OpenStreetMap
Hi all,
Hacktoberfest is a yearly event where contributors get a T-shirt from hacktoberfest.com if they improve an Open Source Project.
MapComplete is open for such improvements. Head over to the repository. An ideal to get started is by creating a map layer about something that is interesting to you.
If you have questions on getting started, feel free to ask in our chat channel on matrix/element (telegram bridge )
Has anyone ever mapped an area because it was in some true crime podcast or video? I mapped the area (i.e. buildings) in Co. Cork in Ireland where the Sophie du Plantier murder took place while listening to a podcast about it.
And then Netflix went and made a documentary about it and used all that lovely OSM material without attribution.
House
I was visiting my HDYC page today. I always get sentimental looking at my first changeset, a neat feature on HDYC. Here it is with ID 90313. This makes sense to me; I lived in that part of Amsterdam at the time and the timestamp coincides with the day I created my OSM account (while participating in a weekend-long mapping party).
But, when I scroll to the bottom of the changeset page info panel, I see there’s a previous changeset:
How is that possible? If I click on the previous changeset until there is no more previous changesets, I end up at this one, with ID 7671. But that changeset was opened and closed 10 months later, in April 2008.
I always assumed that changesets with a higher ID would also be newer, but that’s obviously not always true. My best guess is that the database got reshuffled in the early OSM API days. Perhaps coinciding with the disabling of anonymous edits in late 2007?
Mysterious. How will I be able to sleep now?
I really like the ‘notathon’ concept, so just posting a translated version of AngocA’s original diary entry (which was in Spanish).
On Saturday 1 October 2022, a notathon was held, as is customary one week after the Latam meeting. This time it took place in Mexico, and was coordinated by BigBlueButton - OSMVideo, where several people participated.
This time DAMN-project was used to divide the areas. For the division of areas we filtered by only the notes created from the Maps.me application. This is the task of DAMN: https://client.damn-project.org/?area=2407
We showed how to use the JOSM plugin, which automatically downloads the notes, and this allows to work in several areas, without having to leave the editor.
In total 63 notes were solved, with participants mainly from Mexico (alex_mayorga, Mapeadora, Sandra, among others), but there were also attendees from Venezuela (risturiz), Argentina (Manuel Retamozo) and Colombia (AngocA).
After you’ve been out dancing 💃 & drinking 🍸 at the club🪩, that take away joint open at 2am 🌆 suddenly looks very appealing 🍔🍟🍕. So for every night club in OSM, I calculated the distance to the nearest fast food take away. Here’s a map of where you have to go >20km for a take away:
Have you ever wondered when on earth, you would have opportunity to meet in person, have a handshake, a hug, an off-screen smile, take a coffee or even a lunch together with friends and colleagues you have remotely worked with, as weeks, months and years keeps counting in a virtual world of OpenStreetMap global community? Yes, our trending techs and AI keeps offering us the best of smart connectivity with everyone in a digital space of daily online activities that builds around us a world of virtual communities with uncertainties, barriers and boundaries of never meeting physically in our life time. Have you ever, thought about, the uncertainties of meeting in person such cool guy as Geoffery kateregga and the rest of HOT and OSM Africa local community leaders after consistently working virtually in HOT working groups, OSM Africa Mapathon, Community meeting and the rest for weeks, months and years in a virtual world of OSM.
What about meeting your boss-Pete Masters the Head HOT Global community (of course, if you are a community leader or aspiring and being mentored to be one) after having series of community mentorship, supervision, and virtual meetings through WhatsApp zoom, jitsi and the rest of the virtual platform that makes you forget the distance barrier and that you never had an opportunity to meet in person. Infact, after meeting virtually for years gone by, it only dawned on me that my very boss-Pete Masters had such an intimidating height that would dare me stretching out my neck when I first met him on my arrival for SOTM2022, in Florence, Italy. So, my virtual assumptions were wrong after all, thanks to FOSS4G2022 and unSummit HOT.
Abstractly speaking, every bit of information on OpenStreetMap, no matter how minute it may seem, enhances the user experience. Together, we can make OpenStreetMap better every day!
Hi folks,
I’m documenting my quest to add all the bike racks in Chicago to OSM. So far I’ve added about 200+ bike racks in the Lakeview area + the Loop. It’s been pretty easy to do so far, you just go out and walk around a bit then add points for all the bike racks. Always looking for folks to help out!
Marquette,mi 1. Marqutte, mi 2. Blythe, ca
Having fun doing project preparation with kind of some enthusiastic people around here before the actual field trip. Hope something big will come out lately. Best of luck guys.
RapiD is an alternative to the OpenStreetMap iD editor that adds the ability to easily add data from approved external sources to OSM. Chances are that you—like me—know RapiD from the MapWithAI initiative, Facebook / Meta’s effort to publish road geometry derived from aerial imagery using machine learning. RapiD started out to support this effort; a fork of the iD OSM editor, RapiD added a layer to display the ML-detected road segments, and a nice user interface to add these segments to OSM, connecting them with the existing road network where possible.
