OpenStreetMap Blogs

iD tagging schema is a recording of various information about OpenStreetMap tagging. It is done in format allowing it to be both machine-readable and human-readable.

There are various ways how it can be improved, some relatively complex, some very easy.

We have list of things that should be fairly easy to implement

If anyone is interested in contributing - it could be a good start and I can promise quick review, if they would be implemented by someone.

This changes will be quite easy to write, it is not a programming - it is rather editing a relatively simple config file. But they still need to be tested, which actually takes most of the time. And if editing config file is not a very scary task and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON#Syntax is not terrifying, then you have a good chance to be able to do it.

Review afterwards should be quick like for another group of simple tasks

If you would be interested in helping with iD tagging schema, and you have any amount of technical ability… But this supposedly simple tasks are not obvious, feel free to ask here for help and I can guide you to your first PR.

Even if you never did anything with git/github etc, this could be a good start. And maybe you would later implement a more complex task

Hello OpenStreetMap community,

My name is Micheal Kaluba (OSM username: Michea Kal), and I am honored to be nominated for voting membership in the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT).

My journey with HOT began around 2016 through the Malaria Elimination Project and continued through my work with OpenStreetMap Uganda, where I served as a Field Mapping and GIS Training Associate for about six years. I currently serve as the Executive Director of Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda.

Over the years, I have been involved in mapping, field data collection, project management, capacity building, and community development initiatives across Uganda and South Sudan. Through collaborations with OpenStreetMap Uganda, Wikimedia Uganda, and other partners, I have contributed to humanitarian mapping projects, community training, and open data initiatives.

I have also participated in several international mapping conferences and community events, including State of the Map conferences in Germany, Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, the United States, and Kenya. These experiences have strengthened my commitment to open mapping, local leadership, and community-driven development.

To me, HOT represents the power of volunteers, communities, and organizations working together to make geographic information accessible where it is needed most. I believe in HOT’s mission and would like to contribute more actively to its governance and future direction as a voting member.

As a voting member, I hope to support inclusive decision-making, accountability, and stronger representation of communities from underrepresented regions. I also look forward to contributing to community and training initiatives within HOT.

I believe one of HOT’s greatest challenges is balancing global humanitarian impact with strong local community ownership. Addressing this requires continued collaboration with local OpenStreetMap communities, investment in capacity building, and support for community-led initiatives that create sustainable, long-term impact.

Thank you for your time and for the opportunity to be part of this amazing community. I look forward to continuing to contribute to HOT and the broader OpenStreetMap ecosystem.

This is a summary of the problem and a proposal regarding inconsistent treatment of greenery in sidlisko areas in Bratislava, Slovakia. Some arguments stem from my own experience with mapping these, some echo those I saw in various changeset comments. The following text is likely not exhaustive and I invite anyone concerned with the matter or area in question to join in discussion.

The subject

Greenery areas around blocks of flats on Bratislava’s sidlisko areas are specific. They’re typically grass, but often also with trees, benches, bins and play structures within them, all of it somewhat regularly maintained. I’ll call these areas panelak greenery for the remainder of this text.

The motivation

I began micromapping Karlova Ves and simply found that when adding detail up to splitting landuse on roads, using leisure=park becomes problematic. While leaving it mapped as huge blobs of leisure=park is an option, it’s a very rough approximation which doesn’t describe these areas in detail, which then defies the point of micromapping.

 The problem

The subject as described above implies usage identical to that of a park, and indeed, leads one to consider that leisure=park is technically the right tag for such areas. It is also apparent that these areas are not parks in the traditional sense of being compact areas dedicated to leisure and intended for the wide public. Since this is a bit of an instinctive classification, I’ll try to break it down into particularities. What differentiates these areas from parks follows:

• Parks imply use by wide public. While panelak greenery areas aren’t normally gated and access to them is not restricted, it is rare that people from further away than a few houses visit these areas for leisure. This is unlike traditional parks. The extreme example would be Sad Janka Krala, which gets visited by people from all over the city, but even smaller parks see visitors from a wider radius. When panelak greenery is utilised for leisure, it’s usually by the closest panelaks’ inhabitants. Others usually just pass through, and the inhabitants, in fact, also mostly use these areas to get to their houses rather than for leisure. A good example is the neat areas between the single panelaks on Lackova. Locals also often decorate and improve these areas on their own, which may deter unrelated people to use them.
• Some of panelak greenery areas are too small to be considered a park in any sense. When micromapping, this creates a mess of parks and not-parks (grass, shrubbery) on the map, while in reality these areas do form compact wholes with the rest of the greenery. For example these triangles near Kuklovska.
• Some of panelak greenery is in close proximity with major roads and so even if it is park-like, it doesn’t provide any leisure and is not used in such a way. For example this area near Tilgnerova.

These are mostly problems which stem from tagging these areas as parks. Other problems may arise when tagging these areas as landuse=grass, which is the other closest match:

• Grass implies a simple grass surface. A park is expected to contain trees, shrubs and some amenities. Grass is not, so if one does not map trees separately within grass areas, they’re missing from the map rather than being present implicitly.
• If one does decide to map trees on these grass areas, a problem arises when there are multiple trees growing in disorganised fashion, making it impossible to place them as single nodes without an aerial map shot in winter, which still isn’t ideal, or GNSS with RTK correction, which is scarce among mappers. Tagging these as landuse=forest is not correct, since a forest retains a somewhat natural floor. Panelak greenery areas don’t, the trees are surrounded by mowed grass and anything that drops from the trees, be it branches or leaves, is also collected by the municipal services.
• The wiki, while it is descriptive and certainly not a holy grail, states grass use beyond that associated with roads is controversial. Though I’m not convinced of this, I’m including it because the wiki is an important resource.

The proposal

My proposal is simple.

• Since tagging these areas as parks is problematic, I’d tag these areas primarily as landuse=grass, because that’s a primary characteristic common for pretty much all of them. Even when not micromapping, using leisure=park should be avoided to keep the distinction between actual parks and panelak greenery.
• An attempt to map trees should be made, as these are a major visual and functional element and it’s desirable to know of their (lack of) presence for both orientation and planning, when using the map. Individual trees and tree rows should be used. I’d personally speak for using natural=tree_group for groups of trees, even though the tag only has about 8000 uses. It is, however, documented on the wiki and usage is rising. This tag perfectly solves the problem with individual trees being too difficult to place.
• Smaller details like shrubbery, flowerbeds, benches and bins can be left to the micromappers. While implied in parks, they’re likewise often present on roadside greenery, so little information is lost when not including them by implication.

I’d like to hear your opinion on this, but I’m also prepared to simply harmonise landuse in Karlova Ves in this fashion if no protest is made in a longer period of time.

From 28th April to 1st May 2026, I attended the Geospatial World Forum (GWF) 2026, representing the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The GWF is an annual forum attended mostly by companies and public administration delegates in the geospatial domain. Henk Hoff, all the way back in 2013, was the last OSMF representative attending the GWF, when we received the award for “Geospatial Content Organisation of the year 2012”. So it was long overdue that OSM’s voice could be heard in this professional setting.

This year’s theme was Sovereignty, Economy, Society. A theme greatly fitting to OSM’s mission: to collaboratively create open geospatial data, by everyone and for everyone. Data that allows reuse -including commercially-, and which runs on open source software. The forum included several days of talks and panels, and a tech and exhibition fair, where companies and governments could showcase their solutions and make business deals. OSM is integral to the solutions of many of the companies exhibiting, so directly talking with representatives of these organizations is relevant, to explain how important it is to contribute back to the ecosystem, so it can be kept sustainable over time.

Sovereignty, but not isolation, was one of the main ideas mentioned during the event. As we need to collaborate in an evolving and uncertain world, both politically and also technologically with the rise of AI agents, while keeping the infrastructure that powers so many use cases up and running, and stable for the years to come. OSM and the open-source software that powers it can be key to this, as shown by the recent decision by the French government to use a fork of OSM’s core infrastructure as its choice to renew the technology powering its Cadastral systems.

“OSM is more vibrant the more diverse its community is”, this is the main idea I shared at the panel I took part in. A panel that, paradogically, could and should have been more diverse. We need more, and more diverse, people and organizations to know how important it is to contribute to OSM and its ecosystem, so we can together build an accurate representation of our world. Contribution to the ecosystem does come in various forms: data, resources (people, money, time), community building, improving the technology that powers the project, and more. In that sense, communication goes a long way, and it is something that we are improving on at the Foundation, and we should keep aiming for. Thanks to Geospatial World for allowing us to participate in the forum, so the OpenStreetMap voice could be heard in these professional events.

Hello,

Below I have compiled recent news related to the OSM Foundation (OSMF) board’s work. Most of these are or are going to be publicly documented on the OSMF website, so if you follow the Atom feed for the board meetings’ page, you can skip this.

What this diary entry is

It contains my personal selection and recollection of recent OSMF board-related updates.

What this diary entry is not

It is not intended to include details or all OSMF board-related updates. For these, you can refer to the published board minutes. This entry has not been reviewed by the OSMF board.

Why?

Informing the OSMF members is important. The board minutes describe in detail what was discussed in public board meetings, but many people don’t have time or follow the Atom feed for the OSMF’s website recent changes. At some point, I was creating annual or more frequent updates for the whole Foundation, which was a lot of work during a short period, while other tasks were ongoing.

