, the Canadian MMIWG database, and advocacy organizations once the project has the review, attribution, and community guidance needed to handle that data responsibly.

Want to learn more or follow this issue? See our News & Resources page.

How to read the map

Each point on the map is one case record, colored by status:

Missing: the person has not been located.
Murdered: the source record identifies the case as a homicide.
Found: the person has been located; source records vary in what that means.
Resolved: the case is closed or otherwise resolved in the source record.

These categories are provisional for the demonstration build. When real records are added, status definitions will follow the source databases and the community guidance this project is seeking, and each case page will name its sources.

Data sources & attribution

Case points are currently fictional sample records, clearly labeled as such throughout the site.

The optional reservation/reserve boundary overlay uses two public datasets: United States boundaries come from the US Census Bureau 2025 cartographic boundary files (American Indian / Alaska Native / Native Hawaiian areas, public domain), and Canadian boundaries come from Natural Resources Canada's Aboriginal Lands of Canada Legislative Boundaries dataset, used under the Open Government Licence - Canada. Both layers are simplified for fast loading on the web.

Limitations

Every case point shown today is fictional. No real records are displayed until sourcing, attribution, and community review are in place.
The boundary overlay shows current administrative and statistical boundaries only. It does not represent ancestral or traditional territories, and it is not a legal land description.
Boundary geometry is intentionally simplified for performance and should not be used for precise location work.
Real-world MMIWG2S data undercounts the crisis. Reporting gaps, racial misclassification, and jurisdictional complexity mean any map is a partial view, never the full story.