I had the incredible opportunity to represent Vriddhi Project – UNOPS Sri Lanka at the State of the Map 2025 Conference, where I presented a talk on “Mapping for Impact: Introducing Open Mapping to Civil Society in Sri Lanka.”

During this session, I shared how Vriddhi Project empowers civil society organizations (CSOs) across Sri Lanka to harness data and geospatial technologies for better advocacy, planning, and community engagement. Civil society often faces challenges in visualizing, analyzing, and applying data effectively. Geospatial tools allow CSOs to map resources, identify gaps, track progress, and communicate evidence-based solutions, amplifying their impact at the grassroots level.

The session resonated strongly with the audience because it highlighted real-life applications, measurable results, and the transformative power of open mapping. Participants were inspired to see how geospatial tools can turn abstract data into actionable insights that drive social change.

Thanks to State Of The Map and Open Mapping Hub - Asia Pacific for creating opportunities

I had the incredible opportunity to represent Vriddhi Project – UNOPS Sri Lanka at the State of the Map 2025, held in Manila, Philippines from October 3rd to 5th, 2025.

As part of this global gathering of open mapping enthusiasts, I conducted a hands-on workshop titled “Getting Started with QGIS: Beginner’s Guide to Mapping with Open Source Tools.” The session introduced participants to the exciting world of open geospatial technology and its potential to create positive impact at community level.

During the workshop, we explored: - OpenStreetMap (OSM) and the HOT Tasking Manager for collaborative and humanitarian mapping. - Open data sources such as Planet OSM, Geofabrik, BBBike, and Overpass Turbo. - How to select the right data type, perform data cleaning, and integrate datasets into QGIS effectively. - Practical mapping exercises that turned open data into meaningful stories and insights.

The energy in the room was inspiring — participants from different backgrounds came together to learn, question, and create. The conversations around open data, inclusivity, and sustainable development reaffirmed my belief that maps are more than visuals — they’re bridges that connect people, places, and purpose.

Heartfelt thanks to the State Of The Map 2025 organizers, Open Mapping Hub - Asia Pacific and the passionate mapping community for this enriching experience!

I’m writing my first OSM Diary entry in hopes that some local Thunder Bay, ON or Northwestern Ontario mapper(s) will find me here. When I look at the dashboard, I don’t see any local mappers that have edited during the past several years, and no local mappers that have made a single diary entry. If you do stumble across this post, I want you to know that you are not alone trying to improve OSM in Thunder Bay.

• Please feel free to reach out to me here.
• You can find my blog at Corvus Spatial.
• Contact me on Mastodon.
• I’ve also started a rudimentary list of tags and instructions I have gleaned while attempting to follow Open Sidewalks as I’m mapping sidewalks.

As the title suggests this post was precipitated by achieving one of the New Year’s resolutions I made late last December, 2024. At the time I noted that I had only made 42 edits over the ~13 years I had been signed up with OSM and tasked myself with at least doubling this. As of today, 2025-10-19, I have made exactly 84 edits that have included over 1500 individual changes to the map this past year so far. This is small potatoes compared to people that are really active editors, but I just recently started ramping up my edits in the past several weeks as I have gained confidence mapping sidewalks and crossings following a protocol that is designed to be helpful for network modelling for diverse map users.

I have some ideas to get more people contributing to OSM in Northwestern Ontario, including some mapathons and other social events. I hope to meet you soon, in-person or on the interwebs.

Bali, Indonesia’s “Island of the Gods,” is celebrated for its natural beauty and spiritual heritage, yet faces a complex array of disaster risks shaped by tectonic activity, climate variability, and human development. Located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the island is prone to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, landslides, and tsunamis. Mount Agung, a sacred stratovolcano in Karangasem, exemplifies this duality revered by Balinese Hindus and feared for its deadly eruptions, including the catastrophic event in 1963 and its reawakening in 2017. In Karangasem, disaster risk reduction has progressed through a fusion of local leadership and geospatial innovation. Participatory mapping, drone surveys, and open data platforms now support early warning systems and contingency planning. Community-based programs such as Desa Tangguh Bencana and the Centre of Excellence initiative empower residents to map hazards, design evacuation routes, and conduct preparedness drills.

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The vector tiles here have always had names in “the local language”, so Welsh-speaking parts of Wales have Welsh names shown and English-speaking parts English names:

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I have gotten into mapping farmland and rural landuse this week.

It is very fun, and I feel productive. I can color up a village that feels boring without it.

Here is a link for the map, it is the village centre of the village of Kombornia, all of the landuse around has been mostly made by me.

Introducing PowerShell.Map v1.0.0

I’m excited to share PowerShell.Map - a new module that brings interactive OpenStreetMap visualization to the PowerShell command line!