I’m posting this experimentally, and I’m going to see whether I can continue to do so semi-regularly.

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May 2026 OSMF board updates

The board had a meeting on Thursday, 28 May 2026.

Draft minutes are here and they include minutes of the Chairperson’s report by Craig Allan and the Secretary’s report by Dani Waltersdorfer.

Some highlights are below.

Disputed territories

Rewriting the information for officials and diplomats of countries and entities with disputed territories
Craig Allan (OSMF Chair) has drafted a revision of the document for officials and diplomats of countries and entities with disputed territories, which was approved in September 2013, and which is referred to by the Data Working Group (DWG) and the OSMF. Craig circulated the draft to the board for feedback and suggested to Simon Poole (former OSMF Chair, former LWG Chair and present during the May 2026 board meeting) to review the updated policy document.

OSM data licensing

Creating a Memorandum of Understanding template regarding OSM data licensing for government users and an MoU for the US Department of Transport
Craig Allan (OSMF Chair) is drafting a memorandum of understanding (MoU) template regarding OSM data licensing for government users. This was triggered by Dani Waltersdorder’s contact with Derald Dudley from the US Department of Transport.

Communications

OSMF moderation team’s report for the last 12 months
Allan Mustard (OSMF moderation team Chair and former OSMF Chair) published the OSMF Moderation team’s report for the last 12 months and notified the board. One lifetime ban was issued. The OSMF board passed a motion to formally thank the OSMF moderation team for their work.

Proposed OSM course at Geoversity
The OSMF board is considering creating an OSM course and hosting it at Geoversity. It was noted by Laura Mugeha that OSMF should avoid duplicating content, as there are already courses provided and maintained by the OSM community for free, such as LearnOSM, TeachOSM, YouthMappers Academy, UN Mappers Learning Hub, and HOT Training Center. Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, who had the initial contact with Geoversity during the Geospatial World Forum 2026, will follow up.

OSM communities

Grant to GeoChicas
The board approved a grant of GBP 250 to GeoChicas, for one of their meetings and their in-person workshop, around the time of the State of the Map Latin America 2026 conference.

Closed session

The OSMF board had a closed session at the end of the May 2026 board meeting, regarding a personnel matter. You can find more details here.

Next OSMF board meeting

The board will have a face-to-face meeting from 5-7 June 2026 in Madrid, at TomTom’s office (Corporate Member). The meeting will be facilitated and the agenda has not been set yet. Unfortunately, Brazil Singh will be unable to attend, due to Visa issues.

The next public OSMF board video-meeting will take place on 25 June 2026, at 13:00 UTC at https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/dor-2cd-qah-rim and is open to OSMF members. The agenda will be here, approximately one week before the meeting, and will be announced on osmf-talk@openstreetmap.org, which is the OSMF members’ mailing list. The public archive of the mailing list messages is here.

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The current OSM Foundation board members are:
Brazil Singh 🇧🇩
Craig Allan 🇿🇦
Daniela Waltersdorfer 🇵🇪
Héctor Ochoa Ortiz 🇪🇸
Laura Mugeha 🇰🇪
Maurizio Napolitano 🇮🇹 and
Roland Olbricht 🇩🇪.

Read their biographies and find out their officer and other roles. Former board members are listed here.

OSMF board members are volunteers.

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Minutes of public OSMF board meetings are on the OSMF website.

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Thanks to the weeklyOSM volunteers, including those who attend the OSMF public board meetings, as well as the community members who submit news to the weekly :)

21/05/2026-27/05/2026

[1] Several animal-related infrastructure features | © imagico | map data © by OpenStreetMap Contributors.

Community

• Ari Alvarez explained how to find speed limit data for highways, trunk roads, and primary roads in the USA.
• Raquel Dezidério Souto published on her OSM User Diary, an article entitled "About us": two years of experience as editor for Brazilian Portuguese at weeklyOSM, some highlights from this period , with part of the news published in weeklyOSM over the past two years, to celebrate her second anniversary of editing this language. She thanks her colleagues: Thayná Assis, Adriele Bernardo, Lívia Rios (ex members), and the actual co-editors: Paloma Moreira, Amanda Silva, Matheus Magalhães, Vitor Sousa, and Francisco Theodoro.
• Lux Schuss noted that there are several issues with the walk=no tag.
• The Unique Mappers Network participated in the volunteer orientation training for the Port Harcourt Tech Expo 2026, in preparation for the upcoming event. During the expo the organisation is set to contribute through digital mapping activities and demonstrations of the OpenStreetMap platform.
• Christoph Hormann shared a curated selection of reference materials regarding the FOSSGIS membership fee structure, offering a transparent look into the association’s own perspective on the issue.
• Anne-Karoline Distel would like to write a tutorial on mapping ‘lifting stones’. Her OSM diary contains more about her ideas and some open questions.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• The OSMF Moderation Team has posted its fourth annual report to the OSMF website. The Team moderates the talk and osmf-talk lists plus three channels on the OSM Community forum (general, general:tagging, and foundation).

Local chapter news

• Katja Haferkorn and Oliver Rudzick reported ► that 33 active members of the German-speaking OpenStreetMap and FOSSGIS communities gathered ► in Essen for the FOSSGIS-OSM Community Meeting, held from 30 April to 3 May. The next FOSSGIS-OSM Community Meeting is scheduled to take place from 2 to 4 October 2026.
• The Panoramax instance hosted by OSM-France is celebrating its third anniversary. With 50 million photos already published, it is becoming a victim of its own success and will soon reach its current storage limit. That is why the association is calling for donations to increase its storage capacity and purchase GPUs to provide a better photo blurring service.
• What began as a personal fresh start with OSM whilst on holiday gradually developed into a revival of the OpenStreetMap community in Fulda, Germany. A user story for you to read.

Events

• State of the Map Baltics 2026 will be held at the University of Latvia on 4 June as part of the Baltic Geospatial Information Technology Conference 2026.

Maps

• ^[1] Christoph Hormann has added several animal-related infrastructure features to the OSM-Carto alternative colours map style.
• Leni_v has launched urbanistmap.org, a web platform that tracks urban projects worldwide by showing all OpenStreetMap data tagged as proposed, planned, or under construction.
• leekyuhaiambox-ops reported that the ‘geoinformatic‘ application, hosted on PythonAnywhere, utilises OpenStreetMap data to assess neighbourhoods based on accessibility to key amenities. The platform conducts a multi-facility analysis by calculating the reachability of various services, including schools, hospitals, markets, parks, gyms, pharmacies, libraries, and cafés, to help users evaluate potential places to live.

OSM in action

• vic-tor-menta tooted that Erin Brockovich has set up a website where people can report planned data centres in the US to coordinate resistance movements. A map with an OSM background shows data centres that are already in operation and those that have been reported by the public. In France, there is a similar map showing existing data centres from OSM, created ► by ‘Le nuage était sous nos pieds’ (The cloud was under our feet).

Open Data

• Tobias reported that the Panoramax project has developed an AI model capable of recognising German traffic signs from street-level imagery.

Software

• The Bike Streets team developed a new tool that automatically determines whether changes to OpenStreetMap data could potentially affect Bike Streets maps.
• Altilunium has built ‘Terjangkau: Neighborhood Explorer’, a map-based tool designed to help users discover, categorise, and measure distances to neighbourhood facilities and points of interest within a one-kilometre radius of any selected location. Powered by OpenStreetMap data, the platform enables interactive exploration of nearby amenities based on clicked map coordinates.
• Open Energy Transition and MapYourGrid have developed Grid2Poster, an app that generates print-ready posters of electrical transmission grids using data from OpenStreetMap.
• HeiGIT released an application that calculates pedestrian routes based on high-resolution shadow data, steering people through shaded corridors and away from sun-exposed roads. The routing itself runs on openrouteservice, HeiGIT’s open-source routing engine, with OpenStreetMap road geometries as the underlying road network.

Programming

• Manbhav Sugla has been selected for the 2026 Google Summer of Code to develop support for a DuckDB backend in Martin TileServer. As part of the project, Sugla will also publish diary entries documenting the development progress.

Releases

• Bikerouter has launched version 2026.13, introducing a ‘Route Inspector’ tool that enables users to view information about the route and its segments directly on the map.
• OSRM-frontend version 0.5.0 has been released, introducing several new features and bug fixes.
• Rphyrin has released Altilunium LocationPad v26.5.22, introducing support for long-form place descriptions. This update allows users to store extended paragraphs about locations within this personal geographical knowledge base.

OSM in the media

• The Seoul Economic Daily reported ► that the Chungnam Culture and Tourism Foundation held a cycling tour, in conjunction with a train trip, on 16 and 17 May. The ride route map distributed by the foundation used OSM as the background map, but unfortunately it is not attributed.

Other “geo” things

• Jonn Elledge explained how difficult it is to properly measure the length of a river.
• Time reported that Iran is threatening to charge annual fees for fibre-optic cables running beneath the Strait of Hormuz, putting several submarine cable systems at risk, including Asia-Africa-Europe 1 and Southeast Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 5. Experts warned that Southeast Asian hubs could experience severe latency spikes when communicating with European hubs.

