Some people are curious about how healthy their car really is, while others take their vehicles onto the racetrack where it is essential to avoid overheating or pushing components far beyond their comfort zone. You can, of course, buy small aftermarket performance data displays that many cars support, but some friends would rather save the money and ask me for help instead. And naturally it always begins with the classic line: “You are doing something with computers, right?”

Most performance data displays have one thing in common: they use the OBD port of your car. This On Board Diagnostics interface provides access to the vehicle’s internal diagnostic systems and is usually located under the dashboard. Modern cars are required to offer an OBD II port, and online you will find plenty of adapters and connectors. I chose the Vgate iCar Pro Bluetooth because, according to my research, it works well with most Raspberry Pi devices. For this project I used a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W to run my software, showing the values on a Waveshare 2.23 inch OLED HAT. The display can be attached directly as a HAT or connected with cables. Choosing the hardware turned out to be the simplest part of the entire journey.

Choosing the software
On GitHub you will find many open source projects that can read and display standard parameters such as coolant temperature, oil temperature and other basics, unless you drive an electric car. In my case the real challenge was not reading the standardised OBD II parameters or diagnostic trouble codes like P0xxx, C1xxx or U0xxx. What I really needed was access to the manufacturer specific diagnostic commands, the custom PIDs, used in extended protocols such as those from Toyota and BMW.

The learning curve
Before starting this project I had absolutely no experience with onboard diagnostics or with communicating with one or several ECUs (Electronic Control Unit). Entering this field, analysing header requests and responses, debugging byte sequences and doing a bit of reverse engineering turned out to be very interesting but also time consuming. Once you understand the logic it is not that difficult, but getting to that point was quite a rough ride. A helpful starting point was the following GitHub project, which I used in the beginning. Later on, due to some limitations and challenges, I wrote my own scripts which gave me more flexibility, particularly when working with the custom PIDs of different car manufacturers.

The first working prototype
After enough trial and error I ended up with a prototype that can read and display live data from both a Toyota and a BMW. It provides a real time view of the vehicle’s health and helps the driver decide whether it is time for a break or whether it is safe to keep pushing on the track. The custom Toyota PIDs from this thread were extremely helpful and so were the BMW custom PIDs from here.

Where this might go next
The most exciting part for me has been working with the custom PIDs. According to unofficial documentation, some BMW ECUs can even provide values such as longitudinal slope and bank angle. My next idea is to combine these measurements with geographical coordinates in the form of latitude and longitude and record the data for further analysis. Furthermore it could be very interesting to switch to the CAN bus instead of reading through the relatively slow OBD interface. Let us see where this goes …

27/11/2025-03/12/2025

Mapping campaigns

• Mateusz Konieczny is proposing a mechanical edit to fix conflicting paved=* and surface=* tags.
• confusedbuffalo is proposing to extend the existing automated edit of phone numbers to include the United Kingdom, removing extra punctuation and adding the country code. Mappers are invited to discuss this in the OSM Community forum thread and to get in touch if they think such an edit would also be useful and accepted in their country.

Community

• Aselnigu has completed all 30 daily themes in the recent #30DayMapChallenge.
• Anne-Karoline Distel explained how to map mounting blocks (raised platforms used to help riders mount horses and carriages), arguing that they should be tagged as amenity=mounting_block.
• Dzertanoj explained a workflow for contributing high-precision GNSS-RTK tracks obtained from non-WGS84 referenced stations to OpenStreetMap. RTK (Real Time Kinematic) is a centimetre-level positioning method that uses a fixed base station to correct errors in standard Global Navigation Satellite System signals. These base stations operate in coordinate reference systems (CRS) other than the WGS84 system used by OpenStreetMap. This workflow converts that CRS while preserving the additional metadata, ensuring the resulting track data remains precise and reliable.
• Koreller explained the process they used in mapping Cho Island.
• Martijn Van Exel outlined the intricate challenges involved in classifying points of interest within OpenStreetMap data.
• Andy Townsend has been using taginfo to find things that may be missing from the high zoom levels on his map style.

Imports

• Mateusz Konieczny is proposing a global import of website tags for IKEA, using data produced by the All the Places web scrapers.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• The OpenStreetMap Ops Team has a special offer for AI companies: for a modest donation to the OpenStreetMap project, the donor company will receive a direct download link to OSM data in a machine-friendly format.

OSM research

• HeiGIT is introducing ohsomeDB, the successor to the OpenStreetMap History Database, which offers a faster, more flexible foundation for analysing OpenStreetMap data. The current ohsome API is planned to be shut down after the State of the Map 2026, and your old queries and scripts will stop working by August 2026 at the latest, giving you sufficient time to adapt your workflows.

Maps

• OSM Pyrénées-Orientales (France) tooted about the uMap created by LySioS, which provides an overview of the names of roundabouts located in the Pyrénées-Orientales region, extracted from OpenStreetMap. The data can be obtained in CSV format.

