OpenStreetMap is a crowd sourced map of the world which has grown to become one of the most detailed sources of local-scale map data available. Source map data is created and maintained by thousands of volunteers from around the world, using processes similar to the maintaining of the wikipedia encyclopedia.
The most visible aspect to OSM is the online web-tile interface from openstreetmap.org, but the maps can also be viewed, imported, or edited in many applications such as QGIS , OpenLayers, ArcGIS and dedicated OSM applications.
The heart of the project is the underlying data which is open for all to edit, view, or create custom rendered maps. Fundamentally OSM’s focus is on the data, the rich maps simply fall out of this.
Relationship with OSGeo
OpenStreetMap a friend of our foundation in furthering our open geospatial ideas of open source, open standards and open data.
Many of our members are active as part of both OSGeo and OpenStreetMap.
Initiatives
- Common conferences OSGeo-OSM at regional level: FOSSGIS, FOSS4G+SotM Argentina and many others
- OSGeo Live – LearnOSM has provided content for OpenStreetMap project and editors
- Cross-projects: osm2pgsql, osm2pgrouting, QGIS integration and many more!
Notable use at OSGeo
- OSGeo Live includes a city sized extract of OSM data which is used for examples by some applications, and provides an information page introducing OpenStreetMap.
