27/03/2025-02/04/2025
OpenArdenneMap, a map style designed specifically for hiking in the Belgian Ardennes region [1] | Image © Vlaanderen. Tiles courtesy of Champs-Libres | Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
Mapping campaigns
- OpenStreetMap Ireland has successfully completed its Louth mapping task, which was launched on 12 November 2024. The project, finished in just three months, was made possible by the contributions of Anne-Karoline Distel, jonnymccullagh, Jonako, Ciarán Staunton, and snoozingnewt. During the mapping process, three previously unrecorded archaeological sites were identified and reported to the National Monuments Service, with two of them confirmed.
- OpenStreetMap India contributor Nilabrata was recently featured in a news article that highlighted their effort to map amenities in Siliguri through field surveys with their college.
Community
- [1] OpenCage interviewed Julien Minet, the developer behind OpenArdenneMap, a map style designed specifically for hiking in Belgium’s Ardennes region.
- In a bid to curb the growing issue of SEO-related spam, Allison P has launched a campaign targeting fraudulent edits in OpenStreetMap.
- Christopher Beddow highlighted the power of volunteered geographic information, such as OpenStreetMap, emphasising its decentralised nature. No individual can grasp the entire system, but each contribution helps build a more complete picture, as every observer brings a unique piece of knowledge toward assembling the whole, continuously shaping our understanding of the world.
- We reported earlier on the weekly presentation of the Japanese edition
of weeklyOSM by our colleagues in Fukushima on YouTube. Gregory Marler, a long-time active OSMer, took up our suggestion for a visual and linguistic presentation in other languages and discussed issue #766 on YouTube, beautifully organised by category in English. Recommended for imitation. - Jan Prazak argued that objects in private gardens that do not require building permits, such as small shelters and, in particular, movable items like round swimming pools, should not be included in a public map.
- Martijn van Exel has developed ‘Meet Your Mappers’, a website designed to generate a list of active mappers in any given local area.
- Rphyrin has authored a brief biography of Gunther W Holtorf, a German national and Lufthansa Airlines manager in Jakarta, who developed the city’s first modern map in 1977. Encouraged by his peers, who found his hand-drawn sketches invaluable for daily navigation, Gunther took on the project to create a more comprehensive and accurate map of Jakarta.
- se_bras recently took part
►
in a community-led mapping campaign at the El Totoral Wetland, utilising ChatMap, a WhatsApp-based mapping tool developed by HOT. - TonyJC commented on the newly released Esri World Imagery for Panama, noting that previously mapped features, such as buildings and roads, now appear significantly misaligned with the updated satellite imagery.
Local chapter news
- OpenStreetMap Austria announced in a blog post and on the OSM Community forum
that the organisation has completely revised its website. - The OpenStreetMap Indonesia community recently uncovered a case of a ‘trap street’ (a fictitious entry added to a map to catch unauthorised copies). This case involved German cartographer Gunther W Holtorf, who labelled a landfill in Bantargebang, Bekasi, Indonesia, as ‘Monte Klamot’. Holtorf later admitted
that the name was a Berlin-specific joke related to landfill sites. The ruse worked. A well-known Indonesian cartographer was caught incorporating ‘Monte Klamot’ into their own map, unaware that the name was entirely fictional. A Bekasi-based OSM Indonesia community member confirmed that no such place exists in Bantargebang, reinforcing that the entry was a deliberate trap to expose plagiarism.
that the organisation has completely revised its website.Events
- The material from the ‘OpenStreetMap Training Course’, maintained ► by the IVIDES.org Institute, will be used in the face-to-face training that will be offered ► to participants of the Latin American Free Software Festival – FliSol Resende 2025, to be held in person on Saturday 26 April. You can still register ► and take part in this event. The IVIDES.org thanked the organisers for including OpenStreetMap on the agenda.
- Christoph Hormann (1) and GeoObserver (2 ►) have shared their insights from the FOSSGIS 2025 Conference.
►Education
- You can now access the full training guide for tree field mapping with OpenStreetMap (in Portuguese) that was offered ► at the Green Open Data Day 2025, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The video of the live session with the speakers and other files are available on Wikimedia Commons. The organisers would like to thank their partners and sponsors for their collaboration in this event.
- Teachers at the initial, primary, and secondary levels of GAL School ►, Cusco Peru, have begun training to integrate mapping tools into classes. Together with their students, they will explore these tools in greater depth through the HOT Learning Centre platform.
OSM research
- Otakar Čerba has published a study introducing a methodology for assessing territorial innovation potential using OpenStreetMap data and geoinformation technologies. This research highlighted that OSM-based assessments offer spatially detailed, flexible, and replicable insights into regional innovation potential. However, the study also acknowledges the challenges of crowdsourced data, including variability in quality and completeness.
Humanitarian OSM
- The Argentine newsletter NewsData talked ► with Juan Arellano, from HOT, about the importance of collaborative mapping in disasters, in relation to the floods in Bahía Blanca and the subsequent mapping campaign, emphasising the importance of coordinated work with local authorities so that the data produced can be used.
OSM in action
- One of the biggest Italian online map providers has switched ► to OSM as its main data source.
- The Trufi Association has been recognised in a recent case study by the Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR), a platform that celebrates the impact and potential of Free and Open Source Software in public administration and beyond. OSOR’s mission is to promote the use of open-source software, and Trufi naturally align with their values, particularly in the realm of urban mobility.
- Stadlholz, an online marketplace for wood products and related services, is utilising OpenStreetMap data to display listings by region.
►Software
- Mapy.cz has officially been rebranded to Mapy.com, citing the need for a more globally recognisable name.