OSM in action

• Mapping Diversity is a project coordinated by OBC Transeuropa for the European Data Journalism Network. It analyses the street names in 32 major European cities and compares how many are named to honour men or women, and visualises them on a map. This is accomplished by utilising the Wikidata identifier found on streets within OpenStreetMap.

Open Data

• Xiao Xiang Zhu et al have developed GlobalBuildingAtlas, a publicly accessible dataset providing global coverage of building footprints, heights, and LOD1 (low-detail) 3D building models. The dataset is derived from PlanetScope satellite data, using regularisation networks trained on manually filtered OpenStreetMap annotations.

Software

• [1] After 14 years of service, the OpenTopoMap developers have decided to discontinue the project shortly. There are intentions to create vector tiles, but there is no timeline. If you would like to support the project, the team invites you to get in touch.
• Julcnx has updated their browser extension that enables Strava Heatmap data to be viewed directly within iD.

Programming

• Martijn van Exel outlined the extract-transform-load workflow for OpenStreetMap data, demonstrating the use of osm2pgsql and osmium to process and manage the dataset.
• GanderPL has experimented with an AI chatbot to speed up object tagging and better match tags to their purposes. His key tool is an MCP server, providing OpenStreetMap tagging schema for AI assistants. It enables tag validation, value querying, preset searching, and improvement suggestions. Initially the AI produced hallucinations and mismatched tags, but after converting the id-tagging-schema into a dedicated MCP tool, errors dropped significantly, though GanderPL is continuing to refine the process.

Did you know that …

• … there is a Mastodon bot that toots the recent changes made using MapComplete? It includes beautiful photos about a variety of themes.
• … SPOT is an AI-assisted geolocation service developed by Deutsche Welle Innovation? It works with natural language prompts and OSM data, requires no coding skills, and builds on the precision of overpass turbo.

Other “geo” things

• Daniel DiDonato, 18, used free mapping software at home to redraw Alabama’s voting districts, and a federal judge later adopted his proposal to correct voting-rights violations, making it the map now in effect under state law.
• rtnF explained how to access recent Sentinel satellite imagery to examine the effects of Cyclone Senyar, which caused catastrophic flooding and landslides across Indonesia in late November 2025. At least 867 deaths, more than 2,600 injuries, and 521 missing persons were reported in the provinces of North Sumatra, West Sumatra, and Aceh.
• Jonathan Kemper, of Photographix Magazine, reported ► that the Copernicus Sentinel-1D satellite successfully delivered its first high-resolution radar images just 50 hours after launch. The satellite’s radar system is capable of mapping the Earth’s surface under any weather or lighting conditions. Sentinel-1D enters service as the replacement for Sentinel-1A, which has operated in orbit for nearly eleven years.
• James Killick, of Map Happenings, highlighted Bee Maps, a company that has developed a dash-mounted AI camera called the ‘Bee’ for collecting map data. The unit combines a primary camera, stereo depth sensors, high-precision GNSS and integrated LTE for real-time data uploads. The company offers access to the device through subscriptions beginning at US$19 per month, while drivers can earn cryptocurrency by collecting mapping data on the road.

Upcoming Events

Country	Where	Venue	What	When
			UN Mappers #ValidationFriday Mappy Hour	2025-12-05
	Olomouc		SotM CZ+SK 2025	2025-12-05
	大阪市	大阪大学中之島センター	State of the Map Japan 2025	2025-12-06
	Paris	Carrefour Numérique² de la Cité des Sciences	PSL XXL	2025-12-06 – 2025-12-07
	Biella	Sala Riunioni 2, CTV Centro Territoriale per il Vo	Incontro dei mapper di Biellese, Vercellese e Canavese	2025-12-06
	Braunschweig	Stratum0	Braunschweiger Mappertreffen im Stratum0 Hackerspace	2025-12-06
	Kiel	Toppoint e.V.	Kieler Radinfrastruktur mappen	2025-12-07
	नई दिल्ली	Jitsi Meet (online)	OSM India – Monthly Online Mapathon	2025-12-07
			Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne – CartONG [fr]	2025-12-08
	Grenoble	La Turbine	Atelier de décembre 2025 du groupe local de Grenoble	2025-12-08
	臺北市	MozSpace Taipei	OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #83	2025-12-08
	Salt Lake City	Woodbine Food Hall	OSM Utah Monthly Map Night	2025-12-09
	Hamburg	Voraussichtlich: “Variable”, Karolinenstraße 23	Hamburger Mappertreffen	2025-12-09
			iD Community Chat	2025-12-10
	Amsterdam	TomTom Amsterdam	Missing Maps/Maptime Amsterdam In-Person Mapathon	2025-12-10
	Žilina	GLOBESY s.r.o.	Missing Maps mapathon Žilina #20	2025-12-11
	München	WikiMUC	Münchner OSM-Treffen	2025-12-11
		Online	OpenStreetMap Midwest Meetup	2025-12-11
	Zürich	Bitwäscherei Zürich	182. OSM-Stammtisch Zürich	2025-12-12
	Zaragoza	Etopia	GeoCamp – State of the Map España 2025	2025-12-13
		MAP Mercator museum	OpenStreetMap Belgium at the MAP-Mercator museum	2025-12-13
	Jalpaiguri	Thana More	10th OpenStreetMap West Bengal Mapping Party	2025-12-13
	København	Cafe Bevar’s	OSMmapperCPH	2025-12-14
			Missing Maps London: (Online) Mid-Month Mapathon [eng]	2025-12-16
	Lyon	Tubà	Réunion du groupe local de Lyon	2025-12-16
	Bonn	Dotty’s	195. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn	2025-12-16
	City of Westminster	Monkey Puzzle pub	London xmas pub meet-up	2025-12-16
		Online	Lüneburger Mappertreffen	2025-12-16
	Düsseldorf	Online bei https://meet.jit.si/OSM-DUS-2025	Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen (online)	2025-12-17
	Karlsruhe	Chiang Mai	Stammtisch Karlsruhe	2025-12-17
	Stainach-Pürgg	Online	19. Österreichischer OSM-Stammtisch (online)	2025-12-18
			UN Mappers Mappy Hour	2025-12-19
	Potsdam	Luisenplatz, Potsdamer Weihnachtsmarkt	Potsdamer Mappertreffen	2025-12-19
		MAP Mercator museum	OpenStreetMap Belgium at the MAP-Mercator museum	2025-12-20
			Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne – CartONG [fr]	2025-12-22