Upcoming Events

Country	Where	Venue	What	When
	Madrid	Libreria Santander aluche	Tarde con OpenStreetMap: charla, taller y paseo	2026-05-28
	Hannover	Kuriosum	OSM-Stammtisch Hannover	2026-05-28
			OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting	2026-05-29
		Balatonszéplak	Mapping Party Széplakon	2026-05-29 – 2026-05-31
	Catania	CreationDose Srl – Via Antonino di Sangiuliano 197	Incontro sul free software	2026-05-30
	Bad Harzburg	Bad Harzburg	Braunschweiger OSM-Treffen Mappingtour: Zusammen Bad Harzburg mappen	2026-05-30
	Thiruvananthapuram	Gandhi Park, East Fort	Mapping Party at East Fort	2026-05-30
	Coimbatore	Sarvanampatti, Coimbatore	Mapping Party @ Coimbatore	2026-05-31
		Bayonne Médiathèque centre-ville	Cartopartie Bayonne	2026-06-02
	Braunschweig	Stratum 0	Braunschweiger Mappertreffen im Stratum 0 Hackerspace	2026-06-02
	Madrid	Online	Mappy Hour OSM España	2026-06-02
	Salzburg	Bewohnerservice Elisabeth-Vorstadt	OSM-Treffpunkt	2026-06-02
			Missing Maps London Mapathon (with Training) Beginner Friendly (Online) [eng]	2026-06-02
	Praha		Kvartální pivko Praha	2026-06-03
			OSM Indoor Meetup	2026-06-03
	Brno		Kvartální OSM pivo	2026-06-03
	Stuttgart	Stuttgart	Stuttgarter OpenStreetMap-Treffen	2026-06-03
	Rīga	House of Nature	State of the Map Baltics 2026	2026-06-04
	Angers	L’Arrière Train, 3 rue de Frémur, Angers	Angers : Rencontre mensuelle OpenStreetMap	2026-06-04
sy	بلدية دمشق القديمة	Online	OSM Syria Solidarity Mapathon #6	2026-06-05
		[online]	Capacitação OSM 2026 – IVIDES DATA ® – Plugins QGIS para OSM	2026-06-05
	Piazzola sul Brenta	Villa Contarini, Piazzola sul Brenta (PD)	OpenStreetMap per i ciclisti al BAM!	2026-06-06
	नई दिल्ली	Jitsi Meet (online)	OSM India – Monthly Online Mapathon	2026-06-06
			Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne – CartONG [fr]	2026-06-08
	臺北市	MozSpace Taipei	OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #89	2026-06-08
	Madrid	Online	Mappy Hour OSM España	2026-06-09
	Hamburg	Voraussichtlich: "Variable", Karolinenstraße 23	Hamburger Mappertreffen	2026-06-09
		temporärhaus	OSM-Stammtisch Ulm/Neu-Ulm	2026-06-09
			iD Community Chat	2026-06-10
	Madison	Madison, Wisconsin	State of the Map US 2026	2026-06-11 – 2026-06-13
	Bochum	Das Labor, Alleestraße 50, Bochum	OSM-Treffen Bochum	2026-06-11
	München	WikiMUC	Münchner OSM-Treffen	2026-06-11
	Chennai Corporation	Koyambedu Market	Come map Koyambedu Market, Chennai with us on June 14th, 2026!	2026-06-14
	København	Cafe Bevar’s	OSMmapperCPH	2026-06-14
	Delhi	Chaayos, Paschim Vihar West, Delhi	OSM Delhi Mapping Party No.30 (West Zone)	2026-06-14

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by MatthiasMatthias, Raquel IVIDES DATA, Strubbl, Andrew Davidson, barefootstache, derFred, izen57, s8321414.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

I came to know about this brilliant piece of software about a year ago. This has made me feel fresh, and happy. At first I was just roaming around the world, seeing different things like roads, buildings, parks etc.. They felt very different from google maps, because they were highly detailed. With information such as road lanes, speed limits, road surface, type, who made it, when was it made, when was renovated and stuff. I found a goldmine of data, but for maps). Then I saw my area. Well, I was really disappointed that nothing was there except the main road. Literally not even the names of the villages. Comparing to other countries it was nothing,like comparing a super-car with crying baby! My heart was demolished. So, I decided to make my area great in OSM.

But here is a twist, Whatever you think I added 1st is not true. The 1st thing I added was the Transmission line. IDK why I added it fist, but after that I added a lot of things like, Roads, Streets, parks, Trees, local power distribution lines and poles, with sewage line, the pond, also added businesses, corrected road names, resolved 2 to 4 year old messages. And now my village is the most detailed village in my district until someone else decides to map his area.

Before ending this post. I want to say: Happy Mapping! :)

My engagement with OpenStreetMap began through my involvement as a YouthMappers volunteer, where I developed a strong interest in the power of open geospatial data for development and humanitarian action.

Calvin Amevienku is my name, a YouthMappers volunteer regional ambassador to Ghana. I have had the opportunity to support and connect student chapters, promote mapping activities, and encourage youth participation in open mapping across my region and beyond. This role has deepened my understanding of how collaborative mapping contributes to capacity building, digital transformation and community resilience.

Through my continued involvement with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), I have contributed to humanitarian mapping efforts that support data availability for underserved communities and crisis response. These experiences have strengthened my appreciation for the role of volunteers in building and maintaining high-quality open geographic data.

Being nominated as a 2026 HOT Voting Member is both an honour and a responsibility that aligns closely with my work as a YouthMappers Regional Ambassador. It represents a transition from active contribution to meaningful participation in governance and decision-making within the HOT community.

If selected, I aim to represent the perspectives of YouthMappers and regional contributors, particularly from Africa, ensuring their voices are reflected in HOT’s decisions. I am especially interested in strengthening youth engagement, supporting local chapters, and advancing capacity building initiatives that sustain long-term participation in open mapping.

I am committed to contributing constructively to HOT’s governance processes and to strengthening collaboration among HOT, YouthMappers, and local mapping communities worldwide.

Cheers!

Для того, щоб будівля була схожа на реальну її краще малювати по даху, потім дивитися на два зображення супутника (наприклад ersi) і перетягувати полігон до фундаменту.

Для того что бы здание походило более на реальное его лучше рисовать по крыше, затем смотреть на два изображение спутника (наприклад ersi) и перетаскивать полигон к фундаменту.

To make the building look more like a real one, it is better to draw it on the roof, then look at two satellite images (for example, ersi) and drag the polygon to the foundation.

I recently discovered this. You can survey for Open Street Map easy if you use your camera with location tags turned on. Take lots of pictures of anything that could be added or updated while you shop, walk or drive. Then later you can go through your pictures and use the location to find where they were taken. Compare the location tag against satellite images, and add everything you find useful in your photos.

I recently went on a trip and I’m adding businesses, addresses, stop signs, speed limits to OSM this way and its really helpful. Ive been able to add so much more details that I didn’t even know I saved in my photos. Try it!

من لوکیشنم رو ثبت کردم از زمان ریسولو نوتم هم گذشته ولی هنوز سرچ میکنم نمیاد؟ کسی میدونه چرا؟

前言

新街口作为南京乃至华东地区最重要的商业核心之一，其 OSM 数据长期存在建筑轮廓粗糙、地下空间缺失、路径拓扑混乱等问题。为此，我启动了一项针对新街口地块的系统性精细化更新计划，并在此记录操作步骤与我所制定的制图标准，供社区参考与讨论。

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一、建筑物轮廓与属性细化

所有建筑物的轮廓均参照最新卫星影像与实地核查进行重新描绘或修正，具体标准如下：

• 轮廓贴合建筑基底，避免过度简化或偏移；
• 补充 building:levels、height、name、start_date 等属性；
• 对于综合体建筑（如德基广场、金鹰国际），区分裙楼与塔楼，分别以 building 、building:part进行三维建模。

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二、地下商业空间的划定

新街口地铁站（地铁1号线×2号线换乘）向四周延伸出大量地下通道，直接连通周边各大商场的负一层。凡与地铁站地下通道直接联通的商场负一层空间，均按以下标准标注为地下建筑区域：

• 使用 location=underground 或 layer=-1 标记相关区域；
• 地下商业区域的范围多边形参照实际通道出入口与商业空间边界绘制；
• 与地铁站直接相连的通道本身，以 tunnel=yes + layer=-1 的 highway=footway 表示；
• 暂不确定是否联通的区域，暂以 fixme=需核实地下联通情况 标注，留待后续实地核查。

目前已完成地下空间划定的区域包括： 新街口百货商店 B1、金陵中环 B1

待补充区域： 金鹰国际购物中心 B1、德基广场 B1、中央商场 B1、南京国际金融中心 B1 等。

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三、路径拓扑标准

这是本次更新中最容易出错的部分。为确保路网拓扑的清洁与导航规划的准确性，我制定了以下强制性规则：

3.1 各类道路不得混接

在主要路口，行人路径（highway=footway/pedestrian）、自行车道（highway=cycleway）、机动车道（highway=primary 等） 三者之间，原则上不建议建立直接连接节点，除非现实中存在明确的路权交汇点（如行人过街横道节点）。

3.2 跨图层要素禁止连接

任何两个不属于同一 layer 值的路径要素，不得出现共享连接节点，以下情况除外：

允许连接的要素	说明
highway=steps	阶梯，连接不同楼层/层级
含 conveying=yes 的 highway=footway	自动扶梯
highway=elevator	电梯

除上述垂直交通要素外，地面路径与地下路径一律不得出现连接点。

此规则同样适用于在导航计算中看似”无害”的连接（例如建筑物轮廓与步行道路相切）。只要两个要素不属于同一图层，路径要素与非路径要素之间同样须保持几何上的独立性，仅在视觉上相邻即可。同一图层内的要素按正常规则连接，不受此限制。

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如有异议或建议，欢迎在变更集评论或讨论页留言。

Happy mapping! 🗺️

The main improvement in this release is the support for shared corner fillets. Now, when two open ways meet at a junction, the rounding applies across both ways as a single continuous operation. This feature was suggested by Paul Berry — thank you for the idea.