I have been an active OSM mapper (and contributor to some HOT task mapping projects in different countries ) since 2013, mainly mapping based on satellite imagery. My main focus has been on Ethiopia, North Korea and DR Kongo.
At the moment (from March 2025 on) I try to map waterways and watersheds of the Ethiopian tributaries of the Blue Nile (called አባይ = ābayi/Abbay/Abbai in Amharic). A lot of theses waterways and the areas around them have been very poorly mapped yet. I have started with the river which is called Rahad (نهر الرهد) in Arabic and Shinfa (ሽንፋ ወንዝ) in Amharic.
The rivers in the Ethiopian highlands are of crucial importance for the cultivation of the land and the settlement structure - in a way which is unusual and often uknown for European people: The settlements are usually on top of the mountains (using the rain at the main water source) between the rivers, not at the rivers. A lot of the rivers and their ravines are blocking travelling and transport, not supporting it.
Relation of the main course of the river
Detailed Mapping Finished based on Esri Imagery
Downstream
River Shinfa - right tributary A
* about 10m wide at confluence, clear/dark water, meandering (SI = 1.84)
* so far mapped length 7.60 Km - E to W
* from 12°03’21.0’‘N 36°37’51.5’’ E to 12°03’54.6’‘N 36°35’39.0’’ E
* height: 1225 m to 1080 m (19.08 ‰ botton slope)
River Shinfa Section 1
* up to 30 m wide, ravines, light brown water, twisting (SI= 1.436)
* length 7.18 Km - SE to NW
* from 12°03’54.6’‘N 36°35’39.0’’ E to 12°05’33.5’‘N 36°33’28.1’’ E
* height: 1080m to 1000 m (11.14 ‰ botton slope)
River Shinfa - right tributary B
* 35m wide and more at confluence, light brown water, twisting (SI = 1.504)
* so far mapped length 21.39 Km - NE to SW
* from 12°08’39.8’‘N 36°40’37.9’’ E to 12°05’33.5’‘N 36°33’28.1’’ E
* height: 1200 m to 1000 m (9.35 ‰ botton slope)
Vincent Privat posted on twitter of a gun shop across the road from a bank. WeeklyOSM reported it in №634. So it got me thinking. 🤔 And hacking. 🙂👩🏻💻
I built a new tool osm-distance-to-nearest which calculates “how close the nearest X is for every Y?”. When you download the OSM Planet File (~70GiB!), and run this command, you’ll get a CSV file for every shop=weapons in OSM, with how far away the nearest bank or ATM is.
osm-distance-to-nearest -i ~/osm/data/planet.osm.pbf -b amenity=atm,bank -a shop=weapons -o p_guns_bank_
Vincent’s case is a weapons shop Armurerie du Vieux Bourg de Kourou (node 2,992,825,744) which is 60m from an ATM operated by La Banque Postale (node 3,022,885,288). at 5° 9′ 55.134″ N 52° 38′ 28.9788″ W in Kourou.
But there are more than 300 weapon shops within 60 metres of a bank or ATM! There are many weapon sells next door to a bank. This is so practical! 🤣🤣 Full formatted table is in this comments.
Had to correct the school premises because it place houses people lived in as school buildings and marked one of the 2 school buildings as a house. overall the school premises on the map have been halved as it also contained a farmers field
Hi everyone, I started my own Web development company in London, I would like to add it on the map on openstreetmaps, how to add it?
Joseph Bazalgette is rightfully lauded as an accomplished Engineer & heroic in many actions, including in his role as chief engineer of London’s Metropolitan Board of Works, implementing gargantuan sewage works that will have saved millions of Londoner’s lives from the threats of cholera & other water-borne diseases. Few people will realise that there are many similar Victorian-era heroes within Nottingham’s history, and it is likely that even fewer people could name any of them.
Go to this diary entry for more info on any year quoted here.
Today’s diary will commemorate Nottingham’s Borough Surveyor and Engineer Arthur Brown, and underline his achievement in designing & building the 1884 Beck Valley Storm Water Culvert.
First edit was very long, adding 39 new housing outlines in my town
OSMCha (https://osmcha.org/) was down and i felt crippeled. This tool has become an essential part of my workflow lately.
So to be prepared for the next time OSMCha is not available i gathered some usefull alternatives (although less “luxurous” as the original).
Changeset level:
Node/way/relation level:
This is primarily a “note to self”.
But if someone has nice additions to this list, please add them in the comments.
I never anticipated such an awesome experience at the State of The Map 2022 conference in Firenze, probably because it was my first time. It felt like I was with a family basically because we all have one thing in common; Map. Meeting people from several fields utilizing the geospatial open data was mind blowing for me. I learnt a lot from professionals with advanced expertise in using OSM data in solving global problems. I would say that after this conference, my motivation to contribute to OSM took a drastic boost and this is evident in my recent engagement on the platform. I say a big thank you to Himmanitarian Open Street Map Team for awarding me a travel grant to attend the conference.
