Woo-hoo, I just noticed I have reached over 100k Map changes!

Today i mapped the village of Mushnik with a population of 259.

“#100villagesin100days #day26”

Day 25 and 1/4 of the challenge done!

Today I mapped Kosovë and I found out that we have not one but two villages name Kosovë in Albania.

Kosovë has a population of 931 according to 2011 population census.

“#100villagesin100days #day25”

Took me two days to finish Zdojan because yesterday had almost no time at all to map.

Zdojan is a village in Diber with a population of around, 1477 (as per 2011 population census).

“#100villagesin100days #day24”

Today I mapped a village named Vesqi located in Baldushk, close to the capital.

I did not know there was a reservoir in Baldushk so another one to visit added to my list.

“#100villagesin100days #day23”

Today I mapped the tiny village of Kaftall.

Kaftall does not have many houses, but they are spread all around the hill in quite a big area.

I also moved around a little and mapped some building on the surrounding areas.

“#100villagesin100days #day22”

Travelling to Thessaloniki today and got a 10-hour bumpy bus drive ahead.

Mapping while travelling by bus is definitely a huge challenge, but I think I managed to map Hajdaraj.

I think the village includes another area close to it, but somehow it is separated in a different residential area. Ill double check to make sure I got it all.

“#100villagesin100days #day21”

I can not believe it that it has already been 20 days into the challenge and I have mapped over 30 villages so far. For the next five days I will be in Thessaloniki with a group of Wikimedians from the Balkans and I hope I manage to map every day, but if I don’t, I promise I will catch up.

If somebody following this want to catch up and learn or contribute to enriching Wikipedia, Commons and Wikidata from 26 to 30 June, reach out and ill let you know where you can find us.

Today I mapped Perkola and the surroundings. Perkola was partially mapped, so I moved around the map and mapped some other areas too.

“#100villagesin100days #day20”

Today I mapped Leminot a village with a population of 860, in Korçë.

“#100villagesin100days #day 19”

Today I mapped two villages and their surroundings because the villages were small and partially mapped. The villages mapped today were Frashër and Jaran, one in south Albania and one in North Albania.

“#100villagesin100days #day 18”

Today I mapped the village Shtëpëz in Gjirokaster. The location where the village is pointed is full of abandoned, ruined buildings. You can check here.

After mapping all the ruined buildings I moved downhill, closer to the river because it made sense that the village might have moved closer to the water source and indeed I found tens of houses scattered in the hill and closest to the river. I mapped this area, which seems to be the new location of the village.

“#100villagesin100days #day17”

I thought i would never finish this village. Kafaraj is a big farming village surrounded by greenhouses located in Fier and with a population of around 1120.

“#100villagesin100days #day16”

Kuzhnen was almost fully mapped, so I only had to add some buildings. I also surveyed the surrounding area and added a few more structures, but there wasn’t much left to map.

After that, I decided to explore around my hometown and added buildings in some small villages. Still not satisfied, I moved down the list and also mapped Kotorr.

I didn’t know we had a village named Kotorr in Elbasan. The only Kotorr I knew of was in Montenegro.

I have also been mapping in Kosovo and North Macedonia lately and have been enjoying the process.

“#100villagesin100days #day15”

Ever been so tired that you miss a day without even noticing? :P

In my head, I had already mapped the village for yesterday, and I was wondering why it was showing “No Changesets”. Had to refresh multiple times before realizing that I had indeed not mapped the village.

Anyway, today I mapped Lapulec a village in Mallakaster, Fier and the surroundings.

Following the suggestion from a comment on one of my previous diary entries i am also adding link to the mapped area osm.org/node/728420122#map=17/40.62743/19.73867 .

I am not sure how to add images in here. Will get there!

“#100villagesin100days #day14”

It took me 4 days to finish mapping this village because I could only map for 5–10 minutes every day for the past 4 days. It was fun, though, mapping during the coffee breaks while volunteering on WordCamp Europe.

Contributing to an open source project does not mean contributing to code. There are so many ways to do from translation, meetups, volunteering, etc. My favorite one, especially for WordPress, is to volunteer for WordCamps and this one was my second. It is tons of fun contributing to bringing together around 3000 participants in a 3-day event from all over Europe and more.

Next year will be my third year contributing to WordCamp Europe and I already applied to join the organizing team. Can not wait to start working on it.

Good news is from tomorrow, I will be continuing my personal challenge and keep mapping!

“#100villagesin100days #day13”

Today I mapped Lavdar i Korçës which according to OSM data has a population of around 1152. The village was not very big, and I was quite motivated today, so I moved to another village close to Lavdar.

Polenë, according to OSM data, has a population of around 752. Did not fully map it, but I think I might have mapped around 80% of the buildings. To my surprise, the streets were mapped pretty well.

I do hope I can continue to map daily for the next 4 days because I will be volunteering at WordCamp Europe in Torino. If I do not manage to map, I will catch up when I get back home.

“#100villagesin100days #day12 “

Today i mapped two villages from the list, Mokricë-Zleushë and Tenë.

Mokricë-Zleushë is a small village in Përmet. It is a tiny, remote village which also seems quite far away from the other villages around.

Tenë is a small village in Rrëshen. Another tiny, remote village far from the main road.

I would like to check how far from these remote villages are the closest schools, medical centers, hospitals, main streets and the closest city. I know it is possible leveraging OSM data and most probably QGIS or even JOSM (not sure about this). If anyone got some good tutorials and would not mind sharing, i would deeply appreciate it. Unfortunately, i do not have time currently to deep dive into either of those apps.

“#100villagesin100days #day11”

Kastriot is a village located in Peshkopi, and it has a population of around 6000, according to 2011 population statistics.

Three years ago, I was tasked to send volunteers for a door-to-door campaign in support of a local independent candidate from the miners for the parliamentary elections. Almost every village in the region was visited, but I wish I had the knowledge of OSM I have today. It would have been so much help. I spent so much time on the maps back then that these villages feel like home, even though I have not visited most of them yet. I am glad, I am finally mapping this villages now.

“#100villagesin100days Day10”

I was in a hurry today and I was hoping on a small village, but Stropckë proved to be quite big. Stropckë is a village with a population of around 1200.

“#100villagesin100days #Day9”

Qerret (18/40.56564/20.40550) was pretty well mapped but while searching for Qerret, many villages with the same name came up, so i decided to map a couple of them.

• Qerret (Kavaje) 18/41.21660/19.52769, mapped most of it.

• Qerret (Gramsh) 18/40.90477/20.16848, mapped most of it.

• Qerret (Elbasan) 18/41.21761/20.19745, added some buildings.

I just realized that instead of adding the tag “#100villagesin100days” under Hashtags i have been adding under Sources… I do not know if there is any way to correct the mistake.

“#100villagesin100days #day8”

I found out Faqekuq is one of tens of villages surrounding my hometown, so I got excited. Faqekuq is a tiny village with a very small population and just a bunch of houses, so I proceeded mapping also the closest villages, Kapinovë and Turbohovë.

Kapinovë is a beautiful village and I have visited it many years ago when I was a teenager. I am so happy I got to add it to the map. To me, it is very important having this small, almost fully abandoned villages on the map because they should not be forgotten.

Movie suggestion: Bacurau

Sorry for the spoiler!!

One thing that hit me the most from this movie is that the government deleted the place for the map to make it disappear.

“#100VillagesIn100Days #Day7”