In addition to this new feature, the plugin is now faster due to improved interaction performance during dragging and preview. I also added several internal fixes to improve stability, mainly regarding rendering and session handling.

FilletTools is available in the JOSM plugin repository.

You can join the discussion here.

For the moment the wiki only describes the tagging of protected heritage in the four Belgian regions that get the heritage=4 tag. In Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels, the heritage agencies also maintain a (more comprehensive) inventory of heritage next to a list of protected heritage items. (the situation in the German speaking region isn’t well known by me). For example in Wallonia, the heritage inventory lists 51,000 items, including 9,000 protected items.

This is a proposal to follow the practice of heritage agencies and assign a tag to all inventoried heritage objects: add a tag for heritage objects inventories: heritage=5 * This will make the heritage items included in an inventory identifiable and searchable. Until now not protected inventoried heritage in Belgium only get the tag historic=x as other “old” items. * A tag for items that are only in their inventory is already in use by OSM France and also Italy, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Hong Kong also have different types of the tag heritage. (In Belgium we use heritage=4 for protected heritage as some other countries but a lot of other countries use heritage=2 for protected heritage. The used number is specified per country). * The wiki now describes heritage as “Site/building/object registered by an official heritage organisation”.

In the last few years, there have been a number of changes at the heritage agencies in Flanders and Wallonia.

Wallonia The agency AwaP (Agence Wallonne du Patrimoine) has, next to the ‘’Patrimoine culturel immobilier classé’ for protected heritage, an inventory of that is now called IRP Inventaire Régional du Patrimoine (until recently it was named IPIC Inventaire du Patrimoine Immobilier Culturel, a name that can still be found in many OSM entries). It is interesting that heritage objects in OSM include a link (with a URL) to the Walloon IRP inventory, as this contains a detailed description and history of the item, as well as a reference to its status as a protected and exceptional site, if applicable. That description and history appear only in this inventory and not in the inventory of protected heritage, which only provides a very limited justification for the decision to protect the site. With the proposed additional tag for heritage, items in the IRP inventory get heritage=5 but protected items still get heritage=4.

Brussels The situation appears to be similar to that in Wallonia with an ‘Inventaire du Patrimoine Architectural Bruxellois’and ‘Le registre du patrimoine protégé’.

Flanders 1. There is a scientific inventory of heritage objects “Erfgoedobjecten” containing a fairly detailed description and history of the item. There are no legal consequences of being included in that inventory. It would be a good idea to include that link at the item in OSM so that anyone interested can find the explanation. The URL contains the word “erfgoedobjecten” and links to the description, with links to the “Aanduidingsobject” and its protection if applicable. 2. Indicative objects “Aanduidingsobjecten” are recognised architectural heritage and imply legal consequences that can be limited or extended if they are protected heritage. The proposal is to assign in OSM the tag heritage=5 to these heritage features and heritage=4 to protected heritage features. Tagging the URL to the Aanduidingsobject is less valuable as it includes very limited information about the object. The URL to the Erfgoedobject is more interesting. Including the ID number in the tagging is valuable to trace back a heritage item. There are heritage objects that are not listed as “Aanduidingsobject” mostly it are landscape features but it can be architectural feature. If applicable they can get the tag heritage=6.

German-speeking Community The situation isn’t known to me.

Question about this propasal: Are there objections or remarks against the proposal to add the tags heritage=5 and heritage=6 for heritage tagging in Belgium? Are there objections or remarks to make a wiki about heritage tagging in Belgium as described above and change menu’s in JOSM and eventually ID?

In films like Angels & Demons, Rome never feels flat. The city unfolds through narrow streets, archways, inner courtyards, and massive stone buildings rising above the crowd. You remember not only where the characters go, but the space around them — the height of the facades, the passages through buildings, the way entire streets disappear beneath arches before opening into another square.

But on most digital maps, cities lose that depth. Buildings become flat shapes, reduced to outlines that show where something exists, but not how the city actually feels. For mappers, this is where building data starts to matter.

In OpenStreetMap, buildings can contain far more than a simple outline. Mappers can describe a building's height, the number of floors, where different sections begin, and even passages running through the structure. OsmAnd uses this data to transform flat map geometry into detailed 3D cityscapes. Buildings gain height, complex structures become distinguishable, and streets start to feel closer to the real places they represent.

Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash

How Buildings Become 3D​

Every building on an OpenStreetMap-based map starts as a polygon, a flat outline drawn around the footprint of a structure. That outline tells the map where the building is, but nothing about its shape in space.

The transformation begins with a single tag: building=*. Once a polygon carries this tag, OsmAnd knows it represents a structure and can extrude it vertically. But without height information, every building gets the same default height — a uniform cityscape that feels more like a model kit than a real place.

This is where height tags change everything. When a mapper adds height=* with a value in meters, OsmAnd uses that exact figure to determine how tall to render the building. If the height is not known precisely, building:levels=* works as a practical alternative: OsmAnd treats each level as approximately 3 meters, so a five-story building tagged building:levels=5 renders at around 15 meters. For buildings that don't start at ground level, min_height=* defines where the walls begin, useful for elevated sections, overhangs, or structures built above a passageway.

The result is immediate. Buildings stop being identical flat shapes and start reflecting what actually exists: a two-floor residential house next to a nine-floor apartment block, a low market hall beside a tall church tower. The map begins to carry real spatial information.

For Rome specifically, this matters a great deal. The city mixes centuries of architecture at wildly different scales. A single block might contain a Renaissance palazzo, a medieval tower remnant, and a modern addition — all at different heights, all worth mapping accurately.

More Complex Structures​

Not every building is a simple box. A cathedral might have a nave, a transept, and a tower, each rising to a different height. The Pantheon in Rome combines a cylindrical rotunda with a colonnaded porch, two distinct volumes at different heights within a single structure. A shopping arcade might combine a low glass atrium with a taller surrounding structure. In OpenStreetMap, these buildings can be mapped using building:part=*, which allows a single structure to be broken into sections, each with its own height and shape.

When a building is split into parts, OsmAnd renders each section independently. A part tagged with height=15 sits lower than a neighboring part tagged with height=40, and the result on the map reflects the actual silhouette of the building rather than a single averaged block. For complex structures, this is the difference between a recognizable landmark and a generic shape.

To group parts into a coherent whole, mappers use a type=building relation. The relation connects the outer outline of the building with its individual parts, giving OsmAnd the context it needs to render them together correctly. Without this relation, parts and outlines can conflict, producing rendering errors or overlapping geometry.

Passages Through Buildings​

Archways, vaulted passages, and covered walkways that cut through a structure are a common feature of older European cities. On a flat map, a road that disappears beneath a building and reappears on the other side simply looks broken.

The tag tunnel=building_passage solves this. Applied to the way passing through a building, it tells OsmAnd that the road or pedestrian path runs beneath the structure rather than being blocked by it. The result is a visible opening in the 3D building model, a gap in the wall through which the street continues.

For mappers, the building outline and the road through it are mapped as separate elements. The way carries tunnel=building_passage, the building polygon sits above it, and when both are correctly tagged, the opening is rendered automatically.

Viewing 3D Buildings in OsmAnd​

To enable 3D buildings, go to Menu → Configure map → Topography → 3D buildings. Once the option is on, tilt the map by placing two fingers on the screen and swiping up. Buildings appear only at higher zoom levels, where individual structures are distinguishable, and fade in and out smoothly as you zoom or pan.

One detail worth knowing: if a POI or a navigation point falls inside a building, OsmAnd highlights the corresponding structure automatically. This is particularly useful in dense urban areas where a single address can be hard to locate visually. Instead of scanning the block, you see exactly which building you need.

Adjusting 3D Display​

Several settings control how 3D buildings look and perform on the map. Color lets you choose between the default map style or a custom color set separately for day and night mode (custom color is a paid feature). Visibility controls the opacity of buildings using a slider from 10% to 100%, with 50% set by default. Lower values keep roads and labels readable beneath the structures, higher values make buildings more visually dominant.

Both settings open a separate preview screen where you can see the changes on a live map before applying them. If you want to return to the original values, a Reset to default option is available in the app bar.

For performance, two additional options are available. Level of detail switches between Low and High geometry complexity. High detail also enables the fade animation when buildings appear and disappear. View distance controls how far from the camera buildings are rendered, either Near or Far. Using both High and Far improves visual quality but may affect performance and battery usage.

