Author: weeklyteam

HaftalıkOSM 782

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10/07/2025-16/07/2025

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[1] Wanderer, a self-hosted Fediverse-based trail database | © Flomp | Map data © OpenStreetMap Contributors

Mapping

  • The comprehensive proposal for mapping road markings was approved with 21 votes for, 5 votes against, and 1 abstention.

Community

  • HazelCyril asked whether OpenStreetMap maintains records of the last time a user posted a diary entry or created map notes.
  • KhubsuratInsaan questioned if promoting OpenStreetMap as a leisure activity could be effective, since in certain social contexts the idea of ‘doing something for free’ is viewed as repugnant.
  • After the US community reached a consensus to delete ecclesiastical boundaries from OSM, Minh Nguyễn demonstrated how to map a Catholic archdiocese in OpenHistoricalMap instead.
  • Andy Townsend highlighted the challenges of mapping areas without clearly defined boundaries, noting that OpenStreetMap still struggles to accurately represent such regions. The problem lies in how people perceive and define the concept of place, an issue explored in detail in Euan Mills’ dissertation, which describes a social experiment where he walked 4.5 km along the A10, stopping roughly every 200 metres to ask ten unsuspecting passers-by ‘Excuse me, what area is this?’.
  • UrbanRoaming reported an amusing twist in Lima, Peru, where a hiking trail mapped eight years ago, by OpenStreetMap user BikeRoad, recently went viral on Instagram. The reason? The route still doesn’t appear on Google Maps, but shows up perfectly in Pokémon Go, which uses OSM data. As a result, adventurous Instagrammers are now giving Pokémon Go bragging rights as a more dependable trail guide than Big Tech’s map of choice.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

  • The OpenStreetMap Foundation’s Operations Working Group announced that recent security updates to OSM’s OAuth requires some applications to be upgraded to remain compatible, including the HOT Tasking Manager, osm-api-js, and osm-auth.
  • The OpenStreetMap Foundation has announced the launch of its 2025 Engineering Working Group Microgrant programme, aimed at supporting community members developing software projects that enhance the OSM platform and ecosystem. A total of £30,000 has been allocated, to be shared among several innovative and impactful proposals. Individual grants are capped at £6,000, but applicants with ambitious ideas are encouraged to think big and apply nonetheless.

Events

  • Videos from SOTMUS 2025 presentations are now being uploaded to OSM-US’s YouTube channel.

OSM research

  • Scientists from the US and Germany have investigated so called ‘death by GPS’, where drivers are distracted, drive in bad weather conditions, follow the satnav blindly, or the satnav’s map does not account for road conditions (rough shortcuts not suitable for the vehicle, for example).
  • A recent study by Jakub Trojan and Tereza Srnečková highlighted how university-led mapathons, like those at Tomas Bata University in Zlín, can enhance the quality and volume of citizen-contributed geographic data on platforms such as OpenStreetMap, fostering both education and community-driven mapping for humanitarian purposes.
  • Ming Liu and team used OpenStreetMap road and POI data to assess Dalian’s urban nocturnal light environment. By linking night-time brightness with urban functional zones, they identified both lighting-vulnerable areas and lighting hotspots, offering valuable insights for healthier, more sustainable city lighting.
  • Researchers from MIT’s Senseable City Lab, along with collaborators from other institutions, have cited OpenStreetMap as a data source in a new study examining the relationship between street design, speed limits, and driving behavior. Using 51 million telemetry data points from vehicles, the study evaluates the influence of street features, extracted from OSM, on drivers’ compliance. Moreover, the study uses a model, based on OSM, to predict driver compliance to a 30 km/h limit when applied to areas where it is 50 km/h at the moment.
  • PeopleForBikes highlighted the importance of OpenStreetMap data in evaluating urban bike infrastructure in its 2025 City Ratings. Cities such as Baltimore have improved their scores by updating OSM with more accurate low-stress bike routes, showing how better mapping directly impacts planning and advocacy, for safer, more connected cycling networks.

OSM in action

  • [1] Christian Beutel, aka Flomp, has built Wanderer, a self-hosted, Fediverse-based trail database that allows users to upload recorded GNSS tracks or create new routes, complete with rich metadata features to build an easily searchable catalogue.
  • Der Spiegel, in a recent video report on car theft in Berlin, highlighted how Saxony’s Special Commission for Vehicle Crime uses an OpenStreetMap-based application to track suspects by analysing their movements through cell tower data.
  • Befristet tooted that the University of Vienna Library has launched an interactive web map using OpenStreetMap and uMap to display its various locations.

