Mobile mapping and geographic information systems may represent a new paradigm for cartography and GIScience. This short foreword to the special issue introduces the three papers that follow, briefly surveys the growing literature of field and mobile GIS, and discusses the emerging literature surrounding wearable GIS and their augmented reality display systems. The UCGIS research agenda for mobile and distributed computing is presented, as are the calls for additional research in the papers of the special issue. Calls for a comprehensive review article of the field from a cartography/GIScience perspective, and for involvement in the research agenda of mobile systems, are made.