OpenStreetMap Is Turning 20 | Hacker News Reader

OpenStreetMap Is Turning 20

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470 pointsgemanor138 comments

If you appreciate OSM, consider installing the StreetComplete mobile app[0]! It lets you contribute to OSM in a very simple manner, via simple questions like, "Is there a marked crosswalk here?"

I'm not affiliated, I just think it's cool. It's very satisfying to complete quests in your local area.

[0] https://streetcomplete.app/

And until there's an iOS version [1], you could try EveryDoor - especially great for POIs

[1] https://github.com/orgs/streetcomplete/projects/1 [2] https://every-door.app

For folks not too familiar with OSM, POI are points of interest, usually shops, parks, water access, restroom, etc. Just one point and a few labels. Much easier to map on the go than sidewalks or buildings that require more precision.

Yes, I can also confirm that it's a great way to lose weight, as it gives long walks a sense of purpose. ;-)

Is it normal that website gives 403 Forbidden?

StreetComplete is fun for casual contributions, but what OSM really needs is good local mappers. You can tell when a place has local mappers updating and monitoring changes in the real world. Even just taking care of the coming and going of shops is really useful. People who visit your area using apps like OsmAnd and OrganicMaps use that data!

I cannot describe [0] my pleasure and satisfaction when, visiting Germany, we found an icecream shop closed. We'd stopped by with the assumption Google Maps would have the correct hours; they did not, and we carried on without icecream. OSM, on the other hand, correctly showed the shop as closed for the day.

[0] I can't, but my fiancee used the words "impossibly smug"

I mean, both rely on community contributions for this sort of thing, so it feels weird to be smug about this... It just depends on who decided to put the correct hours in.

"Smug" was mostly tongue in cheek. More than anything, it was a breath of fresh air seeing OSM, a product so heavily reliant on it's community, beating out one of the most well-funded corporations on our planet.

Google has satellite views, they run their own network of vehicles to gather streetview data at a planetary scale, they follow every Android user (with Google Services installed) to know popular locations, new and closed businesses, likely opening hours, travel times, and more. They (at one point) pushed users to update store information, and then (from everything I've heard) charge out the ass for embedding a Google Map view.

I am ecstatic that we have a free-as-in-beer, donation and corporate sponsorship funded, open-for-all map that not only can go blow-for-blow with this absolute behenoth, but in this case actually won.

So while "smug" may be overselling it, "thrilled" would not be

Is OSM not free-as-in-freedom?

AFAIK it is, but I thought I'd stick to claims I was all but certain of when posting from mobile and (because of that) not fact-checking

Bit of an ironic one to leave out though, considering my preferences with most of the software I use and enjoy.

"Smug" is what I would give the Google Maps response that I submitted when we came across a store closed due to wrong hours (in Seattle). I sent a picture of the hours plate and the response was "nah, we think Google Maps is correct here". I stopped submitting error corrections to Google after that.

When a huge highway bridge collapsed in Genoa, I checked OSM a few hours later, and someone had already updated the road segment as permanently closed

Video has clips of the bridge falling and aftermath: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53628580

Google cheats here, though. They were able to show a recently completed bridge as completed simply by the fact that traffic was passing over it. OSM still had it within half an hour of opening, though.

The other way around is where OpenStreetMap is faster though. With Google a road which is closed (or gone) for a longer while means someone has to report it and Google employees verify it. Doing this automatically based on traffic dropping to zero is not really possible, because the algorithm doesn't know why traffic is rerouted or for how long. This can take a while depending on the number of people reporting it to Google. OpenStreetMap mappers can act autonomously much faster (errors are sometimes made, but often picked up and reverted just as fast for high profile stuff).

Google actually fucks up royally when a road below the level of a motorway/freeway is closed and formally withdrawn from public use, but still sees some traffic (by people illegally using it and people with legitimate goals like construction workers). There is a road near me where this is the case. Google will happily route cars over a road where one of the two lanes is in use as a soil depot for the nearby housing developments, and gates on both sides block the road. Those gates are shoved aside or bypassed by driving through the grass by a handful of simpletons. A bit of observation during a walk there showed me two cars passing there illegally; a postal worker and a power utility guy. Two types of road users who likely use Google Maps quite a lot, and drive up the virtual traffic there.

On OpenStreetMap this road is simply closed and limited to private use (i.e., the construction workers hauling soil), and has been for a number of years now.