Software

  • GrabMaps has introduced the KartaCam 2, a portable LiDAR-equipped camera designed for capturing high-resolution street imagery and detailed 3D indoor environments. The collected LiDAR point cloud data can also be uploaded to the newly released KartaView 3D platform.

Programming

  • Sarah Hoffmann has outlined several anticipated features for Nominatim version 6, including auto-completion, improved performance, enhanced address handling, and expanded support for complex categories and complex OSM objects.

Releases

  • The Organic Maps July 2025 update has been released.
  • MapComplete version 0.54.0 is out now, including a ‘copy’ button feature for some types of OSM object and MangroveReview-based POI reviews now parsed with markdown.
  • HeiGIT reported that a new version of ohsome-planet, a command-line tool that transforms OSM history PBF files into an analysis-ready data format, has been released.

Did you know that …

  • … the OSM changeset feature was brainstormed during a 2008 hackathon in London?
  • … even almost 10 years later OSM Tag History, created by Martin Raifer, is still available and can be used to consult the historical evolution of the use of OpenStreetMap tags and generate graphs automatically? This application was first published by us in September 2016, and we’re publishing it again because these detailed statistics are hard to find.

OSM in the media

  • The removal of North Korea’s Ryesong River from Naver Maps has sparked controversy in South Korea, amid suspicions of possible data manipulation. Naver claimed that the omission resulted from using OpenStreetMap data for regions outside South Korea, asserting that the river was missing from OSM’s 2023 data. However, an OSM Foundation representative refuted this, stating the river has never been removed from OSM. The debate intensified after concerns emerged that radioactive waste from a uranium refinery upstream on the Ryesong River could be flowing into South Korea.
  • The Italian National Institute of Statistics has published an update of their document ‘Use of the OpenStreetMap to calculate indicators for road accidents on the Italian roads’, based on 2023 OpenStreetMap data.

Upcoming Events

CountryWhereVenueWhatOnlineWhen
flagNoidaNoida Sector 18OSM India monthly mapping party (online) 2025-07-20
flagSan JoseOnlineSouth Bay Map Night 2025-07-23
KielMango’sKieler Mapper*innentreffen 2025-07-22
BerlinOnlineOSM-Verkehrswende #69 2025-07-22
Ciudad de MéxicoMicrosoft Teams (Remote)Mapping Party Semanal LATAM Weekly LATAM Mapping Party 2025-07-24
HannoverKuriosumOSM-Stammtisch Hannover 2025-07-24
flagWienSchlupfwinkel (Kleine Neugasse 10, 1040 Wien)75. Wiener OSM-Stammtisch 2025-07-24
UN Mappers Mappy Hour 2025-07-25
OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting 2025-07-25
OSM World Mappy Hour 2025-07-25
flagΔημοτική Ενότητα ΠαπάγουPiu Verde, Άλσος ΠαπάγουOSM Greece – Συνάντηση της ελληνικής κοινότητας (Αθήνα) 2025-07-26
flagJalpaiguriBeguntary More (Law College Gate)5th OpenStreetMap West Bengal Mapping Party 2025-07-26
flagSiliguriGuru Nanak Chowk6th OpenStreetMap West Bengal Mapping Party 2025-07-27
flagNoidaNoida Sector 18 Metro Station19th OpenStreetMap Delhi Mapping Party 2025-07-27
Stadtgebiet BremenOnline und im Hackerspace BremenBremer Mappertreffen 2025-07-28
DüsseldorfOnline bei https://meet.jit.si/OSM-DUS-2025Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen (online) 2025-07-30
[Online] OpenStreetMap Foundation board of Directors – public videomeeting 2025-07-31
Eastern Europe Mappy Hour 2025-07-31
UN Mappers #ValidationFriday Mappy Hour 2025-08-01
HOT Training WG: Advanced Waterways Mapping Webinar 2025-08-02
flagAmsterdamTomTom AmsterdamMaptime Amsterdam: Map & Meet 2025-08-04

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, Andrew Davidson, adiatmad, barefootstache, derFred, mcliquid.
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