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 MarcoR, MatthiasMatthias, PierZen, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Andrew Davidson, barefootstache, derFred, jcr83.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

Sziasztok!

Az élet sodor, gyakran mint egy hurrikán. Ugyan kevés olyan időm akad, amikor OSM-el tudok picit foglalkozni, gyakran fut át a fejemen, hogy ezt-azt megnézek a térképen a környezetemből és majd javítom, szerkesztem, ha eltér. Nyilván ettől sokkal kevesebbszer érek oda, de azért párszor már összejött.

Továbbra is érdekel és fogok is szerkeszteni.

Néha még a JOSM-ot is frissítgetem az aktuális verzióra, akkor is, ha közben mégis az ID-n egyszerűbb és gyorsabb valamit igazgatni. A kis dolgoknál ez így is marad, de ha nagyobb varázslat szükséges, a JOSM is jó, látom, ha nem is sűrűn, de még mostanában is frissítették.

Az OSM továbbra is kedvenc koncepció a szememben és örülök, hogy jó ideje stabil és fejlődik.

Üdv, V.

It was another beautiful, sunny day in Orange. I’m toying with the idea of conjuring up some sort of regular Saturday mapping activity, solely so I can use the word “Mapurday”, even though I’ve mapped at least one thing every day for the last five days. I’m sure that will slow down a bit once I re-balance the other parts of my life (although I did add a bench in Riverside last night while waiting for a friend to arrive; it doesn’t take much to contribute!). I’m not sure if it will be just for myself, or I want to try to get other local mappers involved.

It was a productive day! My goal was to add more fire hydrants along Palmyra, and to catch one I had somehow missed along Almond. I can’t say it’s representative, but so far, the manufacturers have all been one of:

• Rich Valve Co. (or Rich Manufacturing Company; I’ve seen both and other variations in newspaper clippings)
• M. Greenberg’s Sons
• Long Beach Iron Works
• Clow (Valve Company)

There’s also one Van Deventer, which firehydrants.org says could be a company, but it could also just be a fire hydrant produced under license. I plan to do a little newspaper digging to see if I can learn more.

Orange Street Barbershop

I added the Orange Street Barbershop to the map. I’ve been correcting several missing or otherwise out-of-date business POIs in addition to my quixotic hydrant mapping quest. The previous salon for 120 S Orange St was long since closed, so I updated it for the new business. I also noticed that the entire building was marked as the salon (now barbershop). I switched this to an individual node because the Orange Street Barbershop is technically suite B; there’s a suite A with doors set a bit back into a covered part of the building, but they don’t seem to be for anything useful.

I caught a barbershop employee walking back into a side door, and I asked her if she knows what Suite A was or where the doors go. She said that there’s just a shared hallway back there that is also shared with the Kickin’ Crab. I also noticed a chalked sign on the wall that directs the USPS to deliver suite A’s mail to suite B. For all intents and purposes, I don’t think suite A really exists in any meaningful form.

That all being said, suite A is still marked above the doors, and the Orange Street Barbershop still includes “Ste B” in its address, so I’ve left it as a separate POI node. I should probably ask someone which is preferable.

Benches and trash cans

I would love to know all of the places to sit and throw things away in Orange (I’m a bit like a Rollercoaster Tycoon character, in that regard). I’m not diligently mapping benches and trash cans as much as I am fire hydrants (yet), but I try to add the ones I see when I walk around. I added a couple trash cans at Orange and Chapman, as well as the two benches in front of Play, and a bench on the berm in front of a house for sale.

