Anonymous SVN access

All mapnik's files are maintained in a SVN (subversion) repository. You will need a SVN client installed on your machine.  You can use the command-line client or GUI - it's up to you.

Please, consult subversion documentation on client availibility for your platform, usage etc.

Using command-line client you can checkout the latest snapshot like this: (Anonymous SVN Access via SVN)
Latest release (0.7.1) 

svn co http://svn.mapnik.org/tags/release-0.7.1 mapnik
Access to the current Mapnik development code 
svn co http://svn.mapnik.org/trunk mapnik-trunk

You can also browse source files through web-based SVN repository access.

Once you have downloaded the Mapnik source code see the Mapnik Install guides or the INSTALL document in the SVN repository.