What it does

PowerShell.Map opens interactive maps in your browser directly from PowerShell commands:

# Display multiple locations
Show-OpenStreetMap Paris, London, Rome

# Show routes with turn-by-turn directions
Show-OpenStreetMapRoute -From Tokyo -To Osaka

# Create animated tours
Start-OpenStreetMapTour Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka -Duration 2

Use cases

PowerShell.Map brings OSM’s powerful features to the command line:

• Zero setup: Interactive maps with a single command - no web development needed
• Scriptable: Automate map generation from CSV, databases, or any data source
• AI-powered: Let Claude Desktop create maps via natural language

Technical stack

This project is built entirely on OpenStreetMap’s ecosystem:

• Leaflet.js for interactive map display
• OSM tiles for base maps
• Nominatim for geocoding
• OSRM for routing and directions
• Built-in HTTP server for seamless browser integration

Thank you to the OSM community for providing these excellent services!

AI integration

PowerShell.Map integrates with Claude Desktop via PowerShell.MCP, enabling natural language map visualization.

First, tell Claude to set up the module:

“Show me some fun map demos using the PowerShell.Map module”

Then simply ask for what you want:

• “Show me a tour of famous temples in Kyoto”
• “Create a route from Tokyo Tower to Senso-ji Temple”
• “Show me a walking tour of cafes in Paris”
• “Plan a hot spring tour across Japan with routes between locations”

Claude translates these requests into PowerShell.Map commands and displays the interactive map instantly.

Links:

• PowerShell Gallery: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/PowerShell.MCP
• GitHub: https://github.com/yotsuda/PowerShell.MCP

Installation

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Are you tired of mapping only highways and buildings?

Come with us and let’s map the World together 🌎

   

I am very happy to tell you about the initiative that was coordinated by me and promoted by my company, IVIDES DATA™. We organized three online meetings in September and October 2025, where I taught about mapping with the iD and the JOSM editors, from simple features, such as paths, to complex features, such as multipolygons, and also validation with JOSM, OSMCha, Osmosis and OSM Inspector.

With this initiative, we could note that people are not very familiar with editing something different of buildings and highways, which is part of countless campaigns promoted by other private companies and international NGOs operating in Brazil, where I live. To understand this movement in my country, you can read the chapter that I wrote in my last book.

I really hope these training sessions can help more people to understand the power behind the OpenStreetMap project… Yes! It is a 21 years old global project and not only a platform. Please, do not miniaturize the OSM, reducing it to its website.

And I would like to emphasize that this material is not only useful for teaching activities, but can be also a useful resource for you to apply to your projects and to inspire you to create more and better projects!

   

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Training Session #1 - Mapping ways in OpenStreetMap with iD editor

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At this session, I show how to map other type of ways, like waterways or sidewalks, with iD, the easiest editor for OSM. And some of the golden mapping rules for this kind of mapping and conceptual content to prepare you to the other two lessons.

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A LATAM community with new energy, and the SotMs have a lot to do with it

I am very happy to observe and participate in a trend that, since 2024 in Belém (Brazil), has been moving forward: a very positive streak in the OSM Latam community —the community where I am most active— around people who have managed to mobilize more people and remain united and cohesive up to the next regional State of the Map, which has already been chosen together with our Mexican community to take place in the historic center of Mexico City, in the wonderful historical building of the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso.
A very good alliance and a very good omen with the Instituto de Geografía of UNAM, a historical debt for the OSM Mexico community.

I have always been convinced that the regional level in Latam has the greatest potential to share its impactful experiences and to strengthen deeper dynamics, as seen at different times in its history. And we are precisely in one of those moments.
This same community is the one that gave birth to another of my dearest communities, Geochicas. For me, it is a nursery where important things emerge.

So it really gives me great joy to see us growing around the organization of these State of the Maps, and to see how it has happened since Belém, now in Medellín, and that it also looks promising for Mexico — a true regional collaboration, and not just a responsibility assumed by the host country.

It’s also been some time since this community used to have frequent tensions, leading to frustration and resignations caused by exclusionary visions. Curiously, a time of calm and novelty has arrived, and it feels VERY good.

For me, the State of the Map Latam Medellín has been the reaffirmation of something that could already be felt for about a year or a little more.

SotM Medellín

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We released version 11.0 of the GraphHopper routing engine.

One of the new features is a better private road avoidance:

Read more about it in the blog post:

https://www.graphhopper.com/blog/2025/10/14/graphhopper-routing-engine-11-0-released/

Thanks to all contributors!

I am so excited to have Unique Mappers RSU chapter virtual event taking off today for the next 3 days. I am also excited to have Favour and Adanna anchoring this event as part fo their internship program task

Prof .P Ede of Geography Dept and Dr . Erefama of Geology was in attendance along with so many others .

Cheers to Unique Mappers Nigeria

97376 addresses completed.

Good day, friends!

We’re excited to announce the official launch of our OSM editor.

OSMPIE — OSM Perfect Intersection Editor

This specialized editor helps users efficiently add and correct road and intersection data.

The application enables you to:

• Visualize roads and intersections based on the OSM semantic model.
• Verify tags and road structures — inaccuracies and inconsistencies are instantly visible.
• Share links to your edits for discussion and review before uploading data to OSM.
• Export render data to GeoJSON.

