Recently Malaga’s bus route number 37 was extended to Residencia Santa Clara in the hills outside the city. This part of the route had been suspended for a few years, and I knew that some stops had been relocated in the meantime. So I took the bus to the last stop to update the mapping in OpenStreetMap.

As I walked back towards the city down a steeply sloping road (pausing to tag it as sidewalk=no), I wondered if I had just visited the city’s highest bus stop. I could probably have confirmed this fairly quickly with the help of a relief map - there were only a few realistic candidates.

But I happened to be looking at the OSMnx Python package for unrelated reasons. And I had already downloaded Digital Terrain Model files covering the city of Malaga. Obviously destiny wanted me to take a library intended for analysing important questions about urban road networks, and use it to devise an over-engineered answer to my trivial question about bus stops.

… See full entry

Newark Fence Co is a townhouse complex in Rosenberger Dr, Middletown, DE 19709

Completed

Mapování není jen technická činnost, nebo odreagování pro ajťáky. V čím dál složitějším světě, kde informace často přicházejí odněkud a rychle mizí, je mapování tichým, ale vytrvalým způsobem, jak udržet racionální vztah ke krajině, ve které žijeme. Jak podpořit občanskou společnost konkrétním a užitečným příspěvkem.

Za poslední roky si potvrzuji, že mapy nejsou jen statickým záznamem reality, ale živou součástí mojí a společné přítomnosti. Jsou nástrojem paměti, sdílení i plánování rozvoje. Komerční mapové aplikace sice umožní najít nejbližší kavárnu, nebo trasu na výlet, ale zůstávají méně pozorné k jiným pozoruhodným místům: třeba alejím původních ovocných stromů, zamokřeným loukám plným života, opuštěným stavbám s potenciálem obnovy, skládkám odpadu, nebo lesním cestám, které vznikly po kalamitě. A právě tady vstupuje do hry open-source mapování – veřejně dostupné, komunitně vytvářené mapy, jako je OpenStreetMap, které odhalují, co zaostření na byznys spíše nevidí.

Jednou ze základních vlastností mapování je, že nikdy nekončí. Krajina se mění – vlivem nových staveb, rekonstrukcí, ale také postupným zarůstáním, erozí půdy, nebo prostě tím, že lidé začnou chodit jinudy. Dokumentovat tyto proměny znamená dokumentovat náš společný život. Pro mne důležité je to u veřejných projektů, které často vznikají s vizí dlouhodobého účinku. Zatímco stavby ve městech bývají v pozornosti tím více, čím je patrnější jejich ekonomický účel, tak krajinné prvky – jako geoparky, památné stromy, říční nivy nebo zaniklé povrchové doly – nesou jinou kvalitu kulturní paměťi místa. Mapováním jim dáváme šanci být viděny a sdíleny.

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💕 osm.org/relation/1155266/history/177
💕 https://osm.mapki.com/history/relation/1155266#version-1

AlhamdullilahirRabil’aalaameen

27 July 2025 at 09:30

I added several extra parts to Hamel Street, which I had to name, because apparently there hadn’t been a name available on it. I added several houses, and will add more soon.

이 부근에 거주하고 계시거나, 이 부근에 대해 잘 알고 있으신 분들의 맵핑 부탁드립니다.

I added data to the Mauritania mapping for the agricultural component of the UN. Most of these appear to have been a result of the shape of the landscape, around the farmland.
I think that next time I will use the Josm tool.

A style using the Shortbread vector tiles is now live on OpenStreetMap.org. There’s been some minor issues with the roll-out, but nothing that caused me to panic. I’ve been taking a couple of days to unwind and relax, as this has been a major milestone.

A feature like this includes work across multiple projects, so people have been asking where to report issues.

1. Any issues that are present on the OpenStreetMap website but not on the vector demo page should be reported to openstreetmap-website. Some issues reported have been with attribution controls and strange panning at extremely high zooms

2. Style issues (e.g. colors, symbology, fonts, etc) are handled by the VersaTiles Colorful and VersaTiles Eclipse styles. Both can be found in a VersaTiles repository.

