weeklyOSM 773

08/05/2025-14/05/2025

Mapping campaigns

• Vicksun reported that Unique Mappers Network in Nigeria recently launched the Unique Mappers IT Cohort 1 for 2025 and organised the Nigeria Monthly Mapathon in collaboration with TomTom.

Community

• Unique Mappers Network has unveiled the shortlisted logo submissions for State of the Map Nigeria 2025. The designs are now open for public voting, which will run until Monday 19 May.
• Harald Schwarz has nominated the Map (a butterfly species) as the official mascot of OpenStreetMap, noting that other open-source projects have already assembled a full animal kingdom of mascots, from camels and whales to elephants, snakes, and mastodons.
• Russ Garrett introduced Power Network Tools, a JOSM plugin designed to support power network mapping in OpenStreetMap. The tool currently features a voltage estimator, which helps contributors assign voltage values to power infrastructure using aerial imagery. Additional tools are expected to be added in future updates.
• Kumakyoo analysed how Deutsche Post’s recent changes to postbox collection times are affecting OpenStreetMap’s postbox mapping in Germany.
• Allan Mustard recounted his experience of mapping Turkmenistan with OpenStreetMap during his tenure as the US Ambassador to the country from 2015 to 2019.
• Fortune shared some highlights from his first day of a six-month industrial training program at Unique Mappers Network in Nigeria. The session featured a general introduction to OpenStreetMap, during which participants were guided through the process of creating their first accounts and tasked with mapping at least ten buildings.
• While attending the Grazer Linuxtage 2025, Plepe mapped several memorials and pieces of artwork he discovered in Graz and shared how to add them to OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons.
• s8321414 told the story about the collaboration between OpenStreetMap Taiwan and Wikidata Taiwan, which involved the mapping of Liuphang Matsu ►. Liuphang Matsu is famous for having no fixed temple to call home; she will have a pilgrimage trip starting from a temporary temple.
• Arretche published , on the OSM FR forum, about a collection of photos of the L’Ardour river, collected with a GoPro Max and Panoramax.

Local chapter news

• Katja Haferkorn, Astrid Emde, and Laura Klemmt released ► a report detailing the outcomes of the latest meeting of FOSSGIS’s Public Relations and Communication Working Group.
• Maggie Cawley, Executive Director of OpenStreetMap US, took part in a panel discussion on open data for resilience at FedGeoDay2025, an event focused on open geospatial ecosystems that support capability growth across the US federal government.
• The Swiss OpenStreetMap Association has issued an official statement in response to the Federal Council’s recent approval of the Federal Act on Mobility Data Infrastructure.

Events

• Geofabrik has confirmed that the next Karlsruhe OpenStreetMap Hack Weekend ► will be held on Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 November at the company’s offices.
• Laura Mugeha invited the OpenStreetMap community to submit talks for the upcoming State of the Map 2025 conference, emphasising that anyone who has contributed, whether by mapping, using OSM data to solve problems, or helping others learn about the platform, has a valuable story to share.

OSM research

• Since 2016, corporations have been increasingly getting involved in OpenStreetMap. Large corporations such as Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon have hired large teams to edit in OSM and contribute map data on a global scale. At the same time, some observers and the OSM mapping community have expressed concerns about corporate involvement. Lilky Tockner and others have researched it. The paper and the results are available.

Maps

• [1] Paul Norman has launched the demo page for the OpenStreetMap vector tile server at vector.openstreetmap.org, now featuring four versatile stylesheets available for users to choose from.
• Jomo shared a collection of custom offline map styles and routing profiles for OsmAnd.
• x-Cyclette published , on the OSM FR forum, about the project L’Histoire de l’Art en 3D et 1 clic, which documents historic heritage, such as the Castell of Requesens ► (Spain), and displays interactive Framacarte web maps, where visitors can see 3D models of some iconic sites.

OSM in action

• Neal has developed ‘Internet Roadtrip’, a virtual travel experience where users collaboratively vote on the group’s next destination. The site features an OpenStreetMap-powered mini-map in the bottom-left corner, displaying the current location and route history in real time.
• As preparation for the annual Hajj pilgrimage is currently underway in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the Indonesian government has launched the ‘Shalawat Bus‘ , a complimentary shuttle service designed to transport pilgrims between their hotels and the Masjid al-Haram. In a recent news report, footage revealed the fleet management system supporting the service, which is utilising the OpenStreetMap Carto basemap and monitoring an intersection in the Hadda Village area.
• Alexey Milovidov showcased ClickHouse’s capabilities for aggregating large volumes of geodata, using the Foursquare dataset as an example. To create a POI density map, he adapted the air traffic data visualisation tool, which uses OpenStreetMap as the base layer.

Open Data

• Patrick Wildermann, of Wikimedia Deutschland, pointed to a troubling trend targeting the open knowledge movement, citing a recent letter from a US attorney accusing the Wikimedia Foundation of ‘allowing manipulation of information’ and hinting at revoking its tax-exempt status. Concerns had already surfaced following reports that a think tank planned to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors accused of misusing their roles.