3D Cityscapes Challenge​

For a deeper dive into all the settings and technical details, feel free to explore the 3D Buildings documentation. Once you are ready, take this quick interactive quiz to see how well you can navigate urban 3D environments!

Rome, like any city with centuries of layered architecture, rewards the effort of accurate mapping. When the data is there — heights, parts, passages — the map stops being a diagram and starts feeling like the place itself. Tilt the map, walk the streets, and see what careful mapping looks like from the inside.

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My original plan last friday was to follow NCN1 from South Shields to Sunderland. It's part of the world that I used to know well. But that was a long time ago, and I've never cycled it. I decided to begin in Blyth and map out a route that I thought was long enough to push my longest ride up by a few miles, reach the centre of Sunderland and still get home in time for tea. Unfortunately my plan was scuppered by a late start and slow progress against a headwind. I had to accept that I needed an alternative. So when I reached Tynemouth I decided to attempt a couple of different Tyne crossings and fit in a visit to the Saxon Church of St Paul's in Jarrow.

On entering the Tyne Pedestrian Tunnel I had a brief conversation with a walker who was completing a five-day trip along the Hadrian's Wall National Trail. On leaving the tunnel, I met a cyclist who had ridden that day from Cockermouth. The GPS satellites kicked in as we exited the tunnel. His Bike Computer showed a trip distance of 100 miles. Mine showed 13.5 miles. I was impressed and he was polite.

Along the coast there were plenty of people about, enjoying a nice warm day at the start of a bank holiday weekend. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood. For a while I was frustrated that my original  plan hadn't worked out. However, it turned into an interesting day. I'm now a bit more familiar with routes between Tynemouth and North Shields, and between Jarrow and South Shields. Not disappointing at all.

Versão em português

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On May 26, 2026, I completed two years as editor of the Brazilian Portuguese edition of weeklyOSM, which marked the return of the publication in that language after a hiatus of many years. Since I joined the team, the Brazilian edition has been published without fail, and I am grateful to my colleagues - Thayná Assis, Adriele Bernardo, Lívia Rios (ex members) and actually Paloma Moreira, Amanda Silva, Matheus Magalhães, Vitor Sousa and Francisco Theodoro, who have been my companions on this journey. As a record for posterity, I would like to highlight some events that have energized the global community, once again demonstrating the scope of weeklyOSM, which covers a wide variety of topics related to OSM and always values collaboration and openness.

 

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I am part of this collaborative project, which has been publishing news about the OpenStreetMap community since its inception as Wochennotiz back in 2010. If you’d like to learn more about this history, visit the EU/MychOSM Project page and tune in to the Lightning Talk I’ll be giving at State of the Map Africa 2026, taking place June 26–28. You can also review my presentation weeklyOSM-stats for the global State of the Map 2025 event, held in Manila, Philippines, from October 3–5. At this year’s event, I plan to present the updated results of the statistics and continue to take the pulse of this beloved publication of the global OSM community.

 

If you’d like to know about my observations — based on several years of working with mappers, developers, academics, NGOs, companies, and other stakeholders in this ecosystem, I invite you to read the chapter Overview of OpenStreetMap Usage and the Brazilian Case (in pt), available on Zenodo.org, which was published in my book from last year, Case Studies in Collaborative and Participatory Mapping (in pt), available on the Editora VIDES website.

 

My debut was in weeklyOSM 727, published on June 30, 2024. From that issue, I can highlight two major milestones in the OSM world: the 10th anniversary of OSMCha and Level0’s support for the HTTPS protocol, with OAuth 2.0 authentication, which became the standard authenticator for OSM. At that time, I was beginning a collaboration with the Pedagogical University of Maputo (Mozambique), an institution with which I maintain ties to this day.

 

OSMCha GUI © 2026 Tinus666. Link

 

Also in 2024, I would like to highlight the 15th anniversary of OpenHistoricalMap, reported in weeklyOSM 732 on July 25, 2024.

 

Appearance of the first version of OHM © 2013 OpenHistoricalMap Link

 

In weeklyOSM 735, on August 25, 2024, there was a report on uMap, the result of an effort by Brazilian mappers — especially ftrebien — to map roads with no access (due to blockages, destruction, or construction) on OSM during the major disaster that occurred in Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) in 2024.

 

Map of roads that were blocked, destroyed, or under construction due to the floods in Rio Grande do Sul © 2024 ftrebien Link | Dados do mapa © 2024 OpenStreetMap contributors.

 

Also, a presentation of an ETL service by Séverin Ménard, as part of the Free Francophone IDE, which allows users from 28 French-speaking countries in the Global South to access OSM data, with tags in English or translated into French, as reported in weeklyOSM 749, on December 1, 2024.

 

Labels translated into French © 2024 Séverin Ménard, Les Libres Géographes. Link

 

In weeklyOSM 752, published three weeks later on December 22, 2024, the OpenStreetMap Operations Team announced its plan in response to the critical failure at the ISP that suspended OSM services between December 15 and 17, 2024, due to a failure in one of the routers, which affected the servers in Amsterdam and Dublin. In weeklyOSM 753, on December 19, 2024, it was reported that WaterwayMap would begin to include a data export feature. That same issue featured Unmapped Places of OpenStreetMap as its cover image, a web map created by Pascal Neis that highlights the need for improved mapping in many parts of the world.

 

WaterwayMap © 2025 amandasaurus | Dados do mapa © 2025 OpenStreetMap contributors. Link

 

Unmapped places of OpenStreetMap © 2024 Pascal Neis | Dados do mapa © 2024 OpenStreetMap contributors. Link

 

In weeklyOSM 754, on January 5, 2025, with the start of the new year, it was announced that weeklyOSM would begin publishing regularly on the social network Bluesky. This decision reinforces efforts to prioritize open and collaborative social networks, which has always been the weekly’s philosophy.

 

In weeklyOSM 770, on April 27, 2025, it was reported that Minh Nguyễn had been appointed as the OSMF’s new Core Software Development Facilitator. Minh Nguyễn has extensive experience and participates in active communities within the OSM ecosystem, such as OSM US and the OpenHistoricalMap project. Nearly two months later, in weeklyOSM 779, on June 29, 2025, it was reported that a problem had occurred with the minute-by-minute update of OSM data diffs, leading the OpenStreetMap Operations Team to take the main server offline until the problem was resolved, which took approximately 16 hours between June 26 and 27.

 

In weeklyOSM 796, dated October 26, 2025, it was announced that the full version — a compilation of the seven modules of the OpenStreetMap Mapping Training Course , promoted by the IVIDES.org and its company, IVIDES DATA, is now publicly available. Currently, the number of registrants has already exceeded 500 people, reaching various countries around the world, especially within the Portuguese-speaking community, with a reach extending overseas.

 

uMap of the cities of origin of those enrolled in the first class of the OpenStreetMap Training Course © 2023 IVIDES.org Institute; uMap | Map data © 2023 OpenStreetMap contributors. Link

 

The following month, in weeklyOSM 797, on November 2, 2025, the HeiGIT Institute announced the Climate Action Navigator, an interactive dashboard that allows users to model and visualize CO₂ budgets so that cities can stay within global warming limits (e.g., +1.5°C), in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement. Initially, the solution was limited to a few cities in Germany: Berlin, Bonn, Hamburg, Heidelberg, and Karlsruhe, but HeiGIT currently has plans to expand to other countries around the world. The following week, in weeklyOSM 798, François Lacombe (aka InfoReseaux) and Andrien Pavie reported on the update to Podoma, an engine for generating statistics on thematic contributions to OSM, which has enabled the monitoring of project collaboration worldwide. The engine is at the heart of some OSM-FR community projects, but has a global reach, such as MapYourGrid. In the same issue, Daniele reported that the project had been adapted by OpenStreetMap Italy, where it is called Progetto del mese.

 

Climate Action Navigator © 2025 HeiGIT. Link.

 

osmit-podoma (Progetto del mese) © 2025 Daniele, OpenStreetMap Itália | Dados do mapa © 2025 OpenStreetMap contributors. Link.

 

In weeklyOSM 805, on December 28, 2025, on the eve of New Year’s Eve, the WD-NearbyItem web map, created by rphyrin, was featured. It displays Wikidata items in the vicinity of a location.

 

WD-NearbyItem © 2025 rphyrin|Dados do mapa © 2025 OpenStreetMap and Wikidata contributors. Link

 

In weeklyOSM 809, dated January 25, 2026, the beautiful poster of the map of lighthouses in Japan was featured as the highlight image. It can be reproduced using the workflow created by Mashford Mahute, utilizing the QGIS and the QuickOSM plugin. The following week, in weeklyOSM 810, MapToPost was featured, which can be used to create custom posters.

 

Map of lighthouses in Japan © 2026 Mashford Mahute | Map data © 2026 OpenStreetMap contributors. Link

 

In weeklyOSM 811, on February 8, 2026, OSM Kids! was featured — a charming web map that shows amenities geared toward children. In the same issue, it was reported that TrickyFoxy published a retrospective highlighting all the feature additions to better-osm-org made throughout 2025.