I also added a cheeky little bench in Riverside last night while waiting for a friend to arrive for drinks. It was a great reminder that you can usually map something wherever you are, even if you only have a minute or two.

Other POI changes

I added some info to the Orange Circle Chase branch, as well as the Assistance League of Orange Thrift Shop. I also added information for the Assistance League of Orange Chapter Offices at 124 S Orange St.

To do

I have some out-of-band stuff I still need to do, like create Wikidata entries and sources for Rich Manufacturing Company (and probably M. Greenberg’s Sons), so I can properly link them to specific fire hydrants. I also need to research Van Deventer and see if I can’t find more information about that.

Upcoming

I want to continue to update Orange Circle POI information, such as providing addresses and business hours for things. I walk around Old Towne so much anywhere, there’s no reason I can’t pop into things and check out business hours and other features anyway. Plus, it’s a great excuse to get out of the house.

As always, I will add more fire hydrants, perhaps down Almond and Chapman this time. There’s a fun golden fire hydrant next to Fire Station #1; I’m curious to see its manufacturer and model and if there’s anything special about it aside from its fabulous color.

Every Door

I also want to shout out Ilya Zverev, the author of Every Door. This completely free and open source app makes it easy to add things to OSM, especially POIs (I’m using it extensively for my fire hydrant stuff). This holiday season, consider kicking some euros his way over on Liberapay, if you can.

Conclusion

All in all, it was a great day! I got to get outside, have some coffee, and wander around Old Towne helping contribute to OSM. I look forward to doing it again.

YIPPIEEEEEEEEEE! I’m already at 65 edits! This is the start of something very great and beautiful. Speaking of great and beautiful, I love my girlfriend so much!

Es absolutamente maravilloso.

1

Quand on essaie de regarder Panoramax en dehors des agglomérations et des routes, dans la plupart des régions c’est le grand désert.

Pourtant, pour les randonneurs par exemple, ce serait bien de pouvoir utiliser Panoramax comme le StreetView des sentiers. Quand on veut planifier une sortie dans un endroit qu’on ne connait pas, on aimerait bien avoir un aperçu de quelques chemins pour voir ce qui parait intéressant, ce qui semble facile ou difficile… Malheureusement, à part un petit nombre de passionnés, peu de contributeurs se baladent, à pied ou à vélo avec une caméra 360° en prenant une vue tous les quelques mètres. La couverture des chemins dans une région donnée avance donc très lentement, ou la plupart du temps pas du tout.

Pour remédier à cela, j’ai découvert que l’application Baba offre une solution parallèle pour accélérer les choses. Lors d’une sortie ordinaire, pas forcément dédiée, on peut facilement caractériser les sentiers en cours de route avec quelque dizaines de photos et envoyer les résultats sur Panoramax soit au fur et à mesure, soit le soir en rentrant. Bien sûr, cette méthode “artisanale” n’est pas parfaite, un utilisateur aura toujours envie de savoir ce qui se passe entre deux points de prise de vue ou sur le côté comme avec une vue 360° mais ça a le mérite d’exister et cela n’empêche pas d’autres contributeurs de repasser un jour derrière avec une technique plus complète.

J’ai commencé à mettre en pratique cette idée dans ma région.
Voir par exemple ce sentier comme point d’entrée, puis voir sur la carte ce qu’il y a autour.

Quelques idées de base

Au fur et à mesure des aller-retours entre les prises de vue et les résultats sur les visionneuses, j’ai essayé de dégager quelques trucs utiles pour améliorer les résultats.

Le gros avantage de Baba c’est qu’on peut définir librement et très simplement ce qu’on met dans une séquence. Ayant commencé sur OSM par les réseaux de carrefours, j’ai suivi une démarche analogue et je prend une séquence pour chaque portion de chemin entre deux intersections. Un utilisateur qui veut programmer une randonnée peut ainsi choisir tronçon par tronçon ce qui paraît intéressant, difficile …
Sur les visionneuses, si les prises de vue sont trop espacées, elles apparaissent comme une succession de mini séquences ou de points isolés mais lorsqu’un point est sélectionné, l’ensemble apparaît bien en bleu et on peut progresser sur la totalité avec les flèches d’avancement.

Un deuxième avantage est que Baba enregistre aussi la direction de prise de vue, information qui est conservée lors de l’envoi sur Panoramax. Il est ainsi possible au cours d’une séquence, de faire une photo particulière en tournant l’appareil sur le coté pour voir le paysage ou un détail remarquable. C’est le 360° du pauvre.
Au niveau de la visionneuse, la direction est indiquée correctement mais quelques petits bugs ou incohérences font qu’il peut devenir difficile de suivre la progression avec les flèches dans ce cas. Un bon truc est d’encadrer la prise de vue en travers par deux autres photos proches prises dans le sens de la marche et il n’y a plus de problème.