Google took about 6 months to accept my edit to an incorrectly named park near me. I took pictures of the signs as proof of course I could not submit them as evidence but a thought someone else would report it. In OSM I could change it in a few minutes and I am not very familiar with the tool.

I personally know someone with a similar story (small pedestrian path that existed in real life but missing from Google maps). He made the effort to flag it, provide proof etc etc.

What I told him was you guys be nuts to be spending your time to improve Google's product.

Google has the private road of a local landfill labelled as a bike path. They label little paths in cemeteries as bike paths. Its a little embarrassing how much they rely on automatic data vs, you know, a cities own published bike network maps.

That contribution was initially done by me :-)

Google has been atrocious all across Europe ever since Covid. They used to have (maybe still do?) this local guide thingy, but this empathetic contribution doesn’t feel good for a for profit company.

At one point Google developed a spam problem with map contributions, IIRC.

Some assholes worked out it was pretty profitable to (for example) create a '24 hour emergency locksmith' pins all over the country, with no real physical presence, then pass the business on to a real locksmith a few towns over, while taking a cut.

Once people find it's profitable to provide fake user contributions and you have to start policing them, I imagine the value of user contributions drops significantly...

It's the business owners responsibility to publish their opening hours on Google Maps, Apple Maps and on the web. Most don't give a damn about their own business, at most putting their hours on Google Maps if they remember.

I do this local mapping, and I also use StreetComplete.

I find it's not one of the other, it's "Why not both?"

e.g. new coffee shop opened down the road? I'll take a picture of it on my phone, go home and open https://www.openstreetmap.org/, click "edit" and add it, along with info from the phone photo (Shop name, Address, phone number, and a website if I can find one).

The next time I'm nearby, StreetComplete will prompt me for other key info such as opening hours.

They compliment each other.

On the one hand, the full OSM experience is much richer than StreetComplete.

On the other hand, StreetComplete is a gateway drug to it, and also a useful accessory to it.

This is how I work.

Having a dog means that I can record updates and additions as I walk varied routes around the area.

Updating the map later using its Web interface is very satisfying and much more worthy than doomscrolling through social media (which I don't really do anyway).

Re: shops/businesses, it would be nice if we could find somehow a way of having businesses themselves update their details: just basic stuff like opening hours and contacts. Not sure what's the solution for this though. One half of the solution certainly is just a convenient (web) UI for this, minimal friction just go to this website, enter your info, and click okay. But the other half is even making businesses aware that this is a thing. Mailing flyers with a QR code? x)

Absolutely. In Theory a business could make an OSM account and just go and update their own details on www.openstreetmap.org.

From my point of view this is easy. But as we have seen by the experience of how bad restaurant websites are, this is a significant barrier for these businesses.

I'm not knocking them: I couldn't run a restaurant; it's just different skills and experience. It's on the software people to make the software easy enough for restaurant people to use.

But surveying shops coming and going works really well with StreetComplete as well (check the places overlay).

Besides, the app is such a wonderful gateway drug to OSM that even if the only benefit at the end of the day from most mappers were road surfaces and building levels, there's still a few people who become good mappers beyond StreetComplete. I started with SC in March 2021. By now nearly no quests remain in my village, nearly every building has proper building and roof colours, I have far more changesets by now with JOSM and I strive for at least one changeset every day.

I won't touch bus routes, though. They're scary.

Local mapping is surprisingly difficult. I believe that the commercial products (i.e., Google Maps) are viable only because there are strong incentives for people (e.g., business owners, property owners) to submit edits as they are the main way that people search for them. Without that, you get into a limbo where you have data but it's not the most updated one.

By the way, not even government agencies have good geo data, even when they should. I needed up to date address information for work, so I bought a map from my local county assessor's office. In my mind, the assessor should have the most recent data on properties, as their main mission is to collect taxes annually. I was wrong. Their data is about 4 to 5 years wrong, with whole "new" subdivisions missing from their inventory. Google Maps kind of has them on the map; I believe that their geolocation data comes from real estate platforms when new houses are on the market. OSM is about 10 years behind in my area. I am submitting edits as I find them.

If someone has a better idea on where to find address data, please let me know.

