This paper explores the challenges and potential of cultural mapping to be used as a development tool. Using a three-dimensional model of analysis I characterise two ideal-types of approach to cultural-mapping in an analytical continuum: on one end are top-down instrumental approaches to development and cultural mapping dominated by utilitarian rationality and a notion of development measured in terms of economic growth, and on the other end are bottom-up, constitutive approaches to cultural mapping that consider the complexity of the link between society and culture, and are dominated by concerns of integrated human development. The two representative cases analysed will contribute to illustrating how different processes and methodologies of cultural mapping may derive from different conceptualisations of development, levels of analysis and understandings of culture. These distinct categories in turn bear consequences for the use of the results of cultural mapping and its potential as a development tool. The objective of the paper is to propose a framework of analysis that can then be used and assessed with a broader range of cases.