The epidemiology of malaria makes surveillance-based methods of estimating its disease burden problematic. Cartographic approaches have provided alternative malaria burden estimates, but there remains widespread misunderstanding about their derivation and fidelity.

Efficient allocation of resources to intervene against malaria requires a detailed understanding of the contemporary spatial distribution of malaria risk. It is exactly 40 y since the last global map of malaria endemicity was published. This paper describes the generation of a new world map of Plasmodium falciparum malaria endemicity for the year 2007.

Despite advances in mapping the geographical distribution and intensity of malaria transmission, the ability to provide strategic, evidence-based advice for malaria control programmes remains constrained by the lack of range maps of the dominant Anopheles vectors of human malaria.