The assessor's mission is all about parcels and tax lots though. For that purpose, it's not 4 to 5 years wrong, it is current, but they don't care what the "address" is. Not all parcels have an address, or are on a street. The only addresses they care about are where to send the bill.

OpenStreetMap barely has any users in many areas. It seems likely enough that a modest amount of traction would lead to people noticing out of date information much more quickly.

be the change you want. Start fixing your area.

That's how I approach OSM: I can't fix the world, but I can keep my own local patch up to date.

Other people do other things, and that's great too.

I added all the shops and addresses once already. Seems fine to not be all over keeping them up to date if there aren't that many users.

I have been focusing on adding POIs throughout the US. Probably only a few tens of thousands so far though.

Maybe try the National Address Database?

https://www.transportation.gov/gis/national-address-database...

> Even just taking care of the coming and going of shops is really useful.

This is exactly why I contribute to OSM and add/remove/fix my favorite restaurants, bars etc. in the city I live in. I feel like I'm doing three nice things at a time: helping local companies, making travel better for tourists, and sticking it to $the_man[1]

[1]: whatever corporation is currently responsible for sucking up data on what beer I drink, what pizza I eat, and what clothes I wear, so they can cross-references it with my haircut, circle of friends and lidar-scanned calves measurements from my robo-vacuum while i'm taking a shit to sell me keyrings and usb-cables from china

I tried editing my area to reflect road closures due to construction. It was surprisingly difficult. Spent an hour searching online. My edit was denied by the reviewer (I used the wrong method) and the closure was not reflected in the map.

Google maps was a one minute process and it was reflected in the map after about an hour. OSM stayed outdated for weeks.

From this experience I am tempted to conclude that OSM needs to make mapping easier.

I'm sorry that you had a bad experience adding data. Road closures are a somewhat advanced topic and differ in tagging depending on how long the road is expected to be closed. For short closures it's not recommended to actually mark the map as unpassable unconditionally because some offline routers may be stuck with months old data, depending on how often they update. So short closures would be tagged as

    motor_vehicle:conditional=no @ (date range)

while longer closures would use something like

    highway=construction
    construction=tertiary
    opening_date=2025-01

That being said, I'm surprised you ended up in the review process, as there isn't really one per se. Just a flag in the changeset that's typically not observed unless some people actively look for that (although new account + first changeset + review flag may have been picked up by someone). Some projects like HOTOSM (the Humanitarian OSM Project) do have a mandated review process and it seems to work fairly well most of the time.

So basically, your edit should have been visible on the map around a minute after making it, but was apparently reverted later. Unless you actually destroyed something I'd say that's not very typical. Reverts are somewhat rare and contributors are trusted to some degree.

As for specific tagging situations, there's probably always something to improve. StreetComplete works really well for keeping track of what's there, other apps have their own niche, and there may not be one that specifically targets road closures.

> consider installing the StreetComplete mobile app [...]

I'll second that and I'd add the tip to install its companion app StreetMeasure too in order to measure things like the width of a street or the length of other things.

When on holidays or a weekend trip visiting places I often use StreetComplete to add missing data while walking around with my wife. And recently in the South of France I had to answer questions about the width of rather small streets in an old town center where my guesses wheren't very good. Then StreetComplete suggested that I use StreetMeasure and I got much better estimates.

I carry a laser distance meter for that sort of things. Also wall/hedge/fence heights, etc. Besides, you can just ... not answer certain quests if you're unsure of the answer (or need to use estimation – there's tagging for estimated widths, but it's not used by StreetComplete). But I also found it handy to figure out the sizes of common paving stones, which makes sidewalks rather easy to measure without actually measuring :)

Sadly does not seem to be available in iOS App Store in the UK or I would love to.

Try https://every-door.app/

Excellent, thank you!

Can really recommend StreetComplete - really fun to use & using it right now on a day trip to improve a less mapped area. :)

Google Maps used to have geolocated pictures taken by users (IIRC this was called Panoramio). If OSM had an app that allowed you to take photos and they'd be automatically uploaded with location, that'd be great.

Mapillary or Kartaview are the typical choices here to add free street-level imagery which can then be used for OSM purposes as well.

What also works is Wikimedia Commons. There's a good mobile app. You can take pictures of a POI, upload them and later associate them with that object in OSM (or via Wikidata).

Yes, and I use or have used them all.