3. What is supposed to be in the tiles is defined in the Shortbread Vector Tile Schema 1.0. There are lists of what features should appear, and where they should appear.

4. The code responsible for what is actually in the tiles is contained in the Street Spirit repo. If something is missing that is supposed to be in Shortbread, this needs fixing. This also handles simplifcation and other parts of generating the tiles.

5. The software that serves the tiles is Tilekiln. If the wrong HTTP headers are being sent, this is where you report it.

6. The chef code pulls everything together on the OSMF servers. It’s unlikely you should report an issue directly here.

7. Some font rendering issues are part of MapLibre GL JS. This is most likely to come up in Southeast Asia.

일주일 후에 선재도 매핑을 마쳤습니다. 재밌는 사실: 근처에 있는 5개의 작은 섬은 이전에 지도에 표시된 적이 없는데, 이는 OSM 지도에 존재하지 않는 섬이 한국에 수백 개나 있다는 것을 의미합니다. 즉, 아직 해야 할 일이 많다는 뜻입니다. 서쪽 해안에 있는 섬들을 지도에 표시할 계획입니다.

커뮤니티의 조언을 모두 참고했지만, 도로에 정확한 이름을 붙이는 방법을 여전히 찾지 못했습니다. 그래서 집 주소를 완벽하게 표시할 수 없었던 겁니다. 커뮤니티의 누군가가 제가 한 작업을 보고 도로와 주소를 알아낼 수 있다면 정말 좋을 텐데요.

Many OSM validators will report an error if a waterway crosses a highway without some additional tags or structure at the intersection, such as a bridge, culvert, or ford. That makes a lot of sense if you’re working in an area where the roads and waterways are already well mapped and where the waterways are actually wet. Those assumptions might work well in Europe, for example. They don’t work well in the Southwest United States.

Of the possible resolutions, adding a node with ford=yes is the easiest, so many mappers will do this to satisfy the validator – sometimes without looking closely at the situation. Then you get results like this, where the ford=yes nodes are meaningless.

If you get a warning from a validator that a waterway and highway intersect and need additional tagging, there are some things to consider first:

… See full entry

I like to map trees. Last year, I wrote a diary about trees mapping, a wiki page to document tagging of Italian monumental trees tagging, a trivia thread about the tallest trees in the database etc. In this diary, I’d like to focus on quality assurance (QA) checks we can perform on tree data. Many of these checks have been turned in MapRoulette challenges in my Tree Validation project.

Measures 📐

• Circumference

The circumference=* tag is used to describe the circumference of a tree’s trunk at a height of 1.3 metres above the ground, with the implied unit of measure being metres. Therefore, circumference=2.3 describes a trunk with a circumference of 2.3 metres.

According to the Guinness World Records, the greatest circumference for a tree is 43 metres. Trees with circumferences exceeding this value are likely errors. Often people forget that metres is the standard unit, so they tag using centimetres, creating giant trees. E.g. they tag circumference=650 instead of circumference=6.50.

• Height

The height=* tag is used to describe the height of a tree in metres. Therefore, height=15 describes a tree that is 15 metres tall.

Hyperion is a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) in California that is the world’s tallest known living tree, measuring 115.92 m. Trees with height exceeding this value are likely errors.

• Specific species measures

You can refine the above checks using known limits for individual species. For example, according to monumentaltrees.com, the biggest circumference for a Tilia cordata is 12.81 (instead of 43) and the tallest specimen is 41.60 (instead of 115.92).

• The “slenderness ratio”

The height-to-circumference ratio can be considered a form of “slenderness ratio”: lower values indicate stocky or stout trees, while higher values indicate slender or spindly trees. This can be helpful to find wrong circumference or heights.

… See full entry

Die korrekte eingabe von Öffnungszeiten in OSM ist sehr hiflreich, damit Anwendungen wie Navigationssysteme, Karten-Apps oder lokale Verzeichnisse die Daten zuverlässig nutzen können. Nur korrekt formatierte Angaben können maschinell gelesen und verarbeitet werden. Fehlerhafte oder uneinheitliche Eingaben führen dazu, dass diese Informationen ignoriert oder falsch dargestellt werden. Das schmälert nicht nur die Qualität der Daten, sondern auch das Vertrauen in OSM-basierte Dienste.