 

OSM Kids! | © 2026 MapLibre, OpenFreeMap, OpenMapTiles | Map data © 2026 OpenStreetMap contributors. Link

 

better-osm-org dark map © 2025 deevroman | Map data © 2025 OpenStreetMap contributors. Link

 

In weeklyOSM 815, on March 8, 2026, it was reported that the StreetComplete app would begin displaying a message on Sundays with a link to the current issue of weeklyOSM. In that same issue, it was reported that the OSMF board had formally submitted comments on a proposal by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to standardize the Overture Maps Foundation’s Global Entity Reference System (GERS). The following week, in weeklyOSM 816, it was announced that OpenSeaMap would now feature vector tiles.

 

Highlighting the lighthouses and buoys icons on OpenSeaMap with vector tiles © 2026 OpenSeaMap | Map data © 2026 OpenStreetMap contributors. Link

 

In weeklyOSM 822, on April 27, 2026, it was reported that stricter blocking rules are now being enforced on Overpass servers due to issues with mass access and large data requests.

 

In weeklyOSM 825, dated May 17, 2026, the incredible six-year journey of David Smith and Andy Allan in designing the OSM-based map for Pedometer++, a walking tracker for Apple watchOS, was reported. And in weeklyOSM 826, published the following week, I would highlight osmprj, whose main maintainer is Travis Hathaway — a new command-line tool (alpha version) for managing OSM data with PostgreSQL, based on osm2pgsql and osm2pgsql-themepark.

 

Walking tracker for Apple watchOS | © 2026 David Smith; Andy Allan | Map data © 2026 OpenStreetMap contributors. Link.

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weeklyOSM logo © 2015 weeklyOSM - Wikimedia Commons

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Self explanatory, but I am doing a bit of micromapping and working on accurate representations of buildings and parks in the roodepoort area, close to where I work.

English version

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Em 26 de maio de 2026, completei dois anos como editora do weeklyOSM para português do Brasil, o que permitiu a volta da publicação nesse idioma, após uma lacuna de longos anos. Desde que me integrei à equipe, nunca falhou a publicação da edição brasileira e eu agradeço aos colegas que são companheiros nesta jornada - Thayná Assis, Adriele Bernardo, Lívia Rios (ex members) and actually Paloma Moreira, Amanda Silva, Matheus Magalhães, Vitor Sousa and Francisco Theodoro. Como registro da memória, gostaria de destacar alguns fatos que animaram a comunidade global, exemplificando novamente a envergadura do weeklyOSM, que cobre uma grande variedade de temáticas relacionadas ao OSM e sempre prestigiando a colaboração e a abertura.

 

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Participo deste projeto colaborativo, que tem publicado notícias sobre o mundo do OpenStreetMap desde a sua fundação, como Wochennotiz, ainda em 2010. Se quiser conhecer mais sobre esta história, visite a página do Projeto EU/MychOSM e acompanhe a palestra breve que ministrarei no State of the Map Africa 2026, que será realizado entre os dias 26 e 28 de junho. Você pode ainda rever a minha apresentação weeklyOSM-stats para o evento global State of the Map 2025, realizado em Manila, Filipinas, entre 03 e 05 de outubro. No evento deste ano, pretendo mostrar os resultados atualizados da estatística e continuar auscultando o coração desta publicação querida da comunidade OSM global.

 

Caso queira conhecer mais sobre as minhas apreensões, fruto de alguns anos convivendo com mapeadores, desenvolvedores, acadêmicos, ONGs, empresas e demais atores deste ecossistema, convido a ler o capítulo Panorama da utilização do OpenStreetMap e o caso brasileiro, disponível no Zenodo.org, que foi publicado no meu livro do ano passado Estudos de caso em mapeamentos colaborativo e participativo, disponível no portal da Editora IVIDES .

 

Minha estreia foi no weeklyOSM 727, publicado em 30/06/2024. Desse número, eu posso destacar duas grandes conquistas no mundo do OSM: o aniversário de 10 anos do OSMCha e o suporte do Level0 ao protocolo HTTPS, com autenticação no OAuth 2.0, que passou a ser o autenticador padrão para o OSM. Naquele momento, eu estava iniciando uma cooperação com a Universidade Pedagógica de Maputo (Moçambique), instituição com a qual mantenho laços até hoje..

 

OSMCha GUI © 2026 Tinus666. Link

 

Ainda no ano de 2024, posso destacar o aniversário de 15 anos do OpenHistoricalMap, noticiado no weeklyOSM 732, em 25/07/2024.

 

Visual da primeira versão do site do OHM © 2013 OpenHistoricalMap Link

 

No weeklyOSM 735, em 25/08/2024, foi noticiado o uMap resultante do esforço de mapeadores brasileiros, especialmente, de ftrebien em mapear no OSM as vias sem acesso (por causa de bloqueio, destruição ou obras) , durante a grande última catástrofe ocorrida no Rio Grande do Sul (Brasil) em 2024.

 

uMap das vias bloqueadas, destruídas e em construção, devido às inundações ocorridas no Rio Grande do Sul © 2024 ftrebien Link | Dados do mapa © 2024 contribuidores do OpenStreetMap.

Também a apresentação de um serviço ETL, por Séverin Ménard, no âmbito da IDE francófona livre, que permite aos usuários de 28 países francófonos do Sul Global, acessar os dados do OSM, com suas etiquetas em inglês ou traduzidas para francês, como noticiado no weeklyOSM 749, em 01/12/2024.

 

Etiquetas traduzidas para o francês © 2024 Séverin Ménard, Les Libres Géographes. Link

 

No weeklyOSM 752, publicado três semanas depois, em 22/12/2024, foi noticiado o plano do Time de Operações do OpenStreetMap, face à falha crítica ocorrida no ISP que suspendeu os serviços do OSM, entre 15 e 17/12/2024, devido à falha em um dos roteadores, o que afetou os servidores de Amsterdã e Dublin. No weeklyOSM 753, em 19/12/2024, foi noticiado que o WaterwayMap passaria a incluir um recurso para exportação de dados. Esse mesmo número mostrou o Unmapped Places of OpenStreetMap como imagem em destaque, um mapa web de autoria de Pascal Neis, que mostra a necessidade de melhoria do mapeamento em muitos locais do mundo.

 

WaterwayMap © 2025 amandasaurus | Dados do mapa © 2025 contribuidores do OpenStreetMap. Link

 

Unmapped places of OpenStreetMap © 2024 Pascal Neis | Dados do mapa © 2024 contribuidores do OpenStreetMap. Link

 

No weeklyOSM 754, em 05/01/2025, com o advento do ano novo, foi anunciado que o weeklyOSM passaria a ser publicado regularmente na rede social Bluesky. Essa decisão reforça os esforços em privilegiar as redes sociais abertas e colaborativas, a qual sempre foi a filosofia do semanário.

 

No weeklyOSM 770, em 27/04/2025, foi noticiada a nomeação de Minh Nguyễn, como o novo Core Software Development Facilitator da OSMF. Minh Nguyễn tem uma grande experiência e participa de comunidades ativas no ecossistema do OSM, como o OSM US e o projeto OpenHistoricalMap. Praticamente dois meses depois, no weeklyOSM 779, em 29/06/2025, foi noticiada a ocorrência de um problema com a atualização das diffs de dados do OSM, ao nível de minutos, levando o Time de Operações do OpenStreetMap a deixar o servidor principal off-line até que o problema fosse resolvido, o que levou ~ 16 h, entre os dias 26 e 27 de junho.

 

No weeklyOSM 796, de 26/10/2025, foi noticiada a disponibilidade pública da versão completa - compilação dos sete módulos, do Curso de Capacitação em Mapeamento com OpenStreetMap, promovido pelo Instituto IVIDES.org e sua empresa, IVIDES DATA. Atualmente, o número de inscritos já passou de 500 pessoas, chegando a vários países do mundo, especialmente, da comunidade lusófona, com alcance além-mar.

 

uMap das cidades de origem dos inscritos na primeira turma do Curso de Capacitação em OpenStreetMap © 2023 Instituto IVIDES.org; uMap | Dados do mapa © 2023 contribuidores do OpenStreetMap. Link

 

No mês seguinte, no weeklyOSM 797, em 02/11/2025, o Instituto HeiGIT anunciou o Climate Action Navigator, um painel interativo permite modelar e visualizar o estoque de CO₂ para que as cidades se mantenham dentro de limites de aquecimento global (e.g., +1,5°), de acordo com o Acordo Climático de Paris. Inicialmente, a solução estava restrita a algumas cidades da Alemanha: Berlim, Bona, Hamburgo, Heidelberg e Karlsruhe, mas o HeiGIT tem planos atuais de expansão para demais países do mundo. Na semana seguinte, no weeklyOSM 798, foi noticiada por François Lacombe (aka InfoReseaux) e Andrien Pavie, a atualização do Podoma, uma engine para geração de estatśticas relativas às contribuições temáticas no OSM, que permitiu monitorar a colaboração de projetos em todo o mundo. A engine é o coração de alguns projetos da comunidade OSM-FR, mas de abrangência global, como MapYourGrid. Na mesma edição, Daniele informou que o projeto foi adaptado pelo OpenStreetMap Itália, sendo chamado de Progetto del mese.

 

Climate Action Navigator © 2025 HeiGIT. Link.

