Please help me raise funds to purchase the missing sheets from the complete historical 1:50,000 topographic map series of Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia.

If you use the amazing better-osm-org browser extension/userscript to review changesets, you are probably familiar with its default red, green, and yellow diff highlighting.

As I had mentioned in my last post where I explain what they are, I had long planned to make a video about mapping historic lifting stones.

Supporting the training of new mappers in Cameroon: our first corporate sponsorship

[www.mapaedifi.eu] provides lists of buildings with architect=* tags, for several European countries : Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Portu…

Ive been working recently on a personal project to investigate how much of the
Overpass query language
could be implemented using a different back end database, namely the
QLever database.

This is a personal note so I remember the settings to use depending on my method of transportation:

Bicycle:

• Mode: 360 Timelapse Video
• Interval: 0.5 seconds
• Resolution: 5.6k
• Remember to point one camera to the right, the other to the left. Maximizes aerodynamics and captures better quality images of signs.

Walking:

• Mode: 360 Time Lapse Photo
• Interval: 2 seconds
• If photos appear too clustered, increase time of interval

Car:

• Mode: Standard Video
• Resolution 1080p or 4k
• Frame rate 30 fps for forward view
• Frame rate 60 fps for side view (to reduce motion blur)
• Field of view: Linear for side shots, Wide for more vertical coverage. Never use SuperView
• Horizon Leveling: Off
• Stabilization: Off or Standard. Can warp the images
• For side shots, best to angle 45 degrees for best of both worlds.

Hi folks! I’m up for election to HOT’s voting membership this year (thank you, Pete!). As a part of that process, I’m posting my answers to their prompting questions here on my OSM diary.

Adding Wikidata tags to all OSM features listed in Wikidata

Hotel where I got my iPhone 13

Ayubowan from Sri Lanka,

My name is Hasna from Sri Lanka, and I bring over 3.8 years of experience in OpenStreetMap (OSM) and humanitarian geospatial work. I began as a self-learner with limited engagement, but my journey has evolved into sustained, impact-driven contribution at both national and global levels.

In 2022, I joined UNOPS Sri Lanka, where I worked within capacity-building initiatives for civil society organizations. In this role, I actively promoted OpenStreetMap, open-source GIS, and humanitarian mapping through HOT. Through the UNOPS Vriddhi Project, I directly trained over 100 civil society partners, strengthening local mapping capacity and enabling wider adoption of geospatial tools in development work. This experience grounded my understanding of how open mapping translates into real-world community impact.

A defining milestone in my journey was attending State of the Map 2025 in Manila. This experience significantly reshaped my perspective on the global humanitarian mapping ecosystem. It allowed me to connect with experienced mappers, mentors, and contributors, and establish a strong professional network. Since then, my engagement with HOT has become more structured, consistent, and purpose-driven.

Currently, I serve as the Country Lead for Sri Lanka under WOM Asia Navigators, where I support community engagement and capacity development in open mapping. Over the past seven months, I have completed more than 190 HOT tasks across disaster preparedness, disaster response, and recovery operations, demonstrating sustained technical contribution in humanitarian contexts.

What does HOT mean to you? HOT represents a global humanitarian ecosystem that transforms geospatial data into life-saving action. To me, it is not just a platform, but a collaborative force of mappers, organizations, and communities working to ensure that vulnerable populations are visible, supported, and included in disaster preparedness and response systems.

How did you become involved with HOT? My deeper involvement began after State of the Map 2025, where I witnessed the real-world scale and impact of HOT’s work. This motivated me to move beyond passive learning into active contribution. Since then, I have consistently engaged with HOT learning resources, mapping projects, and working group discussions, steadily increasing my contributions to over 190 tasks within seven months.

Why do you want to become a voting member? I am seeking to become a HOT voting member because I am committed to moving from contributor to active decision-support within the organization. I strongly align with HOT’s mission and believe my experience in training, community engagement, and field-level mapping can contribute to its strategic direction. Becoming a voting member will allow me to: -Strengthen my engagement in governance and community representation -Contribute more intentionally to HOT’s sustainability and growth -Support inclusive participation from the Global South, particularly Sri Lanka and similar contexts

Can you share your involvement in HOT, mapping, and humanitarian response? I have contributed to multiple humanitarian mapping initiatives focused on disaster preparedness, resilience, and response, including: Mozambique TC GEZANI 26 Massinga 1 Priority Mapping Initiative, Ngwata Missing Buildings and Road Mapping for resilience and smart city development, United Nations for Somalia - CEEL GADDE: villages and barriers, Missing Maps: Buildings in Aweil Counties, South Sudan, Disaster Response in North Sumatera Indonesia, Building Mapping. These experiences have strengthened my technical consistency, attention to detail, and understanding of crisis-informed mapping workflows.

