Finding your way around
On a computer, the filters (Regulation, Projects and Layers) sit in a strip above the map, just under the search box, so you can switch things on and off while you search. The left panel shows the summary numbers and a short explanation of the map. The right panel is the legend. On a phone, everything stacks in one column, with the legend below the map.
What the colors mean
County shading shows local regulations:
Project pins are colored by stage:
What the icons mean
Teardrop pins mark individual data center projects. A solid pin means the exact site is known. A dashed pin means only the county is known so far, not the specific address.
Small squares mark a city-level regulation (a moratorium, ordinance or pending rule that applies to one city, not the whole county). They are colored by regulation type, so they are easy to tell apart from the round project dots when the map is zoomed out.
Small dots are the same projects when the map is zoomed out or when several sit on top of each other. Every project is always shown. As you zoom in, each dot turns into a small pin once it has room, and the pins grow as you keep zooming.
Clicking on the map
Click any county or pin to open a popup with the full details on file and a link to the source. A county popup also lists the data center projects in that county, and clicking one zooms to it. If a popup is long, it scrolls instead of getting cut off, so there's no hidden information below the fold.
When a field like Utility status or Tenant says "Not available", that means it genuinely isn't public yet, not that something's missing by mistake. This map doesn't guess or fill in gaps.
Sharing a view
About the commercial facilities
Some Operating pins are ordinary commercial colocation and hosting facilities from datacentermap.com's general directory of Kentucky data centers. Most have existed for years and are not part of the AI/hyperscale story the rest of this map tracks.
They are counted and filtered like every other project, but their popups say whether the listing was confirmed by independent sources (operator websites, PeeringDB, news), only partly confirmed, or could not be independently verified.
How to use the search bar
Type a county name, city name, project name, developer, or keyword like "moratorium" or a megawatt figure. Typing a city (even one with no tracked project of its own, like Wilmore) resolves to its county and zooms straight to that city.
A few things it handles automatically: minor typos, "County" as a suffix ("Boyd County" works the same as "Boyd"), units written different ways ("500mw" or "500 MW"), and phrases like "county wide" or "city level" to find every county in that state. It also understands everyday words ("ban" or "pause" finds moratoria, "zoning" finds ordinances, "bitcoin" finds mining), puts the best match first, and lists moratoria ending soon when you type "expiring". Press Enter to open the top result. If nothing matches, it suggests the closest name.
How to use the toggles
In the strip above the map, the Regulation group filters county shading by type. Click one or more types to keep those counties colored and fade the rest. Expiring soon picks the moratoria that end within 60 days, and their popups show a tag such as "Expires in 3 days". Click a selected type again to turn it off, or click All to show every regulation. Click All once more while it is selected to turn all regulation shading off. The Projects group filters pins by stage. The Layers group adds live transmission line and gas pipeline data from public government sources.
Numbers in parentheses on each button show how many match that filter right now. The Regulation buttons also split each count into county and city rules, for example "15 (11 county, 4 city)". The three summary numbers (counties with a regulation, counties with none, and projects tracked) update the same way, live, as entries are added.
Where the data comes from, and how current it is
Regulations and projects (including the datacentermap.com facilities) are a periodically updated snapshot, not a live feed, someone checks the news and public filings and updates the map by hand. The two exceptions are the transmission line and gas pipeline layers, which fetch fresh data straight from public government sources every time you turn them on.
Even those two have limits worth knowing: about half of the transmission line data is missing voltage information at the source, and the gas pipeline dataset is a snapshot from January 2020, over six years old. Treat it as historically informative, not current.
Found something wrong, or have new information?
Use the links in the explanation at the top left of the map to share new information or report a problem, or reach the Mountain Association directly at energy@mtassociation.org.