 

osmit-podoma (Progetto del mese) © 2025 Daniele, OpenStreetMap Itália | Dados do mapa © 2025 contribuidores do OpenStreetMap. Link.

 

No weeklyOSM 805, em 28/12/2025, às vésperas do Réveillon, foi noticiado o mapa web WD-NearbyItem, criado por rphyrin, que mostra os itens da Wikidata nas proximidades de um local.

 

WD-NearbyItem © 2025 rphyrin|Dados do mapa © 2025 Contribuidores do OpenStreetMap e da Wikidata. Link

 

No weeklyOSM 809, de 25/01/2026, foi publicada como imagem em destaque, o lindo pôster do mapa dos faróis do Japão, que pode ser reproduzido com a rotina criada por Mashford Mahute, utilizando o SIG QGIS e o plugin QuickOSM. Na semana seguinte, no weelyOSM 810, foi noticiado o MapToPost, que pode ser utilizado para criar pôsteres personalizados.

 

Mapa dos faróis do Japão © 2026 Mashford Mahute | Dados do mapa © 2026 contribuidores do OpenStreetMap. Link

 

No weeklyOSM 811, em 08/02/2026, o OSM Kids! recebeu destaque, um mapa web encantador que mostra amenities voltadas ao universo infantil. Neste mesmo número, foi noticiado que TrickyFoxy publicou uma retrospectiva, destacando todas as adições de recursos ao better-osm-org, realizadas ao longo de 2025.

 

OSM Kids! | © 2026 MapLibre, OpenFreeMap, OpenMapTiles | Dados do mapa © 2026 contribuidores do OpenStreetMap. Link

 

better-osm-org dark map © 2025 deevroman | Dados do mapa © 2025 contribuidores do OpenStreetMap. Link

 

No weeklyOSM 815, em 08/03/2026 foi noticiado que o app StreetComplete passaria a exibir uma mensagem, aos domingos, com link para o número do número atual do weeklyOSM. Nesse mesmo número, foi informado que a diretoria da OSMF enviou formalmente comentários sobre uma proposta do Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) para padronizar o Global Entity Reference System (GERS) da Overture Maps Foundation. Na semana seguinte, no weeklyOSM 816, foi anunciado que o OpenSeaMap então passava a contar com tiles vetoriais.

 

Destaque para os ícones de faróis e bóias no OpenSeaMap com tiles vetoriais © 2026 OpenSeaMap | Dados do mapa © 2026 contribuidores do OpenStreetMap. Link

 

No weeklyOSM 822, em 27/04/2026, foi noticiado que passaram a ser aplicadas regras de bloqueio mais rigorosas nos servidores do Overpass, devido a problemas com acessos em massa e requisição de grandes volumes de dados.

 

No weeklyOSM 825, de 17/05/2026, foi noticiada a incrível jornada de David Smith e Andy Allan, durante seis anos, projetando o mapa baseado em OSM para o Pedometer++, um rastreador de caminhada para o Apple watchOS. E, no weeklyOSM 826, publicado na semana seguinte, eu destacaria o osmprj, cujo principal responsável pela manutenção do projeto é Travis Hathaway – uma nova ferramenta de linha de comando (versão alfa) para a gestão de dados do OSM com o PostgreSQL, com base no osm2pgsql e no osm2pgsql-themepark.

 

Rastreador de caminhada para Apple watchOS | © 2026 David Smith; Andy Allan | Dados do mapa © 2026 contribuidores do OpenStreetMap. Link.

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Logo do weeklyOSM © 2015 weeklyOSM - Wikimedia Commons

Kouk Rumlo

Hey there!! I’m Rupam Golui.. though most people online know me as Agasta and I honestly prefer that. I’m a 2nd year CS undergrad from Kolkata, India. Most of my time these days goes into open source and projects (GitHub: Itz-Agasta). I mostly work in Rust, Python, and TypeScript. Outside of code - I cook. Genuinely, not just survival cooking lol. I used to game a lot but somewhere along the way work took over and tbh I haven’t looked back. Also I love linux, currently running Arch (btw) and have been distro hopping since I was a kid… tried basically most of them, maybe move to nix next year. I rice my setup way more than I probably should, even participate in Reddit competitions for it. Could genuinely yap about this for hours. Yaa that’s mostly me, maybe someday I want to build a cool project people actually love enough that I can keep maintaining it full-time for years (hopefully).

Honestly I got here through a side project. Was building something with ocean data, needed maps, used Leaflet & Mapbox. But I got too curious about how all of it actually works behind the scenes - the data, the tools, the geocoding side of things. One thing led to another and I ended up deep in Nominatim’s codebase somehow. A few PRs later and here we are :)

---

Ok so - I got into GSoC 2026!

I’ll be working on native category support in OSM’s search engine Nominatim this summer, and I’m really excited about it.

Right now Nominatim classifies every place using a single OSM class/type pair - like amenity=restaurant. It’s simple and it works, but it has some real limitations:

• A hotel that also has a restaurant creates two separate rows instead of one - wasteful for tables that are already huge
• boundary=administrative can’t distinguish a country from a municipality - Nominatim currently hacks around this using admin_level checks scattered everywhere in the code
• There’s no way to search for “wheelchair-accessible cafe” or “vegan restaurant” - a single class/type just can’t express that

The plan is adding a proper categories column (ltree[] in PostgreSQL) to the core tables, so a hotel-restaurant just gets {osm.tourism.hotel, osm.amenity.restaurant} in one row. Hierarchical queries then just work - “find all amenities” matches everything under osm.amenity.* at once.

Proposed DB schema - categories[] column in placex/search_name replaces all place_classtype_* tables

A nice side effect: we can drop the place_classtype_* tables - a bunch of separately maintained materialized tables, and replace them with one indexed column. Cleaner database, simpler code.

Stretch goals include a YAML-driven category generator for richer tags like cuisine.italian or access.wheelchair.yes, and API-level include/exclude category filtering so users can do searches like:

/search?q=restaurant+kolkata&include=cuisine.indian&exclude=food.fast_food

---

Rough summer plan:

• Community bonding: Setting up a planet-scale db & benchmarking on it, finalizing design
• Weeks 1-4: Schema changes + Lua category generation
• Weeks 5-7: Search index rework, replacing classtype tables
• Week 8: Migration tooling for existing installs
• Weeks 9-12: Stretch goals, testing, review buffer

Full proposal here if you want the deep dive: Link

Progress Report: Thread

I’ll be posting updates in that thread throughout the summer. And if you use Nominatim and have thoughts on what category filtering would be useful for your workflows… seriously, drop them below. I’d love to hear it.

- Agasta

Hi! I’m Sherley Sonali, a CS undergrad from IIIT Hyderabad, India. As part of GSoC 2026, I’ll be working on Valhalla RAD with my mentors Nils Nolde, Kevin Kreiser, and Christian Beiwinkel.

The project

Routing engines are quietly complex and a code change that looks small can silently make routes worse in ways unit tests never catch. RAD gives Valhalla maintainers a way to see exactly what changed in routing quality when a PR lands, and make an informed call before it merges. The system brings together a route request generator, a GitHub Actions pipeline that diffs results across router and graph versions, and a React web app where maintainers can inspect those diffs and decide.

A bit about me

I got into routing through Fleetix, a vehicle route optimization platform I built during an internship and it used OSRM to compute multi-stop routes over OSM data for real employee transport operations. Seeing how much the engine’s interpretation of the map mattered in practice, and what happens when it goes wrong, is what drew me toward Valhalla and eventually toward this project.

Where we are

The coding period has kicked off, the initial project setup is in place, and work on the request generation pipeline is underway. I’ll be using this diary to share progress and lessons learned as the project evolves.

FOSSGIS-OSM-Communitytreffen Nr. 25

Vom 30. April bis 03. Mai 2026 trafen sich wieder 33 Aktive aus der deutschsprachigen OpenStreetMap- und FOSSGIS-Community zum FOSSGIS-OSM-Communitytreffen im Linuxhotel in Essen.

Das Besondere an diesen Treffen ist die Mischung aus Hackathon, Vereinsarbeit, Netzwerktreffen und Ideenwerkstatt. Der Ablauf entsteht gemeinschaftlich vor Ort aus aktuellen Fragen und konkreten Problemen: Morgens Sessionplanung, tagsüber Arbeiten an den Themen, Workshops, gemeinsames Arbeiten an Projekten und spontane Diskussionen und – abends Pizza, Grillen und Gespräche bis spät in die Nacht.

Ein langes Wochenende voller Themen

Die Sessionliste zeigt eine Vielfalt an Themen und das Spektrum von Communitys. Neben technischen Themen wie Verkehrsdatenerfassung, Hausnummernauswertung, Qualitätssicherung oder dem freien online-Bilderdienst Panoramax standen organisatorische Fragen des FOSSGIS e.V. und auch gesellschaftspolitische Fragen im Zusammenhang mit FOSS und OSM im Mittelpunkt.

Diskutiert wurde unter anderem über:

• digitale Souveränität im Geobereich,
• Open-Source-Strategien in Verwaltung und Behörden,
• Vereinsentwicklung und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit,
• Verkehrs- und Radinfrastruktur in OpenStreetMap,
• Panoramax und freie Bildplattformen,
• Konferenzorganisation,
• Open Data und kommunale Zusammenarbeit.