Prise en main de Baba

Dans l’ensemble, l’appli Baba se passe de mode d’emploi. L’utilisation des trois fenêtres principales liste, carte et photo est très intuitive. Il y a seulement quelques points que je n’ai pas repéré tout de suite :

• A la création du compte, après avoir rempli le token en suivant les indications (très claires), il faut deviner qu’il faut cliquer sur l’icône disquette en haut à droite pour enregistrer et passer à la suite.

• Dans le mode photo, l’icône en bas à droite (pile de carte avec un plus) sert à terminer la séquence en cours pour en démarrer une nouvelle. L’icône en bas à gauche indique si une séquence est en cours et le nombre de photos qu’elle contient.

• Le format “Full” dans le mode photo est le format le plus allongé horizontalement. Pour la plupart des chemins c’est la meilleure vision en mettant l’appareil en position paysage.

Having hosted the Olympic Games, Paris is now preparing to welcome another international gathering centered on community, openness, and diversity. Like the sporting disciplines themselves, OpenStreetMap’s mapping covers a multitude of themes and territories. Nature and hiking enthusiasts will find a space for expression there, as well as professionals in the field of geographic data. 

Join us in Paris from August 28th to 30th, 2026, for State of the Map!

Watch the announcement video.

This annual gathering brings together OpenStreetMap volunteers, professionals, and enthusiasts to share knowledge, showcase innovations, and highlight the impact of open mapping.

Whether you’re a seasoned contributor, a curious newcomer, or a professional in the field, SotM 2026 is a chance for you to connect with the global community, learn about the latest developments, and contribute to the growth of OpenStreetMap. Mark your calendars and be part of this extraordinary event!

Save the date! Stay tuned via our website, 2026.stateofthemap.org for more updates on speakers, agenda, ticketing, and how to get involved as the event draws closer.

Post from the State of the Map Organising Committee. Follow us on Mastodon, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

The State of the Map conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap, organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. Our volunteer Working Groups and small core staff work to support the OpenStreetMap project. Join the OpenStreetMap Foundation for just £15 a year or for free if you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor.

OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 and is an international project to create a free map of the world. To do so, we, thousands of volunteers, collect data about roads, railways, rivers, forests, buildings and a lot more worldwide. Our map data can be downloaded for free by everyone and used for any purpose – including commercial usage. It is possible to produce your own maps which highlight certain features, to calculate routes etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very quickly, or easily, updated.

Do you want to translate this and other blogposts in your language? Please email communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

Get notified about new blog posts: Subscribe to the English RSS feed (other languages available as well)

Daca doriți să îmi trimiteți imagini sau videoclipuri ca sa va ajut puteți trimite la e-mailul dariusbubu1010@gmail.com

hvorfor er s-togsnettet vist som letbane, er det en fejl eller?

Flickr is how I learned about Open Street Map. They use OSM data for their maps. Places that haven’t been worked on can only be found via coordinates. It’s frustrating.

Parma, Ohio, for example could use some love and attention.

Styles (configurations) for osm2pgsql are written in the Lua programming language. And they are becoming more complex. Users have been asking for a long time for some way of testing those styles to help with writing and debugging the Lua code. We now have a solution for you.

We have had tests for osm2pgsql, the software, for a long time. This includes tests that run osm2pgsql with certain inputs and parameters and check that osm2pgsql produces the correct output, including checks that make sure the correct information ends up in the correct database tables. These kinds of tests are really similar to what users need, but the tests were deeply integrated with the rest of the osm2pgsql testing system, they were hard to use, and they were not documented.

We have polished that testing framework, documented it and made it work on its own and are now making it available for osm2pgsql users. So you can now use the same testing engine used for internal testing to test your style sheets. The test code builds upon the Python BDD behave testing framework, and adds all sorts of useful features to the tests. OSM test data can be integrated in various ways, inline in the test file or as external data. And we have added various handy features for testing database content.

Style testing will be available in the next version of osm2pgsql, but you can already try it out. You only need to download a single file from the current master and can use that with any reasonably modern version of osm2pgsql. Find the full documentation in the manual.

We’d love it if you tried the new style tester and tell us what you think. We are sure there will be some teething problems you can help us find and fix before the next release.

Když přemýšlím o mapách budoucnosti, nevidím jen další technické vylepšení zobrazování terénu. Vidím především změnu v tom, jak si společnost uvědomuje prostor a jak skrze něj řídí svůj život. Mapy postupně přestanou být pouhým popisem povrchu. Stanou se další nervovou soustavou civilizace.

Dnes máme mnoho typů map, které pokrývají téměř vše co nás napadne. Infrastruktura, příroda, vlastnické vztahy, doprava, služby, počasí. Přesto stále cítím, že jsme na začátku. Reálný svět je dynamický a v pohybu. Mapy se této dynamice teprve učí stačit. Čím více bude naše civilizace žít v komplexitě a proměnlivosti, tím více budeme potřebovat mapy, které tuto živost zachytí.

