Hey fellow mappers! 👋🌍

I’m beyond excited to share that the global State of the Map (SOTM) 2025 will be held in Manila, Philippines 🇵🇭 — and preparations are already in motion! For those who are also planning ahead, here are some important links you should definitely bookmark::

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📌 Important SOTM 2025 Links

🔗 Link Type	URL
🌍 Official Website	https://2025.stateofthemap.org/
📝 Call for Participation (CfP)	https://2025.stateofthemap.org/calls/general/
🧪 OSM Science Track – Call for Abstracts	https://2025.stateofthemap.org/calls/osm-science/
💸 Call for Travel Grant	https://2025.stateofthemap.org/calls/travel_grants/

🌐 Official SOTM Social Media & Platforms

🌐 Platform	Link
🐘 Mastodon	https://en.osm.town/@sotm
📺 YouTube	https://youtube.com/stateofthemap
📘 Facebook	https://facebook.com/stateofthemap
📸 Instagram	https://instagram.com/stateofthemap
💼 LinkedIn	https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofthemap/
💬 Telegram Group	https://t.me/sotm_international
📝 OSM Wiki Page	https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2025
📣 Official Blog	https://blog.openstreetmap.org
💻 GitHub	https://github.com/openstreetmap/stateofthemap-2025
❤️ Support OSM	https://support.openstreetmap.org

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If you’re thinking of applying, speaking, or volunteering — go for it! The energy, the people, and the purpose behind SOTM are truly unmatched.

Let’s map the future, together. See you in Manila! 🇵🇭

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Brazil Singh,
On behalf of the SOTM organizing committee.

It’s difficult to write in all map style languages. A style written in JSON, like MapLibre, has a few extra pain points because JSON is not designed for editing by humans.

Some “common” style languages are

• CartoCSS
• Mapnik XML
• MapCSS
• MapServer
• MapLibre GL/Mapbox GL

Some, like CartoCSS, are designed for human editing, while others, like Mapnik XML, serve as a lower-level language. MapLibre GL falls into this category of not being designed for editing by humans. MapLibre GL preprocessors like glug were designed to help with this, but none of them have taken off. Other style projects like openstreetmap-americana have taken a different route. Their developers have written a program in JavaScript that generates the style.

I’m taking a different route. I’m creating a language that uses minimal pre-processing of its input to produce MapLibre GL. I don’t aim to solve every difficulty with MapLibre GL, only the ones that impact me the most. The end result will be a pre-processing language

The biggest problems I encounter when writing MapLibre GL are

1. No comments

   Comments are essential so other readers understand what’s written

2. Everything has to be in one file.

   With large styles this is a burden. More than one file makes it easier to edit.

3. Having to repeat definitions instead of using a variable.

   Something like a color or symbol definition might appear a dozen times in the style. If you want to change it, you need to make sure you got all the occurrences.

4. Inability to make versions of the style in different colors.

   When you only want to change a few superficial elements of the style, you want to contain those changes to one file.

5. Not having support for more colorspaces

   I work in perceptual colorspaces like Lch. It’s a lot of converting that the computer should automate.

What issues have you found when writing MapLibre GL styles?

I heard for OSM before, but i just started to use it. And loving it for now. Installed it locally via docker in couple of minutes.

I am happy to contribute to the cause!

This blog post explains how I handle a typical bug report for the new OSMF Shortbread tiles. Here, I focus on the “island” seems to be missing from “place_labels” report from SomeoneElse

After verifying that the report is correct, I set up my editor environment. It’s useful to have an environment that syntax highlights Jinja SQL files, as well as other files. I use a Visual Studio Code-based editor with the Better Jinja plugin.

The issue is in the place_labels layer. After checking Shortbread, I see that place=island should show at zoom 10 or higher, so there is a bug. Tilekiln creates tiles by reading definitions from shortbread.yaml, so I check there for the place_labels definition.

place_labels:
    description: Holds label points for populated places.
    fields:
        kind: Value of OSM place tag
        name: *name
        name_en: *name_en
        name_de: *name_de
        population: Value of OSM population tag
    sql:
    - minzoom: 4
        maxzoom: 14
        file: shortbread_original/place_labels.04-14.sql.jinja2

This file shows that for zooms 4 to 14, the SQL for the layer is in shortbread_original/place_labels.04-14.sql.jinja2. Since this file is in shortbread_original, osm2pgsql-themepark created it, and it remains unchanged.