The wikimedia app could be improved a lot to support OSM. It is a bit of a hassle to take a picture, upload it to commons, then add both categories and concepts, then open an OSM editor, find the object, and add the wikimedia_commons tag.

It would be much more helpful if you could search for an object in OsmAnd/organicmaps etc, take a picture, have it uploaded to wikimedia providing default categories based on OSM tags, and then have it added to OSM. It could also help create wikimedia categories if necessary.

There is also a newcomer called Panoramax, started in France about a year ago. It's federated and starting to expand in other countries. https://panoramax.fr/

It'd be really nice if all these services auto-federated with each other.

A lot of the images are too dark or low-contrast, so another nice feature would be to auto-adjust the image for brightness (maybe make this a user-level default).

Thanks for sharing! I'm glad there is an FDroid version. I think I'll enjoy this while on walks. It's like gamification for map stewardship.

I remember when OpenStreetMap was new. I added a short missing footpath in my neighborhood at the time. It was a shortcut between homes. Today that same path even displays a very slight 1° turn. Amazing.

I use GoMap!!. It's comprehensive and a little clunky to use. I had not heard of streetcomplete. A quick suggests it is similar but a welcome alt.

StreetComplete is a gameified approach to updating details on OpenStreetMap, and only available on Android (for the moment: https://github.com/orgs/streetcomplete/projects/1).

A good companion to Go Map!! (which is a nearly full-featured OSM editor app) is https://every-door.app/, which is great for on-the-go stuff.

In the GoMap display settings (the “map” button above the big “+” button), you can enable “Quests” which is basically the same thing StreetComplete does. In GoMap you can even define your own “quests” for details to add.

Of course, I forgot (because I have them turned off). Thanks for reminding me.

Turns out I have new mini-hobby now, thanks!

The amount of data OSM has nowadays is a treasure. It's just a shame that there's no well done generic web frontend that would make all this data accessible in a way that could rival Google Maps. The official openstreetmap.org web site just provides bare functionality with an almost unusable search, and otherwise focuses on editing OSM data.

Probably the best generic "frontend" for OSM is Organic Maps, which however is confined to Android and iOS. I think if there would be a web version of Organic Maps, this could greatly accelerate OSM adoption.

It depends on what exactly you want. Google Maps does more then just being a map, such as navigation, streetview, reviews,...

In either case, I've heard quite some people being in love with Qwant Maps.

And I try to get to build specialized maps with https://mapcomplete.org

Qwant Maps is discontinued, sadly.

Features I would want most from a web frontend for OSM:

* Smarter search in the local area that is currently focused, with possibility to search for generic terms like "atm", "bus stop", "bakery", etc.

* Display of shops/restaurants/markets/etc with additional information like opening hours (which are available in OSM, I've added a ton of it through StreetComplete and often wondered why I even bother as no one will ever see them). I can easily live without reviews, they are easily gamed and would need a ton of moderation.

* Public transport information. There's currently work ongoing in Organic Maps to support this.

* Navigation, yes, to some degree. I think this area is actually already quite well covered through services like Komoot, for instance. For car navigation, you probably will never beat Google Maps because of the available current traffic information there.

First three points heavily dependent on good local mapping and tagging of POI. The public transport is a topic that is very very hard for local mapping. There is little point in mapping 20 bus stops around me without adding details like network, business etc. these details again are often not easy to get. An public transport overlay would be better in my opinion.

May I recommend GraphHopper Maps? A bit routing focussed but soonish also for POIs: https://github.com/graphhopper/graphhopper-maps/pull/394

Also addresses in the current view are more important when you search.

Turn-by-turn navigation is also possible ... in the browser. See https://github.com/graphhopper/graphhopper-maps/pull/279

https://cartes.app has all these features, but it's french only for now, in the alpha phase.

(I'm the developer)

Yeah, openstreetmap.org is a bit of an embarrassment for the community in its current state, although the search isn't too bad.

OsmAnd and OrganicMaps are fortunately quite powerful and full-featured.

I think mapy [1] is the best frontend I've seen for OSM. Its search still isn't as good as Google Maps though.

They also have iOS [2] and Android [3] apps. I can't speak for the iOS app, but the Android one lets you download offline maps in a very space efficient way, similar to Organic Maps.

1. https://en.mapy.cz/zakladni?x=-2.2989613&y=53.1629710&z=8

2. https://apps.apple.com/cz/app/mapy-cz-maps-navigation/id4114...

3. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.seznam.mapy...

I feel like an ass just for saying it but I downloaded the iOS app at the map style is so… busy. Granted I’m in NYC so there’s a lot going on but it’s showing me every single bus stop (there are literally seven in a one block radius) and building outlines even when zoomed out. It’s very visually overwhelming.

This is something Google and Apple Maps really nail, I hope OSM can too at some point.

I get what you're asking here, but I think it's important to note that OSM's primary value is in its data, not in a human-consumable map.

So if I could respectfully amend your request, I'd say I hope some third party can really nail this at some point. Organic Maps is pretty good, but I still need Google maps for a number of things. But even if that doesn't ever happen, the free OSM data is invaluable in a large number of GIS contexts.

(I'm an opinionated OSM contributor since 2007. :)

Neither mapy nor the default tileset should have maximal information. Perhaps you can argue google is primarily for navigation and default OSM is not, but that doesn’t mean it should have all the OSM data represented at each layer.

> I think it's important to note that OSM's primary value is in its data, not in a human-consumable map

I agree in theory but OSM does have a human consumable map. I think it’s in the projects interest for that default to be as good as it can be, rather than rely on third parties.

There's often discussions in the default OSM map renderer project[1] about what the goal of the project should be.

A lot of people have niche interests that they want implemented in the map, but that just looks busy to everybody else.

[1] https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto

IMO the default OSM tileset is terrible and the mapy set seems to be the same/similar. I guess it’s meant to show a lot of information, but the colors and patterns are noisy, the icons are too detailed, too many or too few things show up on the wrong layers. It’s been this way forever.

For me, it still beats Google by miles when I need an actual map to orient myself or get a feel for the geography of a place, as opposed to the map merely being a convenient sort-of-geographical background for navigation instructions or the result of a POI search.

Google doesn't always properly demarcate built-up areas, doesn't show forests, mistakes large-scale "Nature parks" for regular city parks and shades everything inside them in green, including complete towns and villages…

This sort of sentiment results in flat design.

Indeed, discovering all the goodness people have built on top of OSM is not particularly easy, especially for non-technical users. A long list of OSM based services is available in the OSM wiki [0].

A useful collection of links for non-technical users is hidden inside the streetcomplete app [1] (which itself is one of the most remarkable apps built on top of OSM). To find it, open the "my profile" view and then the "bookmark" icon). The list is unlocked gradually using some gamification (as a reward for completing quests). The complete list (for the impatient :-) is available here [2]

[0] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/List_of_OSM-based_servic...

[1] https://f-droid.org/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/

[2] https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/blob/a09ae2...

It's all a bit of a licensing nightmare as well, if you want to embed the maps.

If you want actual FOSS, you need to be aware of which libraries to avoid (i.e. don't touch anything Mapbox with a bargepole anymore - to be honest, their anti-union, anti-open agenda put me off a few years ago regardless of the license change, which is a shame because they used to do really good work).

https://cartes.app plans to be the open source alternative to Google and Apple Maps. French-only beta version for now.

(I'm the developer)

OSM is the only implementation of maps that has been done with privacy in mind. It's a real shame that DDG chose to drop it for a much worse alternative.

OSM has been an absolute necessity when out hiking in the sticks, and knowing that someone has done work to map this trail out without expectations from me. It's also led to many useful derived maps like public toilets and parking and accessibility. I've always made it a point to try and contribute back whenever I can.

I believe they did it because OSM in most places is very outdated or even non existent for businesses, which was probably one of the top uses of it in a search engine.

Having contributed quite a lot to OSM, I can say though that it was generally a lot better for hiking tracks than Google maps.

Agreed. For up-to-date info on businesses I rely on Google Maps, but for hiking it’s totally useless compared to OSM. I still buy some "official" paper maps of the area I hike in because I’ve had bad surprises with OSM, mostly because some mappers sometimes invent some paths based on outdated, blurry aerial imagery, with no real experience of the area. I wish there were a tag like checked_at on paths to mark those that were verified vs. those that were only drawn on Bing Imagery.

there are tags for this but I don’t see it used much around here, see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:check_date as a starting point

I'm an avid cyclist and always update routes, document drinking fountains, shelters, bicycle repair stations and update businesses that I see need it.

Thanks for all your input! How long does it usually take you to complete a single update? I'm curious about helping out with the effort in my neighbourhood.