Představuji si mapy s mnoha vrstvami, které proudí v reálném čase. Data o energiích v budovách. Signály o nasycení veřejného prostoru životem. Místa kde se rodí napětí i místa kde vzniká spolupráce. A také vrstvy které nebudou mít pevnou interpretaci. Emoce, nálady, očekávání. Nějaké ostrůvky takových map už tu máme. Budou mapy, které připustí nejasnost jako přiznanou informaci. Mapa už nebude jen obrazem toho co je. Bude také předpovědí toho, co při dobré definici podmínek může být.

To vyžaduje mnohem víc, než nové technologie. Vyžaduje kulturu důvěry. Transparentnost původu dat. Pravdivou informaci o tom, kdo o mapovaném prostoru rozhoduje a proč. Když se mapa stane podkladem pro rozhodování, musí být otevřená kontrole. Musí být srozumitelná těm, kteří ji potřebují číst. Musí ctít práva tvůrců i práva lidí, kteří jsou v ní zaneseni svými domovy nebo svými pohyby.

Je to úkol nejen technický. Je to úkol společenský a politický. Kdo vlastní mapu, vlastní možnost ovlivnit vnímání světa. Kdo rozhoduje co se na mapě objeví a co zmizí, ten rozhoduje o prioritách společnosti. Proto považuji otevřené mapové ekosystémy za přirozenou obranu demokracie. OpenStreetMap je příkladem, jak může komunita držet prostorovou paměť světa. Nezávisle na komerčních nebo mocenských tlacích. Dává nám možnost říci, že popis světa je veřejné dobro a že péče o něj je proces, který patří všem.

Budoucí mapy budou také radikálně hlubší. Ukážou nejen povrch ale celé prostorové tělo měst a krajiny. Podzemní konstrukce, interiéry budov, vrstvy atmosféry. Tato hloubka nás může snadno zahltit. Budeme potřebovat nové způsoby jak data ve svých vrstvách zjednodušit a přitom neztratit jejich význam. Kvalita map nebude měřena množstvím informací. Bude posuzována podle schopnosti orientovat a podporovat dobrá rozhodnutí, která vzniknou z jejich čtení.

Důležitým tématem je odolnost map. Ztráta nebo manipulace prostorových dat může ochromit veřejnou bezpečnost. Budeme potřebovat decentralizaci jako jakost stability, komunitní dohled a nástroje které umí zachytit a napravit chyby, nebo úmyslné zásahy. Mapy patří k infrastruktuře na které bude ještě víc stát fungování společnosti. Proto vyžadují ochranu, etiku a vědomou správu.

A taky estetika. Ta není jen ozdobou. Je způsobem jak propojit data s porozuměním. Mapa která vyvolá neredukvanou emoci dokáže probudit zájem o místo a vztah k němu. Když bude mapa vyprávět příběhy a otevírat otázky, stane se zdrojem angažovanosti a spolupráce lidí, kteří nejsou jen kartografy.

Z toho všeho mi vyplývá jednoduché poselství. Mapy budoucnosti nejsou samozřejmý vývoj techniky. Budou výsledkem vědomé volby. Pokud budeme usilovat o otevřenost, transparentnost a odpovědnou správu, mapy posílí odolnost naší civilizace. Pomohou nám lépe se připravit na změny světa a spravovat společný prostor s úctou a odpovědností.

Přál bych si, aby mapy budoucnosti byly nástrojem takové společnosti, která si váží pravdy o světě a chrání ji jako strategickou hodnotu. Protože kdo má mapu, má budoucnost. A záleží jen na nás, komu ji vložíme do rukou.

Le projet Architectes dans OSM poursuit son développement et déménage vers un site dédié :

https://www.mapaedifi.eu/

avec toujours :

• les données extraites d’OSM (Autriche, Belgique, Suisse, Tchéquie, Estonie, France, Pays-Bas, Portugal et Slovaquie), y compris des photos Panoramax
• la carte uMap
• la recherche géolocalisée

À venir : de nouveaux pays et des articles consacrés à des architectes méconnus.

Merci à toutes les contributrices et tous les contributeurs !

About a week ago, vandals began defacing the map in South Korea. Over the course of that week, I rolled back hundreds of changes, and with the help of the site’s moderators, I banned over 50 malicious accounts.

In fact, the problem arose not even a week ago, but about a month ago. Back then, South Korean media reported that one account had allegedly leaked the locations of all the country’s military bases to the public on Openstreetmap. (link)

Even then, this false media claim struck me as disgusting, but it didn’t cause any major problems. Almost simultaneously, another Korean media report about Openstreetmap appeared: allegedly, an error in the domestic mapping services NaverMap and KakaoMap displaying a river in North Korea was linked to Openstreetmap’s activities: (link)

It’s hard to say whether this is a deliberate attack on OpenStreetMap or whether the Korean journalists simply lack the basic journalistic training to understand the issue. I’m leaning toward the latter, as if there was a deliberate intent, they would have acted more intelligently. But the result is what matters. This news quickly found its way into the ultra-conservative circles of the Korean right, who are obsessed with conspiracy theories, set up their accounts under the hashtag #YoonAgain, and believe that OpenStreetMap is a creation of Chinese communists and Russian Putinists. They say that yesterday, Russia bombed Ukraine with OpenStreetMap, and tomorrow, North Korea will start bombing the South. So they raided OpenStreetMap with the goal of once again saving (and embarrassing) their country.

