The Map Print
Cardiff, drawn from its own streets.
A river down the middle, a park beside it that runs for a mile, and a bay at the bottom that used to be a tide and is now a lake.
From £19.95 unframed, £59.95 framed · Needs: a place. No data.
The frame 7 km across at the default · The water the Taff · Where Wales, the United Kingdom · Position 51.4817° N · 3.1792° W
Cardiff on paper
The Taff enters the top of the frame, curves past the castle and runs south to the bay, and Bute Park follows it the whole way as a long unbroken green wedge — an unusual thing to have in the middle of a capital, and on paper it splits the sheet cleanly in two. East of the park the civic centre prints as a set of formal blocks around open ground, and beyond that the Victorian terraces of Cathays and Roath run in tight parallel runs, with the arcades of the shopping streets as a fine mesh in the centre.
The bay closes the bottom of the print. The barrage turned the tidal mudflats into fresh water, so the map now shows a broad body of water with the docks notching its northern edge and the streets of the old port packed behind them. Roath Park's lake sits up at the north-east as a smaller counterpart, and the two together give the frame its balance.
West of the river the pattern is different again: Canton and Pontcanna are laid out as long avenues running back from the water, and Llandaff keeps its cathedral close and its village streets a little apart from everything else. Seven kilometres across holds the castle, the park, the bay and those districts together. Bring it in to two and one of them fills the paper with the back lanes drawn.
What to frame
Each of these opens the Studio already framed on it. Move the frame, change how wide it reaches, and choose how the streets are drawn.
The city
7 km acrossthe river and its park, the civic blocks, the terraces and the bay below.
Cardiff Bay
3.2 km acrossthe barrage, the basins, the old dock streets and the water they sit in.
Roath
2.9 km acrossthe lake at the top, the terraces beneath it and the park's long green tail.
Canton
3.2 km acrossthe avenues running back from the river, the market street through the middle.
Llandaff
4 km acrossthe cathedral close, the green and the village streets around them.
Llandaff to Cardiff Bay
both ends namedthe length of the city, cathedral to water, both ends named.
A postcode
CF24 or CF11 in the Studio frames that patch alone.
How it works
From the Studio to your wall in three steps.
Step 01
Choose your subject
Connect Strava in one tap for a race, a ride or a whole year. Or search for a place, type a postcode for your street on the old Ordnance Survey, or add a photograph — none of those needs an account.
Step 02
Choose your style
Start from a finished design and make it yours: the words, the colours, the size. Twenty-three styles for your own miles, four treatments for a place, six layouts for a photograph, and the old survey as drawn or in your colours.
Step 03
We print and frame it
Pick a frame, check out, and it is printed to order on fine-art paper, framed by hand and posted to you, tracked.
Cardiff map print: the questions
Is the bay drawn as water?
Yes — since the barrage it is permanent water, and the map holds it that way, with the basins and the docks as part of the same shape.
Can I have the print in Welsh?
The only words on it are the ones you type, so Caerdydd, Sblot or Tresiliannewydd are all fine. The typeface carries every accent the language uses.
Does the castle show?
Its grounds do, as an open block at the corner of the park with the walls' line where the streets stop. The building itself is not drawn — no building is.
Where does the map come from?
OpenStreetMap, through OpenFreeMap’s vector tiles — the same data the race prints draw. Nothing is invented: if a street is missing it is missing from the map, and anyone can add it at openstreetmap.org.
Can I print somewhere near Cardiff instead?
Yes — anywhere on earth. Search the Studio for a town, a village or a postcode and the frame arrives at the size that place wants; the slider and the drag take it from there.
- Made to orderPrinted for you, never from stock
- Fine-art paperArchival inks, framed by hand
- Tracked deliveryUK delivery £7.85, tracked · worldwide, priced at checkout
- Arrives damaged?We replace it, no quibble
Your Cardiff, on the wall.
Compose it free in the Studio. Order it when it holds the streets you mean.
How The Map Print works · Every city we have written about · Paper, frames and sizes