I just edit OSM with the in browser editor, and it only takes a minute or so. Once you get the workflow down, it isn't too bad.

Their wiki is really good also, so feel free to take a peek. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contribute_map_data

I use StreetComplete (mentioned elsewhere in this thread), and have added substantial amounts of data to my city. It just asks simple objective questions (Does this crosswalk have a light to tell pedestrians when to cross?). Very easy and quick to answer.

I installed it last night and their flow seems very simple, yeah. Does it allow you to, for example, add missing streets or paths that aren't marked as missing? Because it sounds like it only lets you contribute to things that are already marked as "needs more data"

StreetComplete is fairly limited in scope (which is a good thing, considering its focus on UX and doing that single thing really well).

But there are a bunch of more “expert” features, such as the overlays, which allow for more focused QA work. And there's also a way of recording a GPX trace for missing paths or streets that will be added as a note for others to add to the map (or yourself, just not from the same app). Just long-press the screen and you can start such a recording.

With the places or things overlays you can also add new POIs in a limited way. It's still not a full-fleded editor (and as mentioned before, I think it shouldn't be), but there are now ways of doing more edits that were not possible previously, while not altering the interaction that much.

Yeah it feels like having a very focused editor with a polished workflow could help OSM get more people to contribute, although it would be very nice to maybe have an advanced mode I imagine. Places get new neighbourhoods all the time so it would be great to be able to rigourously modify maps from the same place you contribute from otherwise, although maybe a desktop experience would be much better for this.

I've noticed StreetComplete focuses on details to fill in an already existing street layout, which makes it feel like there are clearly separated stages to the mapping process. First get the basic layout down, then fill in more details like zoning and buildings, and then more details. I like the idea of that so far.

I feel like they could do a little more in terms of promoting on their own website to add/update things. I use it, but so far never saw any "Something new here? Do xyz to add it to the map!". So I have no clue how to even start adding anything. Alternatively perhaps they could allow users to add things to some staging ground, where authorized users could decide, whether to take it or not. But I guess that would result in lots of spam.

I fully support the OSM effort. Interestingly, through OSM and even Apple Maps you see just how difficult it is to build a mapping dataset.

One story I heard was that the Chinese government intentionally makes its published maps inaccurate by basically offsetting it by a few meters. I'm not sure if this is still current. I'm not sure of the reasoning. It's not like it would stop an invasion if the highway was a few meters from where you thoguht it was. Anyway, to counter that humans basically had to adjust the published maps by overlaying them onto satellite photos to remove the error. AI helps with this but it's still labor intensive.

IN addition to being labor-intensive, there are so many disparate data sources that you need to match up. Much of that data conflicts. The likes of Yelp and even Foursquare exist primarily by selling location data.

Even something like listing the opening hours of a business is incredibly labor intensive. Google has (had?) a system where an AI would call the business to ask their hours of operation. I think they had to modify it to say it was an automated call.

Oh you want directions? I guess you need accurate direction data for roads. You probably need to know where bike paths are. Different locales can define a bike path differently. In some places bikes can share the road with cars. In others they can't.

You want to integrate public transit? Well, every place is going to have a weird API.

It's a good example because something that seems so simple involves a ton of labor and integrating thousands of data sources.

Disclaimer: Xoogler.

> One story I heard was that the Chinese government intentionally makes its published maps inaccurate by basically offsetting it by a few meters

It’s still current but much more complex than this, and offsets can be of more than 500 meters (that’s not just a few). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...

I still don’t think it makes much sense currently. I would guess any opposing army would get coordinates for a strike from satellite imagery, and not from maps (let alone Chinese ones)

> You probably need to know where bike paths are

Which is famously something OSM does _much_ better than Google.

I really enjoy using OSM for my projects! It can be a bit daunting to figure out how to use the data because there are so many different tools in the ecosystem. I wrote this article recently to help anyone looking to get started querying OSM:

https://wcedmisten.fyi/post/how-to-query-osm/

Nice intro, thanks!

I'm very glad OpenStreetMap is still around. It has often contained data that I couldn't easily find elsewhere, and I've enjoyed being able to contribute to the places I care about.