As a voting member, what do you see as your most important responsibility? My primary responsibility as a voting member would be to actively safeguard and strengthen the quality, integrity, and sustainability of HOT’s humanitarian mapping ecosystem. This includes ensuring that community contributions remain both scalable and reliable, while continuing to serve real-world humanitarian needs.

How do you plan to engage with HOT as a voting member? Are there specific working groups you’re interested in joining? As a voting member, I plan to engage through consistent contribution, mentorship, and active participation in community and technical discussions. I am particularly interested in the Community, Technology & Innovation, and Training Working Groups, as they align with my experience in capacity building, geospatial learning, and community empowerment.

What do you see as HOT’s greatest challenge, and how would you help address it? One of HOT’s most critical challenges is maintaining a balance between the scale of mapping contributions and the sustained quality and reliability of data, while ensuring long-term community engagement. I would contribute to addressing this by: -Strengthening structured training and mentorship for new mappers -Supporting community-led capacity building, especially in underrepresented regions -Promoting best practices in humanitarian mapping workflows -Encouraging sustained engagement rather than short-term participation Through these approaches, I aim to help strengthen both the quality and sustainability of HOT’s global mapping ecosystem.

Thanks for reading, Cheers

Introduction as HOT Voting Member Nominee

building=canteen denomination=akṣara-puruṣottama_darśana/viśiṣṭādvaita

Radio and communication towers made of wood are rare. Lists of such objects can be found on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_site#Wooden_structures , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_wooden_buildings_and_structures and https://en.

I don’t normally think about the Sun’s direction when I go out running. When it gets exceptionally hot in summer, I start to notice it and wonder if I can tune my early morning run routes to experience slightly less heat. In principle, that should be possible. The position of the Sun can be worked out with a Python script. Combined with the angle of the Sun in the sky and your heading, it will tell you if you are running straight into the Sun or if the Sun is behind you. My personal preference is running towards the sunrise. After sunrise, you can call OSRM to optimize around solar load, defined as a function of Sun azimuth, your heading, and Sun altitude. This is probably over-engineering for route planning, though. The solar load has no simple formula, and the effect of clouds or humidity is hard to account for. Just a basic knowledge of civil dawn, sunrise time, and sunrise direction is probably enough for everyday running. But back to route generation — if you can find a metric to optimize for, you can generate new routes you have not run before. It is hard to define route novelty, but something like sun direction is easier to work with. The end goal would be to create routes that are different from what you can discover by simply using your street sense.

From the very beginning of my OSM journey, I loved the idea of playground maps.
There are several reasons for this, but I won’t go into detail here.

Learning to use custom aerial imagery and create relationships in OpenStreetMap

We more experienced mappers realize fast that OSM Carto is just meant to show off the capabilities of the database.

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.

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.

Dorothea's 2026-05 OSMF board updates

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!

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!

النمور ستور فرع سيدية

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.

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?

Two years of experience as editor for Brazilian Portuguese at weeklyOSM: some highlights from this period

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.

Hey there!! Im Rupam Golui.. though most people online know me as Agasta and I honestly prefer that. Im a 2nd year CS undergrad from Kolkata, India. Most of my time these days goes into open source and projects (GitHub: Itz-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.

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.

GSoC'26 : DuckDB Backend for Martin TileServer

I’ve been adding ALPRs throughout the region in my community and, first of all, wow there is so many of them. Second I am aware of what Flock cameras look like but I am unable to figure out who owns / creates the other more squat looking ones. If anyone has any information on how to identify the other cameras please let me know, I’d like for my information to be as accurate and precise as possible!

How dare you cast aspersions on and try to obstruct me and my work on OpenStreetMap in Victoria, BC. I thought OpenStreetMap was supposed to be collaborative, but instead you proceed to misrepresent my statements and get openly hostile and destructive toward my efforts. Now I must demand that you cease all further interference with and circumvention of what I am trying to do. I will not have it.

For quite a while now, I have been thinking about making a tutorial on mapping lifting stones. In case you are not familiar - this is a tradition throughout parts of Europe (VERY strong in the Basque country), but also in Asia and North America.

Earlier this month my husband and I drove by or through a number of small communities in Northern California as we were headed to and from Canada. One of them was Grenada. I was curious to see if it was mapped on OSM. It wasn’t, save for the streets (including some erroneously added ones).

So I’ve spent my mapping time this month on Grenada. And now the buildings and addresses are there.

We all gave OpenStreetMap a try once, no? Same for me. No idea how old my (old) account is. I havent used it for years, and I wasnt able to re-enable it again but in Autumn 2024, a friend told me about StreetComplete.

Problem with foot=no on lawfully forbidden streets(Train-Crossing). not verifiable on the Ground