Besonders sichtbar wurde dabei, wie stark OpenStreetMap inzwischen in reale Verwaltungsprozesse und verschiedene Formen der Mobilität hineinwirkt. Behörden, Verkehrsunternehmen und Tourismusorganisationen nutzen OSM-Daten zunehmend produktiv – gleichzeitig wächst der Bedarf an Austausch mit der Community. Ein gutes Beispiel für eine technische Diskussion war die Panoramax-Runde: Dort wurde gemeinsam an Docker-Setups, lokalen Blurring-Servern und ARM-Kompatibilität gearbeitet. Auch praktische OSM-Fragen spielten eine große Rolle: Wie lassen sich Baustellen und Straßensperrungen besser erfassen? Welche Rolle können Bots übernehmen? Wie gelingt Zusammenarbeit mit Kommunen ohne Qualitätsverlust? Immer wieder zeigte sich dabei ein zentrales Motiv der Community: lokale Expertise ist entscheidend.

Vereinsentwicklung nach innen: Strukturen schaffen

Neben Technik und Mapping wurde intensiv über die Zukunft des Vereins diskutiert, dabei geht es um Weiterentwicklung und Professionalisierung von Strukturen des FOSSGIS e.V., also wie der Verein angesichts wachsender Aufgaben organisatorisch aufgestellt sein will.

Eine Session betrachtete die zukünftige Organisation von Arbeitsgruppen im Verein. Diskutiert wurde die Abgrenzung zwischen dauerhaften Arbeitsgruppen, eher informellen Interessengruppen und kurzfristigen Task Forces für spontane Themen. Künftig sollen Arbeitsgruppen im FOSSGIS e.V. bestimmte Mindeststandards erfüllen: Dazu gehören ein Mission Statement, klar formulierte Ziele, mindestens drei aktive Mitglieder sowie definierte Arbeits- und Dokumentationsstrukturen.

Die technische Infrastruktur des Vereins wurde in der Diskussion zur Mitgliederverwaltung und den Vereinstools kritisch betrachtet. Es wurde darüber gsprochen, welche Anforderungen der Verein hat und wie die verschiedenen Systeme integriert sein können. Der Administration schlägt vor, stärker auf Single-Sign-On-Lösungen zu setzen und damit bestehende Werkzeuge besser miteinander zu verbinden.

Die Anpassung der Mitgliedsbeiträge ist aktuell Thema, es wurde über die zukünftige Gestaltung gesprochen. Einerseits braucht es einen Abgleich mit der allgemeinen Inflationsentwicklung, andererseits besteht die Frage, wie juristische Mitglieder stärker eingebunden werden können und welches Modell es langfristig ermöglichen könnte, eine bezahlte Stelle für Themen juristischer Mitglieder und institutioneller Zusammenarbeit zu schaffen.

Vereinsentwicklung nach außen: Sichtbarkeit und Vernetzung

Auch die Außenwirkung des Vereins spielt eine große Rolle. Ein wichtiges Thema ist die Weiterentwicklung der Dienstleisterliste des Vereins. Hiermit sollen Organisationen und Verwaltungen dabei zu unterstützt werden, Anbieter für Open-Source-Lösungen zu finden. Dabei soll sichtbar werden, welche Unternehmen aktiv zum Open-Source-Ökosystem beitragen und über entsprechende Lösungskompetenz verfügen. Hier wäre eine beratende Arbeitsgruppe, die in schwierigen oder kritischen Fällen unterstützend tätig werden könnte, hilfreich.

Diskutiert wurde auch über die zukünftige Gestaltung der Vereinswebseite. Die Webseiten sollen stärker als bisher inhaltliche Impulse liefern und die Arbeit des Vereins sichtbarer machen. Dazu gehört beispielsweise eine bessere Auffindbarkeit von Konferenzvideos und Programminhalten, sichtbarer dargestellte Vereinsstrukturen, mehr Dokumentation von Projektergebnissen, aufgeräumtere Wiki- und Informationsstrukturen. Gerade angesichts der wachsenden Bedeutung des Vereins wurde deutlich, wie wichtig gute Kommunikation und transparente Informationsangebote geworden sind.

Die Rolle von Veranstaltungen und Communitytreffen wurde reflektiert. Ziel vieler Aktivitäten ist es, OpenStreetMap und FOSSGIS bekannter zu machen und Menschen zur Mitarbeit einzuladen. Dabei spielt auch das neu etablierte Online-Vernetzungstreffen eine Rolle, das Mitgliedern und Nicht-Mitgliedern einen niederschwelligen Einstieg in aktive Vereinsarbeit ermöglichen soll. Gleichzeitig wurde diskutiert über regionale Treffen mehr Sichtbarkeit zu erzeugen. Es existieren vielerorts OSM-Stammtische/ OSM-Treffen, Treffen von FOSSGIS-Mitgliedern könnten sich neu etablieren.

Wie relevant viele Themen inzwischen auch gesellschaftlich geworden sind, zeigte sich in mehreren Sessions rund um digitale Souveränität und Freie Software. Unter anderem wurde ein Beitrag des FOSSGIS e.V. für die Mai-Ausgabe 2026 von Business Geomatics vorbereitet und eine Art „Argumentarium für FOSS“ besprochen, welches Argumente und Positionen für den Einsatz Freier Open-Source-Software bündeln soll.

Der FOSSGIS e.V. erhält eine DSEE-Förderung, um OSM-Schulungen zu entwicklen. Das Förderprojekt umfasst sowohl die inhaltliche Erstellung von Schulungsmaterialien als auch die organisatorische Begleitung durch eine Arbeitsgruppe. Konkret diskutiert wurde die Ausschreibung einer Stelle zur Koordination der Schulungen.

Alle TN genießen die konstruktive und offene Atmosphäre des gemeinsamen Arbeitens. Das Linuxhotel selbst gehört inzwischen zur DNA des Treffens. Zwischen Ruhrpanorama, Kaminzimmer, Garten und Arbeitsräumen entstand erneut genau die Mischung aus konzentrierter Arbeit und entspannter Atmosphäre, die viele Teilnehmende sehr schätzen.

Gearbeitet wurde im großen und kleinen Seminarraum, Kaminzimmer oder einfach draußen auf der Wiese. Dazu kamen die traditionelle Pizza am ersten Abend, gemeinsames Kochen, Grillen und Essen mit spontane Gesprächen über allerlei Themen. Die Fotos vom Wochenende zeigen genau diese besondere Mischung aus Community, Technik und Lagerfeuerstimmung. Dabei ergab sich auch eine ganz praktische Erkenntnis: Weil wir uns am Tag der Arbeit auch beim Frühstück selbst versorgen mussten, entstand eine ausführliche Diskussion, ob die Frühstückeier vor dem Kochen angepiekt werden müssen. Ein praktischer Versuch ergab, dass von 20 nicht angepiekten Eiern 19 beim Kochen nicht geplatzt waren.

Warum solche Treffen wichtig sind

Das Communitytreffen zeigt jedes Jahr aufs Neue, dass OpenStreetMap weit mehr ist als „nur eine Karte“. Hier treffen sich Entwickler:innen, Mapper:innen, Verwaltungsmitarbeitende, Vereinsaktive und Open-Source-Enthusiast:innen, um gemeinsam an freier digitaler Infrastruktur zu arbeiten.

Gerade in Zeiten zunehmender Abhängigkeit von proprietären Plattformen sind diese Austauschräume wichtig, um Menschen und Ideen zusammenzubringen, Probleme gemeinsam zu lösen und mit neuer Motivation weiter zu machen.

Das nächste FOSSGIS-OSM-Communitytreffen Nr. 26 findet vom 02.-04.10.2026 im Linuxhotel statt.

Wikiseite mit ausführlicher Dokumentation der Ergebnisse des Treffens:
https://www.fossgis.de/wiki/FOSSGIS_OSM_Communitytreffen_2026_Nummer_25

Introduction

Hi!
My name is Francisco Albacete Chicano (but feel free to call me Paco!), and this year I have been selected for the GSoC 2026 with OSM, working on Valhalla Enhance Pedestrian routing project with my mentors Kevin Kreiser and Christian Beiwinkel.

Who am I?

Well, I am a second year student of the University of Murcia (studying computer science), who randomly discovered OpenStreetMap and began with a small programming project to learn more about it! While I was fascinated by it, I discovered OSM had projects for GSoC, I had for sure to take a try! So I started getting in touch with Valhalla as I really enjoy pathfinding algorithms and optimizations. And when I am not coding, I have been playing video games for most of my life and really like to have experiences with my family and friends (even better if there’s beer!).

What is the project about?

The main focus is to improve and implement improvements to the Pedestrian Routing. Try to fix ambiguous navigation, guidance… The goal is to make pedestrian routing take a real step forward! We are still putting the finishing tocuhes on the final objectives and challenges we expect to tackle, so stay tuned because I will be covering all of it in the upcoming diary entries!

About it

I will be documenting the journey, through here and in my personal blog. And just let you know I am extremely excited to contribute to the community and very thankful to be working with such a great team as Kevin Kreiser, Christian Beiwinkel and Nils Nolde.