But what’s funniest about this whole situation for me is that it wasn’t even Korean military bases that were vandalized, but power plants. Apparently, some employee at one of them (or even at a ministry) was such a crazy person that he managed to convince his superiors that there was data somewhere online that needed to be urgently deleted. He didn’t send an official request, didn’t write on the forum, and refuses to engage in dialogue (I tried). He and at least a few other people simply persistently create accounts on OpenStreetMap and try to delete things that I can restore with a single click.

That’s how it goes :)

Minha Missão Mapeamento 🗺️: De Iacanga a Cuité!

Continuando minha jornada de mapeamento aleatório pelo Brasil, foquei desta vez em quatro cidades com características regionais bem distintas. É gratificante ver como o mapa de cada local melhora com um pouco de atenção.

As Cidades e as Contribuições:

• Iacanga (SP) - Média/Pequena, Interior de SP:
  • Foco: Principalmente na atualização da área urbana próxima ao Rio Tietê. Adicionei pontos de interesse (POIs), como escolas e postos de saúde, que estavam faltando no centro.
• São João Nepomuceno (MG) - Média, Zona da Mata Mineira:
  • Foco: Como é uma cidade com história na Zona da Mata, priorizei a verificação da malha viária e a identificação de pontos culturais e turísticos (museus, praças principais), garantindo que as rotas estejam corretas.
• Augustinópolis (TO) - Média, Extremo Norte do Tocantins:
  • Foco: Região com grandes áreas de Cerrado. O trabalho aqui foi mais de delimitação territorial, corrigindo contornos de lotes e bairros novos que surgiram e que precisavam ser refletidos no mapa.
• Cuité (PB) - Média, Paraíba:
  • Foco: Cuité, no Planalto da Borborema, precisava de atenção nos serviços urbanos. Adicionei e revisei a localização de agências bancárias, mercados e paradas de transporte.

Conclusão:

Cada cidade apresenta um desafio único. Em Iacanga e São João Nepomuceno, o foco foi no detalhe; já em Augustinópolis e Cuité, o trabalho envolveu verificar o crescimento e a infraestrutura, e cóerregos e rios foram editados também nessas regiões

how do i change nodes on points

Sometimes some maps are more satisfying than others. What I did on “Cho-do” (“초도”) — Cho island — is definitely one of them!

Cho-do in North Korea is one of the largest islands in the country, and today we can proudly say that it is fully mapped on OpenStreetMap!

In this diary, I explain the small steps I had to take to achieve what I consider to be — among the various places I have mapped — the most complete area !

See it directly on OpenStreetMap!

Why an island?

I have been able to map various locations in North Korea (and a few other places), but there are few areas that are as well-defined as islands — which are not too large either — to map completely.

The idea of doing an island came to me from a contributor, @Lyokoï, who plans to map at least one island in every country/territory in the world. I love the idea, but if I were to take on this kind of project, it would be to map all the islands of North Korea 🤭!

As a mapper focusing primarily on North Korea, I absolutely had to do an island in that country.

There are not many islands in North Korea, and the largest ones are reasonably sized — Cho-do is about 10 km long and 3 km wide — so I chose it and began mapping it in late September 2025.

Mapping method

As always, when I want to map an area in detail, I start by redrawing everything, in this case for Cho-do: the coastline, highways, and few buildings already present.

Next comes the stage of mapping the most useful elements, all the roads and paths, buildings and POIs, followed by landuse mapping, starting with the wooded areas.

It’s when I’m doing farmland landuses that I sometimes start wanting to do all the other landuses that are harder to identify (scrub, grassland, bare_rock, sand, etc.), and that’s what takes the most time, in my opinion.

Old map from the Army Map Service (AMS) and data from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

What is unique about mapping this island is that I was able to use external data. It is quite rare to be able to do this, but thanks to old maps from the Army Map Service (AMS) and data from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), it is possible!

The NGA datas and AMS maps are both in the public domain, because there are work of the US federal government, so it is fully compatible with the ODbL license.

The old AMS maps date back to the Korean War (around 1950) but can be a valuable source of certain information.

To navigate through NGA datas, I use the GeoNames/v3 website (see the wiki), simply zoom in on the desired area, but be sure that the data comes from the NGA: to do this, click on each point and look at the history to see if the author is indeed the “nga” (in North Korea, I have rarely seen other authors in GeoNames data).

Searching for the US Army Map Service (AMS) map at a scale of 1:50,000

After mapping most of the things that could be seen from satellite imagery, it was time to use the old AMS maps.