Wiki eintrag dazu

Tool

Hallo, wir haben eine Übersichtskarte der Fahrradreparatur-Säulen sowie der E-Bike-Ladestationen für Deutschland erstellt. Leider auf GoogleMaps und möchten diese jetzt lieber auf OSM weiterführen, haben aber nicht die Kenntnisse, wie wir die bereits vorhandenen Einträge überführen können bzw. ob dies überhaupt erlaubt ist. Kann uns jemand unterstützen oder Tipps geben?

Slowly working to edit and add information about public infrastructure, along with surveillance information.

Heute vormittag kam in einem OSM-Channel die Frage auf, wie man den Bereich ermitteln kann, den die Feuerwehr beim Löschen rund um einen Hydranten abdecken kann. Die Annahme war dabei, dass die Feuerwehr bis zu 250 Meter lange Schläuche legen kann – aber nur entlang von Wegen, also nicht „kreisförmig“ rund um den Hydrantenstandort. Dort, wo die Feuerwehr mit ihren Schläuchen nicht hinkommt, bietet sich ein größeres Risiko im Fall eines Brandes, oder im Umkehrschluss ein Potential für zusätzliche Hydranten.

Abb. 1: Von Hydranten versorgte und nicht versorgte Bereiche in Schrems, Niederösterreich. Schwarz hervorgehobene Gebäude und straffierte Bereiche liegen außerhalb der Erreichbarkeit von Hydranten (wobei im Nordwesten vermutlich noch keine Hydranten gemappt wurden).

… See full entry

I haven’t written anything in this diary yet, so I decided to just do that.

I have no idea any more when I first heard of OpenStreetMap. What I do still remember is the time where I didn’t know how to make changes myself. I noticed this mostly back around 2015 when I was using a GPS navigator based on OSM data, and often it didn’t bring me to the precise location because of missing house numbers. This wasn’t too bad, I was in the general vicinity, and I could mostly figure out where to go from there, but it was annoying, and I do remember two occasions where the same street was actually separate parts, making it hard to find out where I needed to be. I was thinking that it would be nice if I’d knew how to add those house numbers. Some I encounter along the way wouldn’t be much, but if everyone does a bit, a lot can be done was my idea.

Somewhere in 2021, I met Pieter who is very active in the Belgian OSM community, and he was nice enough to give me a deep explanation of how it all works and what tools there are and what I can do to contribute. I decided to write this explanation down in a blog post, and from that moment on, I started to contribute to OSM. I was also pleased to hear that the house number problem I was having, was mostly a problem of the past, as the government released the needed data under a compatible open license, and people of the community are making sure the data is put to good use.

… See full entry

Vietnamese

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Al Nabi Colony, Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan Sells groceries, snacks, and daily household items. This is a physical and actively operating business.

April 15–19, 2025, proved to be a special landmark in my mapping experience when I participated in the OSM Spring Mapathon 2025, sponsored by Youth Innovation Lab. I am excited to announce that I won the Beginner Category for 22,922 map changes!

This acknowledgement is meaningful to me—not only as a personal achievement, but also as a personal reminder of my growth since first hearing about OpenStreetMap (OSM) during 2021. At that time, OSM was merely another name, still learning its way into my periphery. Little did I realize the meaning that OSM would take on as an important part of my learning and contribution trajectory.

I committed a certain amount of time each day during the Mapathon to updating map data. Anything from adding roads, perfecting building footprints, or fixing map glitches and errors. Each change adding to a sense of satisfaction that somewhere someone would benefit from finally going through something that they could map out into a community, and their community becoming visible, sharing their data.

The event itself was inspiring. While Youth Innovation Lab was the primary host, the Mapathon brought together fellow mappers from across the land, and beyond. Each day’s schedule created an exciting and competitive environment that made staying sedimentary contagious.

Though I did not expect to win the Beginner Category, I am even more so grateful. The motivation of this experience is further proof that with the appropriate due diligence, sprinkling curiosity and learning, anything is possible!

HOT#OSM#Youth Innovation Lab# OSM Spring Mapathon2025