Five Maps of the War (Iran)
The conflict's geography in five essential maps — strike sites, the Strait of Hormuz, fronts and the regional theater.
Interactive Strikes Map (ArcGIS StoryMap)
Source: Independent ArcGIS StoryMap (community-maintained)
An independent, community-maintained ArcGIS StoryMap tracking strikes in the Iran conflict. It plots reported strike locations against force positions and known infrastructure, with a narrative walkthrough of the campaign’s phases, and is useful for a quick geographic orientation. It carries no institutional authorship and no formal verification process — treat it as an open-source visual aid and cross-check specific events against ACLED or wire reporting below.
ArcGIS StoryMaps are designed for embedding and redistribution, which is why this resource can be viewed inline here.
LiveUAMap — Iran Real-Time Tracker
Source: LiveUAMap
LiveUAMap’s Iran module provides real-time geolocated news alerts covering the full spectrum of conflict events. The platform aggregates open-source reporting from international wire services, regional media, and social media verification, placing each development on an interactive map with a chronological feed. Every event is timestamped and geolocated, creating a living record of the conflict as it unfolds.
The platform’s strength is immediacy. During the initial February 28 strikes, LiveUAMap captured the geographic progression of the air campaign in near-real-time, showing how strikes moved from western border air defense installations to central Tehran within hours. During Iran’s retaliatory wave, the map tracked missile launches from Iranian territory, Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, and Houthi sites in Yemen simultaneously — the only platform that captured the multi-front character of the response as it developed. The chronological news feed alongside the geographic display reveals the tempo of operations in a way that after-the-fact summaries cannot.
LiveUAMap explicitly provides embed frames for third-party use and has been widely embedded by news organizations, research institutes, and educational platforms since 2014.
ACLED — Iran Crisis Live Monitor
Source: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
The gold standard for structured conflict data. ACLED’s Iran Crisis Monitor provides near real-time event-level documentation using standardized coding that enables systematic, reproducible analysis. The dataset distinguishes between battles, explosions and remote violence, violence against civilians, protests, and strategic developments. Each event is geolocated, time-coded, and linked to verifiable sources.
ACLED has documented nearly 2,000 distinct events since February 28, including 1,240+ strikes and 340+ incidents of civilian impact. The methodology is transparent and peer-reviewed: events are coded by trained analysts, cross-referenced against multiple independent sources, and subjected to quality control. The data is published under an open license, enabling independent researchers to download, analyze, and republish findings. This open-data approach has made ACLED the standard reference in academic conflict studies, and their characterization of events has been cited in UN reports, ICJ proceedings, and virtually every major policy brief on the conflict.
ACLED explicitly encourages the use of their data and analysis with attribution, and publishes under terms designed to maximize research impact.
CFR Global Conflict Tracker — Iran
Source: Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Conflict Tracker provides an authoritative strategic overview that contextualizes the Iran war within the broader landscape of U.S. foreign policy and global security. The interactive platform includes geographic mapping alongside analysis of key actors, conflict drivers, escalation risks, and U.S. policy implications. CFR’s Iran coverage tracks the war’s international dimensions — the Strait of Hormuz closure’s impact on global energy markets, the cascading effects on Gulf state security, and the diplomatic dynamics at the UN Security Council.
What distinguishes CFR’s tracker from pure military mapping is its integration of political and economic context. The platform connects territorial and kinetic developments to their diplomatic consequences, providing the analytical bridge between “what happened” and “what it means.” Updated by CFR’s Middle East program staff, the tracker draws on the organization’s network of current and former policymakers.
As a nonprofit think tank, CFR produces its public-facing research tools to inform policy debate and actively encourages citation and redistribution.
WarMonit — Live AI-Powered Conflict Tracker
Source: WarMonit
WarMonit offers a dedicated real-time interactive map tracking the Iran-Israel war, combining military strike data with conflict events and AI-powered intelligence briefings updated continuously. The platform overlays verified ACLED event data with nuclear facility locations, military bases, and critical infrastructure across the theater of operations. Its distinguishing feature is the integration of automated analytical summaries that synthesize large volumes of event data into human-readable situational assessments.
The map tracks both sides of the conflict simultaneously: coalition strike locations with assessed damage, Iranian retaliatory launches with intercept data, and proxy force activity across the region. WarMonit’s interface allows filtering by event type, date range, and actor, enabling users to isolate specific operational threads within the broader campaign. The platform was purpose-built for the 2026 Iran conflict and has attracted a substantial user base among open-source intelligence analysts.
WarMonit encourages sharing and embedding of their maps and provides open access to their tracking tools.
Further cartographic resources
- Bloomberg — Iranian Retaliation Strike Map (Paywalled) — Bloomberg’s graphics team produced an exceptional visual analysis showing 823 documented Iranian airstrikes, 1,879 U.S./Israeli strikes, and intercept rates by weapons system. The map overlays economic impact data — oil terminals, shipping lanes, and refinery locations — connecting military events to their market consequences. Requires a Bloomberg subscription. link
- CNN — Visualizing the War in Maps and Charts (Restricted) — CNN’s visual investigations team produced a comprehensive package tracking strikes and retaliation across 12+ countries, with time-lapse animations showing the campaign’s progression. The maps distinguish between confirmed strikes and claimed strikes, providing transparency on verification status. Embedding restricted by CNN’s content policies. link
- Al Jazeera — Interactive Day-by-Day Tracker (Restricted) — Al Jazeera’s data journalism team provides a day-by-day interactive breakdown of the escalating campaign using ACLED data across Iran’s 31 provinces. The temporal granularity — showing how each successive strike wave adapted to Iranian air defense responses — is unmatched. Embedding restricted by Al Jazeera’s content distribution policies. link