SELECT
        ST_AsMVTGeom(geom, {{unbuffered_bbox}}, {{extent}}, {{buffer}}) AS way,
        name,
        name_de,
        name_en,
        kind,
        population
    FROM place_labels
    WHERE geom && {{bbox}}
        AND {{zoom}} >= minzoom
    ORDER BY population desc

There aren’t any obvious bugs in the SQL. There’s no filtering out of islands, so either the data isn’t making it into the place_labels table or it has the wrong zoom. The data is loaded by osm2pgsql, and shortbread.lua tells osm2pgsql how to do that.

themepark:add_topic('shortbread/places')

… See full entry

Once I had a concept to render gabled roofs in 3D with OSMgo.org but it did not work. Often the roof looked like broken down. After a long time of abandoning OSMgo, I found a “working” solution and used it in my code. But no, the browser got stuck in an infinite loop %-(

May be update the version of ThreeJS, after years? That took me many many hours. For the geeks: Using es6 needed much export and import. After hours of typing, I fond at last VS-Code plugin to show me the missing variables. Not using “with” any more needed a lot of “this”. Worse, ThreeJS dropped the geometry.merge() and changed the geometry attributes, typing, typing. Hey, something positive!: Because now Vertex-Colours are used, only one Draw-Call per 3D-tile is needed. OSMgo should run faster now.

With the new ThreeJS the infinite loop was gone, but: the roof was at the wrong place and direction. Some adaptions of the theft code were needed. Now, the City of London looked much better than before. Oh wait, all roofs were mirrored, one more adaption.

… See full entry

This blog post is part of a series of blog posts about the new OSM file format “OMA”. This is the seventh post. At the end of the article you’ll find links to the other blog entries.

 

To create and use blocks and slices, you need to know the type of an element - is it a highway, a landuse or a barrier. And if it is a highway, is it a primary, a secondary or a footway.

 

Keys

Apart from relations where the type key stores it, this information is not available within OSM data. Again, it has to be guessed, and there is much discussion on the forums and elsewhere about the “main keys”, as they are sometimes called. Several apps, such as most OSM editors, contain such a list, but the lists are not always the same.

The approach I took was this: I counted all the keys of all the tags of all the elements and took the one that appeared most often in this list. I considered this the first main key and removed all elements with this key from the set of elements. Then I repeated this process.

After a while some “dirt” remains: elements that do not show a clear “main key”. I think if you start digging around in that dirt, you might find some hidden gems, that is, main keys that aren’t used very often, because the items they represent do not exist very often in the real world. But I didn’t.

I repeated this process twice,¹ once for nodes and once for ways. You have to keep an open mind, because sometimes the top key is clearly not a “main key”, for example name pops up after a while. Addresses needed some special treatment, because there is no address key. Addresses are stored as a collection of addr:* keys. Fortunately the addr:housenumber is almost always present, so I used that as the key for addresses.²

 

Values

… See full entry

This post is the result of a student project. The work was done by the following group of students: Alice Rey, Jihene Haj Hamouda, Yahia Heni, Mohammed El Mehdi Alaoui, Kaies Mhadhbi.

Try our online demonstration to find your own shade-optimized route! Discover how we improve pedestrian comfort during hot days by prioritizing shaded paths. (demo restricted to the Nantes Area)

Introduction

This project focuses on enhancing pedestrian routing in OpenStreetMap (OSM) by incorporating shade into route computations. Exposure to direct sunlight significantly affects pedestrian comfort, especially during hot weather, making shaded routes preferable even if slightly longer. Despite this importance, existing OSM data related to shade has typically been qualitative and limited in precision. To address this, we developed and implemented two complementary methods to integrate detailed shading information into OSM-based routing engines like Graphhopper:

… See full entry

Simple 3D buildings

They are ofcourse not M4TR as you use the building=yes tag and you add colours, height and roof shapes.

But for more complicated buildings?

What if there is an apartment building with different colours? Am i allowed to use building:part=yes for each colour? Or is that M4TR?

Monuments

Monuments can be a little sad to just se as a square or even a node, so could i map them in 3D? That sure is M4TR, but we want to map how it is in reality. So therefore it should be allowed? Right?

How an algorithm from the 80s sets the new standard for modern spatial indices

Geospatial indices are all around us. They allow us to search through millions of points in an instant answering questions such as “find me the closest bike repair shop” efficiently.

And yet there are still forgotten gems in the archives of computational geometry: Space-filling curve based spatial indices. With an optimization going back to the year 1981 this spatial index delivers surprising efficiency; and yet it is rarely discussed in the geospatial community.

Let’s go back in time and rediscover how we can build a spatial index on top of a space-filling curve to accelerate geospatial queries and simplify geospatial indexing for location-based applications.

Note: If you know about Z-Order Curves or Hilbert Curves already I still recommend you reading this as the post below will show you how use Z-Order Curves efficiently as a spatial index and that is something you probably don’t know yet.

Note: Now available on NPM as zbush

npm install zbush

The Z-Order Curve

The Z-Order Curve is one of many space-filling curves transforming multi-dimensional data into a single dimension while preserving locality. In the geospatial domain it allows us for example to transform longitude and latitude into a single number while preserving geographic proximity.

For spatial queries such as “find me the closest bike repair shop” we want to find points within a rectangular area. To search a rectangular area on the Z-Order Curve (highlighted in gray below) we start at the top left Z value of the rectangular area and walk the curve until we’re at the bottom right.

