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License free is tricky, even the free ones probably have attribution rights. I've had access to Digimap through uni before for basic mapping and I think it's now open source.
https://open.ed.ac.uk/digimap-geography-mapping/ no animation with it though.is she familiar with Adobe? You can get plugins for Aftereffects-Geolayers for example-that I've seen people use, or when I was at uni I'm pretty sure Google gave institutions free access to Google Earth Pro that also has animation/mapping tools.
Also possible to do map animations with Sketchup by importing tiles but think the resolution/scaling might be a bit shit for what you're after and again, it's just imported tiles from Google Earth.
There's also more complex plugins for Cinema 4D/Rhino that have a higher production value but would take a lot more time to pick up.
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Attribution is probably OK; she may want to put together some maps/animations for publication, and had been led to believe that Google Maps' terms and permissions prohibited commercial use, so that journals and publishers might be leery of allowing them. Will have to investigate Google Earth Pro, ta.
Thrustvector
What are the best (most attractive results/ease of use) license-free mapping tools for creating maps and potentially map animations? My OH is doing some work mapping events and locations; thus far she's been using Google maps, but might need something license-free (or something that her academic institution's likely to have a license for) to develop it further in the near future.