I love that you can host your own version of OpenStreetmap, and even create a street address lookup from coordinates (reverse geocode) only with a bit of Python and SQLite, using the OSM data: https://github.com/punnerud/rgcosm

Also have a look into this work: https://nominatim.org/2023/02/06/nominatim-lite.html

Having an offline, updated map in my pocket is invaluable when hiking and cycling in the mountains. I have been contributing to it as much as I can, to at least give something back.

Currently, I use google maps "offline maps" for this. However, one thing it can't do is give you directions in offline mode. Meaning, I can have the map in offline mode but not ask it to find me a path from A to B.

Do you know of an OSM app that can do this is offline mode?

As sibling comments point out, you can try OsmAnd or Organic Maps.

Do you know of an OSM app that gives directions to get from A to B, and works offline?

I primarily use Osmand. Organicmaps is another option.

Which one is better? Coming from someone who doesnt know much about OSM, what I immediately notice is that accoridng to the play store osmand has in-app payments whereas organic maps doesn't.

> Which one is better?

The answer there likely dives too much into personal preferences to be a "one size fits all" answer.

Both are available on f-droid, so just try both and pick the one you prefer:

Osmand: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmand.plus/

Organic Maps: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.organicmaps/

Osmand is free, in app purchases are for larger offline download map size and other things, IIRC.

https://osmand.net/docs/user/purchases/

I’d summarise it like this: * Organic Maps: simpler, nicer, more intuitive UI. Better for most general use cases. * OsmAnd: a somewhat clunky UI, but more powerful and flexible. Better for advanced use cases.

Organic Maps is a better starting point IMHO.

OsmAnd

Organic maps.

OSM has the potential to be the open, available source of truth for so much of our data. From there, we can simply build curated UIs that displays what we need (keep in mind that OSM is not a “map”). Opening hours for example. Today this info is either on a webpage or google maps. Sometimes contradicting each other, where a Facebook status update has the most accurate info.

Which makes it a shame that Overture's Place data don't contain the opening_hours: https://github.com/OvertureMaps/schema/discussions/243

(Overture is a "standardized" version of OSM, except for the Places data where they use Microsoft and Meta data)

Unfortunately OSM doesn’t solve the problem if the POI owners don’t use it; and in my experience they often don’t even know it exists. Even in my densely-populated area with tons of OSM contributors a lot of POIs are still outdated because restaurant and store owners care only about their website/Instagram/FB or Google Maps and don’t know about OSM. When I started contributing ~12 years ago a main contributor used to say it was a waste of time to map restaurants because the data quickly becomes outdated if nobody’s there to check; I don’t know if he still thinks the same.

This will be massively controversial I'm sure, but I'm starting to think it should be illegal for companies to get the (unpaid) public to contribute to their own private database. Those store owners don't want to make the data available to Google, they want to make it available to the public. Companies like Google are abusing the public to further their own goals at the detriment to us all. Pay someone to do it? Fine. It's yours. Get it from the public? Then it's public data and you have to make it available to the public.

that sweet database of cell towers and wifi networks collected by all the android devices around the world for precise GPS localization

> used to say it was a waste of time to map restaurants because the data quickly becomes outdated

I downloaded streetcomplete on the suggestion of someone else on this thread, and that was immediately my intuition.

I'm trying to build this with https://mapcomplete.org

On ios i have been a beta tester and use the free program go map!! [1] When out and about. I find it fast and fun for osm updates on the go.

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/go-map/id592990211

First, happy customer of OSM and it’s impressive what they’ve built! That said, I’ve noticed their company website field is sparsely populated.

Any recommendations for acquiring the place website URL through an API or ethically scraping it at scale? I’m specifically wondering about options that wouldn’t involve Google Places.

Read up on what OSM is before you scrape!

And maybe Overpass will work for you: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_API

Do NOT scrape OpenStreetmap, you can download the full dataset for yourself: https://planet.osm.org/ and search for what you want in it.

If you want regional extracts, you can simply download them from Geofabrik at https://download.geofabrik.de/

It's a shame it's not become a bigger thing. I feel uptake has pretty much stagnated. The weird/pointless attribution requirement has really kneecaped them. A lot of open government data can not be relicensed under a more restrictive license and can't be injested. And if you want to use their data it's also inherently problematic when you need to watermark every map that uses OSM data

I hope some day a truely open data set is compiled - b/c honest I find the attribution requirement doesn't even serve the function of giving the authors/contributors any kudos

Basically every service that provides maps requires attribution. The problem with OSM is that they cannot reasonably include other data with a license that also requires attribution at the usage site. That little »© OpenStreetMap contributors« in the corner would balloon into 600 different entries. Unless they all are fine with not being mentioned, but they typically do that not for free.

