Pedometrics was officially founded in 1990, but the groundwork for the field can be traced back over 100 years earlier. Since its inception there have been 12 conferences, 11 special issues in Geoderma, more than 20 best paper awards, 42 issues of the Pedometron newsletter, and 7 IUSS spin-off working groups. In 2017 soil scientists travelled to Wageningen, Netherlands, to celebrate 25 years since the first pedometrics conference. This paper briefly describes the history of pedometrics, including the early works on which the field is founded. It is divided into distinct eras: • The Early Years (pre-1980)• The Geostatistical Era (1980–2005)• The Digital Mapping Era (2005–2015)• The Global Mapping Era (2015 onwards).The paper concludes by highlighting how pedometrics has helped bring soil science to the global stage. The challenge now is to keep giving the wider world what it wants – clear and relevant data and maps, with the uncertainty quantified.