Online maps from University of Texas and KoreanWar website

I thought it would be easy to find the map of the area I was interested in — because I knew about the excellent website of University of Texas with Korea Maps — but it would have been too simple.

The map I’m interested in is obviously the most accurate one, the 1:50,000 scale map in the L-751 series, which bears the sweet name of “6129 I”.

I found the sheet describing the area just below, “6129 II”, but no sheet “6129 I”…

So I had to go further, and I found another very good website: Korean War, which lists the different sheets in the L751 series, but again, no “6129 I”…

After more searching, I still can’t find it and I’m starting to get a little discouraged. I reassure myself by telling myself that there are still other interesting old maps from other series, even if they are less detailed because they are on a larger scale, in particular:

• AMS Serie L551 Sheet J-51-K scale 1:250,000
• AMS Serie L552 Sheet NJ 51-8 scale 1:250,000

The power of OSM community

This is when mutual support within the OSM community becomes invaluable.

With Telegram, I requested assistance from @adreamy — a Korean contributor — who ultimately locates the map in the Korean Archives, in black and white.

I was so happy to finally have it!

Then, even better, following my request on Discord, @Minh Nguyen — a contributor from the United States — finds me the perfect map in US National Archives, in color, with maximum quality!

Thanks again to both of you!

Additions with the detailed AMS map

Thanks to this “6129 I” map — finally found — I was able to add various objects!

First, I was able to enter the names of the small islands around it, then the altitude of some mountain peaks, the names of the villages, the location of the cliffs (because with satellite imagery it’s a little too difficult to determine which are cliffs and which are not), and finally, the names of the capes and name of the highest peak.

Add to that a few improvements to Wikidata elements (with the help of WikiShootMe, which displays the geolocation of Wikidata elements, which is very useful for finding out what exists in an area), and we’re good!

Altitude of the peaks

To determine the altitude of the peaks, I first used SRTM elevation curves (NASA data from the 2000s) to indicate the (minimum) altitude of the various peaks, but this is not exactly the same as the AMS information (which dates from 1950).

For example, the highest peak on the island, Mokkŏ-bong (osm.org/node/13189632157), is indicated at 350m on the AMS map, but the SRTM data indicates this peak to be between 320m and 330m.

In your opinion, which would be the best source: NASA technology from the 2000s or the US Army Map Service systems from 1945-1950, which flew over the area and probably went out into the field?

For now, the map is a mix of both, I entered the AMS values, and when the AMS didn’t have any, I used the SRTM, but I systematically specified the source with the key source:ele.

Time spent

Although it’s difficult to estimate, I think it took me 30-40 hours to completely map this island. I started at the end of September 2025 and finished in mid-November 2025. In the meantime, I mapped other things elsewhere, but these are the dates of my first and last changesets on the island, respectively.

A Wikipedia article

I created the French Wikipedia article for the island, but only by translating from other language versions (Korean, Swedish, Cebuano), as very little information is available. By “very little”, I mean “even less than usual”. I imagine that the partly military nature of the island explains this.

Furthermore, research is made all the more complicated by the fact that another island in South Korea is also called “Cho-do” (“초도” in both cases 😓) (osm.org/relation/11582489# map=14/34.23091/127.25918), for someone like me — who doesn’t speak Korean — it’s mission impossible!

Satisfaction

It’s so enjoyable and satisfying to completely map out a well-defined area like this island! I hope you appreciate my work on this OSM map 🙏!

osm.org/#map=13/38.53272/124.83164

辽源市 220400

龙山 220402

西安 220403

东丰 220421

东辽 220422

白山市 220600

浑江 220602

江源 220605

抚松 220621

• X121 新榆线
• X123 三板路

靖宇 220622

长白 220623

• X125

临江 220681

• X116珍三路?

松原市 220700

宁江 220702

前郭尔罗斯 220721

长岭 220722

• X139长岭-大岗子
• X140长岭-通榆

乾安 220723

扶余 220781

• X144陶华线
• X149

通化市 220500

东昌 220502

二道江 220503

通化县 220521

辉南 220523

柳河 220524

• X103五道沟-柳南
• X104
• X105

梅河口 220581

• S738 黑大长白连接线

• S739 黑大抚公连接线

• X740黑大线梅河口东连接线
• X741黑大线梅河口西连接线

集安市 220582

• X638

白城市 220800

洮北 220802

• X151半拉山-团结湖
• X165白城-军马场

镇赉 222821

• X153东坪-莫莫格
• X154坦途-白沙滩
• X155坦途-丹岱

通榆 222822 (X156-X160)

• X156瞻榆-联合
• X157向海-团结(原X115)
• X158向海-解放
• X159四井子-太平川
• X160十花道-达日嘎

洮南 222881

• X161洮南-镇西
• X162洮南-舍力
• X163洮南-野马
• X164胡力吐-太山镇

大安 222882

• X166安广-舍力