Kurzfassung Both qualitative research in geography and visual geographies have an ambivalent relationship to maps and cartographic methods. Reasons for this include discourse-theoretical approaches to maps and cartography since the 1980s, the tension between the self-images of modern cartography and the methodological perspectives of qualitative approaches, the relationship between map and image, or the role of technology in cartography and GIS. On the one hand, this ambivalent relationship can be well explained historically. On the other hand, a number of possible connections can be pointed out. Based on current discussions in geography and beyond, the article therefore explores and systematizes practices of critical mapping in order to explore new possibilities of connection between visual approaches of qualitative geographies and maps.