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Comment by slezyr | Hacker News Reader

In Easter Europe even Google Maps are much worse that OpenStreetMaps.

I live in northern Europe (Sweden) at at least in my specific area OpenStreetMap is a lot better than Google maps.

I also live in Sweden and do a lot of GIS analysis with both OSM data and other providers. OSM is great when it comes to the actual road geometry (esp. bike and pedestrian roads), although it often gets the speed limits wrong. For pedestrian travel analysis I'd say it's the best dateset available, since it includes all those 'unofficial' paths that everybody uses, but are often left off official maps. It is however pretty terrible when it comes to buildings and addresses. You don't have to get many km out from major cities before a lot of buildings are missing, and the numbering of buildings is often either missing or wrong.

> You don't have to get many km out from major cities before a lot of buildings are missing, and the numbering of buildings is often either missing or wrong.

I am working on a project where I have noticed the same problem with several providers. What provider do you recommend for geocoding when this stuff needs to be right most of the time? Bing API seems somewhat OK. Google Maps API seems like the best, but comes with insane terms and conditions.

Yea, I agree that the Bing API is pretty OK and Google seems slightly better. However for Sweden I would probably go with Hitta or Eniro, since they specialize in the Swedish market, however neither has a free API. Likewise if I only need data for a handful of countries (and am willing to pay) I would first look if there are companies that specialize in those countries, since that data tends to be better than the places that provide global Geocoding.

Here maps is good too. I'm always amazed how it consistently gets the speed limit right even in sparsely populated areas and small towns, where the speed limit often changes literally every 50 meters.

If someone is interested in mapping this kind of things in OpenStreetMap (used by mapy.cz outside Czech Republic) - I recommend StreetComplete (max speed quest must be enabled in settings, it is disabled by default)

I'm not sure "much worse", maybe worse, but yet comparable and still useful. Apple Maps, on the other hand... sheesh.

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