After some discussion we at Open Mapping Hub Asia-Pacific have decided not to limit both you and ourselves with weekly fixed time slots, and to support you on your OSM-related issues in an in-need basis.

So, whenever you need support on an OSM-related issue, feel free to contact me by sending a message, an e-mail or by filling out the appointment form and I will get back to you quickly. We can discuss the topic in writing, or set up a short call depending on our calendar availabilities and tackle the challenge together. I’d be very happy to support you in your learning process, and for most of the times the topics discussed are acting as refreshers for me, too.

Here are what was discussed during the past week:

Discussion Topics:

• ”How can I download OSM data within a specific area of interest using Overpass Turbo?”

You can directly write the name of the region as available in its name=* tag in OpenStreetMap in your queries since overpass syntax supports geocoding.

Suppose that you are interested in the parks of Istanbul. Writing leisure=park in Istanbul to the wizard will generate you this query:

[out:json][timeout:25]; {{geocodeArea:Istanbul}}->.searchArea; ( node["leisure"="park"](area.searchArea); way["leisure"="park"](area.searchArea); relation["leisure"="park"](area.searchArea); ); out body; >; out skel qt;

You’ll see the use of geocoder to define the search area in the line:

{{geocodeArea:Istanbul}}->.searchArea;

• ”Cannot get data within the area of interest.”

One reason for it might be that your area of interest might be having the same name with other places in the World. It might be that the query brings data for a different place with the same name, or an empty dataset.

Another reason might be that the place name would consist of multiple words like New Orleans. In that case, while using the wizard, you must write the place name in apostrophes like:

leisure=park in ‘New Orleans’

This is also valid for values in tags or usernames which consist of multiple words as well.

Alternatively, the Export Tool allows you to specify areas of interest as geometries. So if you have your area of interest in GeoJSON format, you can go ahead and export OpenStreetMap data using the Export Tool as well.