MapEval: A Map-Based Evaluation of Geo-Spatial Reasoning in Foundation Models

Abstract

Recent advancements in foundation models have improved autonomous tool usage and reasoning, but their capabilities in map-based reasoning remain underexplored. To address this, we introduce MapEval, a benchmark designed to assess foundation models across three distinct tasks - textual, API-based, and visual reasoning - through 700 multiple-choice questions spanning 180 cities and 54 countries, covering spatial relationships, navigation, travel planning, and real-world map interactions. Unlike prior benchmarks that focus on simple location queries, MapEval requires models to handle long-context reasoning, API interactions, and visual map analysis, making it the most comprehensive evaluation framework for geospatial AI. On evaluation of 30 foundation models, including Claude-3.5-Sonnet, GPT-4o, and Gemini-1.5-Pro, none surpass 67% accuracy, with open-source models performing significantly worse and all models lagging over 20% behind human performance. These results expose critical gaps in spatial inference, as models struggle with distances, directions, route planning, and place-specific reasoning, highlighting the need for better geospatial AI to bridge the gap between foundation models and real-world navigation. All the resources are available at: https://mapeval.github.io/.