‘A Pearl of Canal and A Paradise on Earth’ – The Suzhou City Branding Maps

Today, cities increasingly adopt branding strategies to stay competitive. Maps hold unique advantages in shaping and communicating city brands, as they offer a powerful means to present urban identity in a truthful, multidimensional, and holistic manner. Despite this potential, research and case studies on city branding map design remain scarce. To address this gap, this study presents a cartographic exploration of city branding map design for Suzhou, an internationally renowned tourist city in China. It details key aspects of the design process, including thematic content selection, binding, layout, symbolism, color schemes, and visual hierarchy, and distilling local insights and practical cartographic design lessons. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to explicitly initiate map design practices oriented toward city branding, offering fresh insights at both theoretical and methodological levels.