There are a number of exceptions. A few CC-BY datasets can be used in OSM because the owner is fine with an entry on a Wiki page is sufficient attribution; Bing and Esri allow their aerial images to be used and only require the changeset to mention the source; etc. But each of those is a separate agreement.

I love OSM and its default web app, especially when travelling. The commercial maps are too dynamic and fuzzy, zooming in may make previously visible POIs go away. It also gives a general view of what is available in a given place.

I can’t find a supermarket using google maps in a new country, the search function usually fails and I don’t even know if I should use English, my native language or the destination’s language to find places. A more oldschool and less dynamic map allows to look for basket or cart symbols.

All hail OSM, the only online mapping service that actually lets you access the raw tile server for completely free without any login or tokens or anything, making it the absolute ideal for app integration. May it stay funded forever and maybe get some satelite data one day. Completely unironically.

Honestly it is a bit surprising that there hasn't been like a government programme or a crazy billionaire wanting to improve their image somewhere that would launch a rideshare cubesat and have it continuously record an actually open source dataset for all.

There are lots of government programs doing that, lots of companies trying to compete with Google has invested in OSM. The success really is that it has all gone into OpenStreetmap.

OSM could do a better job acknowledging these partners, but honestly Steve Coast is right it is the people of OSM that matters. The companies and government are only a very small part of OSM.

Damn, I hate those news, it make me fell old. I did some editing, maybe 15 years ago when I was on a LUG (Linux User Group, does this exists anymore ?). Good time.

LUGs still exist I regularly attend my local one

Another way to contribute is my project https://mapcomplete.org

I'm trying to build a somewhat generic map view, which features many thematic maps (e.g. shops, restaurants, bicycle pumps, toilets, ...)

Most data comes from OpenStreetMap, but it also allows to make changes, upload pictures, show wikipedia or make reviews with mangrove.Reviews

Can I use this to update the location of e.g. a restaurant that is in the wrong place?

Yes, the point-based maps typically allow you to move a feature.

I can't see how to do this in the mapcomplete UI.

Take this link for example: https://mapcomplete.org/food.html?z=16.1&lat=51.400908130317... .

The restaurant "Kefi" is incorrectly located on an entirely residential road. I believe it is probably supposed to be "To Kefi", which you can see here on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/To+Kefi+(Greek+Restaurant+...

I've tried dragging the icon, right-clicking it, or left-clicking it and looking in the popoup menu for a location field to edit, but no luck.

In the popup when clicking it there's a "Move object" near the bottom. You must be logged in for that to appear, though.

Adding (or correcting) opening hours for businesses, libraries, shops, etc in OSM is quite tedious sometimes IMHO.

Maybe that could be a useful task for some AI? Pass it a photo of the data and a location and let it generate the needed additions to OSM ...

Is there a good UI for OpenStreetMap which is as good as Google Maps? I really want to contribute to OSM but the UI is not as simple as Google Maps. I do keep putting things on Google Maps but i have started to feel guilty about it.

StreetComplete is a really easy way to start contributing!

Best (simplest) options for contribution are:

- StreetComplete - gamification of adding missing properties for existing objects. Consider it as most basic and limited

- https://every-door.app/ - the best option to update and add amenities (shops, restaurants, etc) on the go.

- iD browser editor available at https://www.openstreetmap.org/ - you will need at least this complexity to add objects with geometry (linear or area)

I have both of these. Street complete is not for day to day use. That means I won't open it in time of need and find a chance to add something.

Every door is a better one but still not as simple as Google Maps. I do believe we need an OSM wrapper which has as simple UI as Google maps.

I want a reasonably good, plain and simple C99 implemented, tile renderer.

Is there any or I have to use the python3 one that to avoid to pull an abomination of c++ or rust compiler?

I recently started using TomTom amigo for car navigation in preference to Google maps and I noticed it uses openstreetmap data. Data seems good.

TomTom uses their own data though (they're a major provider of car navs and navigation devices).

They are using OSM augmented with their own data. TomTom employs some mappers to fix issues they run into.

Try using organic maps. Free software with OSM data

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