Software

• There is a tile puzzle using OSM, named ‘Any Map Puzzle’. You simply search for a location, set map style and difficulty and start.
• HeiGIT has released the Climate Action Navigator, a new dashboard that displays high-resolution spatial indicators related to climate action. On Thursday 5 June they will be introducing their newest technology with an online event.
• Unable to find a ready-to-use Docker container for Osmosis, a command-line Java application for processing OpenStreetMap data, Andrii Holovin took the initiative to create one himself. The container images are now available for download on both Docker Hub and the GitHub Container Registry. He is currently welcoming contributions to help reduce the footprint of the current image.
• Minh Nguyễn has posted a summary of changes made to the OpenStreetMap website since mid-March, the first in a monthly series, as part of his role as Core Software Development Facilitator (we reported earlier).

Programming

• Several project ideas based on OpenStreetMap have been proposed for the upcoming Google Summer of Code 2025. Descriptions are now available on the OSM Wiki.

Releases

• Martin Raifer has released version 2.34.0 of the OpenStreetMap iD editor, addressing multiple community-reported issues from its GitHub repository.
• Tobias Zwick has released StreetComplete v61.0, introducing several improvements to the main screen interface and officially dropping support for Android versions below 7.1.

Did you know that …

• … if the OpenStreetMap wiki feels too slow to access, you can use a much faster cached version here?
• … you can search for features documented in Wikidata and display the results on a map with OSM? Daniel Mietchen highlighted this on his Mastodon profile.

Other “geo” things

• Werner Pluta, of Heise, reported that one of the first four satellites in the European Galileo navigation system has been decommissioned. The satellites are transferred to a graveyard orbit at least 300 kilometres above the active constellation, where they are expected to remain in a stable position for the long term.
• Borja Suárez, of Reuters, reported that the Spanish tech firm GMV has unveiled LUPIN, a GPS-like system that uses lunar satellite signals to enable real-time navigation for astronauts and rovers on the moon.
• MapLibre has released its April 2025 newsletter, featuring updates to MapLibre Native, Web, and the Martin Tile Server. It also includes the latest schedule for the project’s regular monthly community calls.
• As reported last week, the users and stakeholders behind Organic Maps have apparently quarrelled and are heading for a ‘divorce’. Meanwhile, the frustrated community is working with one of the developers on a fork that is currently still called CoMaps. You can read the analysis by Christian Spaan, from S3NNET.
• RiffReporter, an independent journalism cooperative specialising in urban development, e-mobility, and sustainable transport, has launched ► a special subscription plan for volunteers working on mobility and transportation issues – including contributors to OpenStreetMap.
• Lucia Stein, of ABC News, reported on how Bob Reinhardt founded The Atlas of Drowned Towns, a project focused on mapping communities submerged by dam construction across the United States and around the world.

Upcoming Events

Country	Where	What	Online	When
	Grenoble	Atelier analyse de données géographiques		2025-05-15
	Dublin	AI & OpenStreetMap: Building a Chatbot to Query OSM		2025-05-15
	Essen	FOSSGIS-OSM-Communitytreffen im Linuxhotel		2025-05-16 – 2025-05-18
		OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting		2025-05-16
	Ivrea	Incontro dei mapper piemontesi		2025-05-17
	Olomouc	Missing Maps Day Olomouc 2025		2025-05-17
	Comuna 13 – San Javier	Junta OSM Latam – Avances SotM Latam 2025 Medellín		2025-05-17
	Manchester	Joy Diversion		2025-05-17
	Estrablin	Microcartopartie Estrablin (38)		2025-05-17
	Mamoudzou	Aprendendo sobre mapeamento pós-desastre: estado das edificações em Mayotte		2025-05-19
		Missing Maps London: (Online) Mid-Month Mapathon [eng]		2025-05-20
	Lyon	Réunion du groupe local de Lyon		2025-05-20
	Bonn	188. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn		2025-05-20
	Lüneburg	Lüneburger Mappertreffen	✓	2025-05-20
		[Online] Map-py Wednesday		2025-05-21
	Zagreb	State of the Map Croatia 2025		2025-05-21
	Karlsruhe	Stammtisch Karlsruhe		2025-05-21
	Bayonne	Cartopartie à Bayonne		2025-05-22
	Hannover	OSM-Stammtisch Hannover		2025-05-23
	Hasanpaşa Mahallesi	OpenStreetMap Community Meet-Up – Istanbul		2025-05-24
	Stadtgebiet Bremen	Bremer Mappertreffen		2025-05-26
	San Jose	South Bay Map Night	✓	2025-05-28
	Düsseldorf	Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen (online)		2025-05-28
		[Online] OpenStreetMap Foundation board of Directors – public videomeeting		2025-05-29
		UN Mappers Mappy Hour: Community Discussion		2025-05-30
	Chanakya Puri Tehsil	17th OSM Delhi Mapping Party (Online)		2025-06-01

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 Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, TheSwavu, barefootstache, derFred, s8321414.
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