… See full entry

Nice service

Overpass turbo https://overpass-turbo.eu/?Q=%5Bout%3Ajson%5D%5Btimeout%3A25%5D%3B%0A%2F%2F%20Gather%20results%20within%20the%20current%20map%20view%0A%28%0A%20%20node%5B%7E%22%5Eaddr%3A.*%22%7E%22.%22%5D%28%7B%7Bbbox%7D%7D%29%3B%0A%29%3B%0A%2F%2F%20Print%20results%0Aout%20body%3B%0A%3E%3B%0Aout%20skel%20qt%3B&C=37.317027%3B-122.072031%3B16

At this point I’ve officially mapped out half of Bell Island, Newfoundland. Although I’m geographically halfway, the southern portion which I’ve mapped out is much less geospatially dense than the northern portion, so I’d estimate I’m about a third of the way through this project.

The ID Editor has been very intuitive so far in this process, and I have also learned a bit on how to use the JOSM editor for more specific geospatial processes. One thing I have yet to figure out is the display order of overlapping features, however I believe this is tweaked through the relations mechanic in the ID editor.

So far the minimal existing geospatial data that is present in this area has been accurate for the most part, with only slight alterations required to match the current satellite data that I’m basing my new features off of. That being said, quality varies, and it’s clear that some of these features were one-off additions by likely inexperienced users.

I think I’ll be able to keep up this mapping pace for the foreseeable future, so this project will hopefully get within the mopping up phase within a couple of months.

Belfast Maine - Little City by the Water

Hello! I have just started getting into OpenStreetMap in the last few days, I absolutely love the way it works, and love to map out different towns. I lived in the town of Belfast, Maine for many years and visit this town so it holds a special part to me.

I’ve been adding all the “Downtown” houses that aren’t mapped, they are just Address points, and different new Houses, roads ETC. I just found out last night that I can actually MERGE address points with areas for houses so it’ll speed the process up a lot for me.

I have mapped out multiple different areas in Kilmeaden, Portlaw and Kilmacthomas. Quite a bit of these areas were already mapped out so I modified and updated many roads and buildings.

I have mapped out different areas in Kilmeaden and Portlaw. Quite a bit of these areas were already mapped out so I modified and updated many roads and buildings.

Khumalo 01

Overview

This is inspired by laambda19’s diary post on their mapping project, I want to document my work the same way with clear examples of before and after, adding more detail to the Bulawayo map. Aerial photography and local knowledge are the main driving force in mapping. There is scarce information available online, what little there is often requires a Facebook account.

Changes made

*I added colour to buildings and roofs

before & after

Nothing to see on Carto renderers but in simple3D renderers

Overpass turbo code https://overpass-turbo.eu/?Q=%5Bout%3Ajson%5D%5Btimeout%3A25%5D%3B%0A%28%0A%20%20way%0A%20%20%20%20%5B%22tunnel%22%5D%0A%20%20%20%20%5B%22tunnel%22%7E%22%5Eyes%24%7C%5Eculvert%24%22%5D%0A%20%20%20%20%5B%21%22culvert%22%5D%0A%20%20%20%20%28%7B%7Bbbox%7D%7D%29%3B%0A%20%20relation%0A%20%20%20%20%5B%22tunnel%22%5D%0A%20%20%20%20%5B%22tunnel%22%7E%22%5Eyes%24%7C%5Eculvert%24%22%5D%0A%20%20%20%20%5B%21%22culvert%22%5D%0A%20%20%20%20%28%7B%7Bbbox%7D%7D%29%3B%0A%29%3B%0Aout%20body%3B%0A%3E%3B%0Aout%20skel%20qt%3B&C=37.34314%3B-121.941376%3B11

This is a overpass turbo script https://overpass-turbo.eu/index.html?Q=%5Bout%3Ajson%5D%5Btimeout%3A25%5D%3B%0A%2F%2F%20fetch%20waterways%20excluding%20those%20tagged%20intermittent%3Dyes%0A%28%0A%20%20way%5B%22waterway%22%7E%22%5E%28stream%7Cditch%7Criver%7Cdrain%7Ccanal%7Cyes%29%24%22%5D%5B%21%22intermittent%22%5D%28%7B%7Bbbox%7D%7D%29%3B%0A%20%20relation%5B%22waterway%22%7E%22%5E%28stream%7Cditch%7Criver%7Cdrain%7Ccanal%7Cyes%29%24%22%5D%5B%21%22intermittent%22%5D%28%7B%7Bbbox%7D%7D%29%3B%0A%29%3B%0Aout%20body%3B%0A%3E%3B%0Aout%20skel%20qt%3B

Zamboanga city

I’ve suggested an updated version of the diagrams explaining the tagging of railway stations. The goal is to make them simpler to understand, especially for newcomers, without losing the core meaning. There have already been some feedback and interesting ideas for further improvements.

I invite you to join the discussion — your input would be highly appreciated!