- In response to GitHub’s decision to archive its repository over an alleged connection to a US-sanctioned region (we reported earlier), the Organic Maps team has migrated its development repository to a self-hosted Forgejo instance.
- Gregory Marler compared plugins that integrate OpenStreetMap into WordPress sites and enable geotagging of posts, demonstrating the MiKa’s OSM plugin and highlighting its advantages over directly embedding map JavaScript into content.
Programming
- Kumakyoo provided a technical breakdown of their OMA file format, a newly introduced format for storing OpenStreetMap data.
- As his contribution to last year’s iteration of the pen plotter postcard exchange (#ptpx), Noah Doersing has built a small web-based tool that extracts road data from OSM, then converts it to a colour-coded SVG file ready for drawing on an AxiDraw pen plotter.
Releases
- The GeoDesk team have released Version 1.0 of their OpenStreetMap toolkits for Python and Java, and outlined the upcoming capabilities expected in Version 2.0 (most notably support for fast incremental updates using minutely change files).
- Geotoko has released the latest version (25 March 2025) of their PostGIS dump of the OpenStreetMap database for the Netherlands and neighbouring regions.
the latest version (25 March 2025) of their PostGIS dump of the OpenStreetMap database for the Netherlands and neighbouring regions.Did you know that …
- … the France 3 (Grenoble) channel published a report in October 2007 on the OpenStreetMap project, in which Raphaël Jacquot showed how he mapped city streets in the field with a notebook and a GPX trace? The video recording is available on Framatube.
- … weeklyOSM is written with the help of OSMBC? Created by TheFive, this specialised tool simplifies the editorial process, allowing editors to efficiently gather news references and later refine them using Markdown and translate into various languages.
- … there is a script that allows you to copy OSM data to the OSM sandbox?
on Framatube.Other “geo” things
- A satirical campaign and petition to crowdfund the purchase of California on behalf of Denmark has launched, widely seen as a response to President Donald Trump’s proposal to acquire Greenland. Though humorous in tone, the movement, which has amassed hundreds of thousands of signatures and global media coverage, is seen as a critique of US foreign policy and territorial ambitions.
- Are you developing digital services, simulation models or thematic digital twins? Are you a player in the fields of management, energy, transport or insurance? Then this IGN (France) initiative ► may be of interest.
- The IHO has a crowdsourced initiative to improve the collection, quality and availability of hydrographic data worldwide, which has resulted in the creation of the Crowdsourced Bathymetry Working Group. The IHO has been responsible for maintaining the GEBCO (General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans) over the past 10 years, and they have been collecting data from ships and other vessels to improve the global chart by 2030.
- Lormaccone demonstrated how to use a Kindle eBook device as a high-contrast GNSS display in a 2017 article.
- Maxar Intelligence, a subsidiary of the US space technology firm Maxar Technologies, has developed ‘Raptor’, a visual navigation system designed to function without GNSS. It converts satellite images into 3D data, enabling drones to compare real-time camera footage with terrain models to determine their exact position and orientation. Primarily developed for military drones, the system enables operations in environments where navigation satellite signals may be compromised.
- The 2GIS company talked about their experience launching a crowdsourcing Telegram bot for collecting photos of POI.
about their experience launching a crowdsourcing Telegram bot for collecting photos of POI.Upcoming Events
| Where | What | Online | When | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dresden | OSM Stammtisch Dresden  | 2025-04-03 |  | |
| UN Mappers #ValidationFriday Mappy Hour | 2025-04-04 | |||
| OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting | 2025-04-04 | |||
| City of Canning | Social Mapping Saturday: Rossmoyne | 2025-04-05 |  | |
| New Orleans | A Synesthete’s Atlas: Cartographic Improvisations between Eric Theise and Carl Stone | 2025-04-06 |  | |
| Delhi | 15th OSM Delhi Mapping Party (Online) | 2025-04-06 |  | |
| Salt Lake City | OSM Utah Monthly Map Night | 2025-04-09 | | |
| München | Münchner OSM-Treffen | 2025-04-08 | | |
| Bern | Berner OpenStreetMap-Znacht | 2025-04-08 |  | |
| Hamburg | Hamburger Mappertreffen | 2025-04-08 | | |
| London | London pub meet-up | 2025-04-08 |  | |
| Zürich | Missing Maps Zürich Mapathon | 2025-04-09 | | |
| Camerino | OpenStreetMap: Mapping & Hiking | 2025-04-10 |  | |
| Bochum | Bochumer OSM-Treffen | 2025-04-10 | | |
| København | OSMmapperCPH | 2025-04-13 |  | |
| Delhi | 15th OSM Delhi Mapping Party | 2025-04-13 | | |
| 中正區 | OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #75 | 2025-04-14 |  | |
| Missing Maps London: (Online) Mid-Month Mapathon [eng] | 2025-04-15 | |||
| Lyon | Réunion du groupe local de Lyon | 2025-04-15 |  | |
| Bonn | 187. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn | 2025-04-15 | | |
| San Jose | South Bay Map Night | ✓ | 2025-04-16 | |
| Lüneburg | Lüneburger Mappertreffen | ✓ | 2025-04-15 | |
| Amsterdam | Maptime Amsterdam: Springtime Mapping Party | 2025-04-16 |  | |
| Marche-en-Famenne | OpenStreetMap Belgium au salon Municipalia | 2025-04-17 – 2025-04-18 |  | |
| Aketi | Mapathon for Kinshasa City, | 2025-04-21 – 2025-04-25 |  |
Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.
This weeklyOSM was produced by MatthiasMatthias, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, TheSwavu, TrickyFoxy, barefootstache, derFred.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.