The OSM semantic model is almost perfect but lacks a few elements for creating truly flawless intersections. OSMPIE provides several specific tags and extensions for existing ones. Their syntax and application are detailed in the documentation, which includes compelling examples.

Explore the key features:

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It’s been a week since the State of the Map (SOTM) 2025 and this edition of State of the Map actually had a lot of firsts, it’s the first to be held in Asia and it was actually the first that I’m attending. I’ve been to a fair share of conventions and conferences but this is really my first time going to a one specifically about mapping and OpenStreetMap.

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I am currently trying to properly import bus stops data into OSM (see here for the details). I did tests upload on the dev server, but I didn’t find a way to revert a changeset : the osm-revert-scripts can get a changeset content, and seems to generate a revert changeset (the log list all created nodes and say it will delete them) but at the end don’t delete anything.

I found some tools than can act on the prod server but I’d like to test before on https://master.apis.dev.openstreetmap.org … does somenone know a good tool for this ?

Thank !

The State of the Map (SOTM) conference in Nairobi gave me a great opportunity and motivation. From that experience, I realized that even a small contribution can create a huge impact. Since attending SOTM Nairobi, I have amplified my involvement in mapping contributing More than one million edits before attending SOTM Manila.

After the Nairobi conference, I was deeply inspired to make an even greater difference through mapping. I became more active in Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) projects, trained others to map, and became an advocate for bringing more people onto the OpenStreetMap (OSM) platform. I also participated in several projects in Rwanda, such as tree planting and tree mapping using EveryDoor which is aimed at promoting climate resilience and slope stabilization. Also , I engaged in mapping urban green spaces to support environmental sustainability, Mapping of Health Facilities in Rwanda etc.

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I like to enable creating Notes in a MapLibre map. This should be possible both anonymously and while logged in. The following documents the learning steps using plain vanilla JavaScript. Improvements or feedback welcome.

In OpenStreetMap, a note allows users to leave feedback, report missing information, or provide hints directly on the map without editing it themselves. In other words, it serves as feedback or comments that other mappers can see and later act upon.

OAuth and Notes in OpenStreetMap

OAuth

OAuth on OpenStreetMap is a mechanism that allows third-party applications to perform specific actions in a user’s OSM account without requiring the user’s password.

The first step is to create a token.

Creating a Token

1. First, I log in to my account or register if you do not have one: https://www.openstreetmap.org/login
2. Then I go to the OAuth application management page:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/<your_username>/oauth_clients/new

1. Enter the application details.

A form with several fields appears, as shown in the image below. It is important that the redirect URL exactly matches the one used in your application. Special attention is required: it must match the registered app exactly, including the trailing slash. For local testing, 127.0.0.1 can be used; unlike localhost, HTTPS is not enforced here.

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Moti keshari tamrakar home

EDIT: I had to rename the tag due to the more common UK usage, but I’m leaving the title of the diary entry: osm.wiki/Tag:historic%3Dtyring_platform

[On with original text:]

There is a strange site in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny where you have a circular stone and several iron hoops in the ground, and I’ve often wondered what it is, and presumed it had something to do with tying up horses.

This week, I bought Deirdre O’Neill’s excellent book “Remnants of Our Past” (which I’m incidentally acknowledged in and which has quite a few overlaps with topics I have covered in my videos). And lo and behold, now I know! It was the site of a smithy or forge (marked on old Ordnance Survey maps), and the circular stone is a “binding stone”. Those stones, often recycled millstones were sunk into the ground near the smithy, a cart wheel placed on top with the hub in the centre depression of the mill stone, and a new iron rim placed around the wheel that way.

Obviously, I will have to make a video about them and get other people to map them. I have mapped the one in her book which is in the courtyard/ bailey at Parke’s Castle in Co. Leitrim and has a wheel placed on top permanently. I might go there in November and take a better photo.

I think the car is “conveniently” parked on top of the one I know here in this Panoramax imagery: https://panoramax.openstreetmap.fr/?s=fp;s2;p7d10fd92-62d3-4760-956c-4feca8ca6642;c64.16/-17.89/0;m18.93/52.5221343/-7.1369549;vd;bs

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In Leaflet, I really enjoy using Leaflet.Control.Layers.Tree and find its possibilities amazing. That’s why I’ve named the control I describe here Layertree. For now, I want to start small and document the learning steps I’ve taken with vanilla JavaScript. Since I don’t have much experience yet, feedback or suggestions for improvement are very welcome! I hope this post will be helpful to others who are learning as well.

Layertree Control

Base Layers

A base layer is the lowest map layer that provides the general background or geographic context — things like:

• Streets, buildings, rivers, landscapes
• Satellite imagery or simple map drawings

It serves as the foundation on which other data can be displayed as overlays (e.g., markers, routes, thematic layers).

There is already an official control, maplibre-basemaps, which, however, only supports raster sources. I want to make it possible to use vector sources as basemaps as well.

Here’s a simple code example showing how to create a custom basemap layer switcher in MapLibre GL JS to switch between different base maps (layers) — whether vector or raster.

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