iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 26/09/2026

Excited to be at #WCNA #WikiConferenceNA in Edmonton this weekend. Find Minh (mxn) to hear about how OpenHistoricalMap can be a partner to #Wikipedia in the campaign against #recentism in the digital humanities.

A pile of stickers for OpenHistoricalMap, some showing a diff removing the text WP:RECENT, others saying it isn’t a real map if it doesn’t have a time slider. Nearby on the same table are stickers for the Internet Archive and some Edmonton postcards.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 23/09/2026

That’s the good news. The bad news is the influx of extant features has cut the average age of a dated element in half, to only 50 years, and the average year in OHM shifted from 1960 to 1992.

Graph of OpenHistoricalMap by represented time period in elements along the Y axis by date represented along the X axis. The graph shows exponential growth beginning in the 18th century going up to 7 million in the present day.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 23/09/2026

So what was the big jump in August all about? One of our contributors, flha127, has been busy importing Belgium’s local boundaries from #Statbel, buildings and roads in various French cities, and other open government data. We also cleaned up lots of bogus “9999” dates from before we adopted #EDTF.

Modern-day map of Belgium highlighting 29 million objects concentrated mostly in the southern half of Belgium.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 23/09/2026

September is almost over and we didn’t post the statistics for August yet! Since the start of August, we added 3.9 million dated elements, more than doubling what we had before. That includes 1.6 million more buildings and 17,192¼ more railroad miles than we had before. #HockeyStick

Graph of OpenHistoricalMap coverage growth in number of dated elements along the Y axis by date accessed along the X axis. Steady linear growth from 1 million in May 2022 to 2.5 million in March 2026, followed by some spurts up to 3.5 million by July, then finally a spike in August and September up to 7.5 million.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 20/06/2026

Hot off the heels of #SotMUS2026, we also have full historical coverage of I-90 in #Wisconsin thanks to @pilgerobst.bsky.social, as well as the highways around #SanAntonio thanks to Charlie Plett. The road map is starting to look a little less blank!

Map of Wisconsin showing the entire length of Interstate 90 from Beloit to La Crosse.

Map of San Antonio showing Interstate 10/U.S. Route 87 and Interstate 37 going through the city, as well as the Interstate 410 Connally Loop.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 20/06/2026

Our road mappers have been hard at work adding major highways throughout the United States. #Route66 is more or less fully mapped from 1926 to present between the Colorado River and Seligman, and several related routes are mapped too, thanks to Matthew Anderson. #SavingPlaces

Interstate 40 and U.S. Highways 66 and 93 around Kingman, Arizona.

U.S. Highway 89 joins U.S. Highway 66 at a T junction near Ash Fork, Arizona.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 02/04/2026

This is one of the largest increases in recent coverage we’ve ever seen, driven by an import of #GURS addresses in #Slovenia.

A heatmap of 1,771,955 elements modified in March, zoomed in on Slovenia, which resembles a population density map due to all the addresses added.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 31/03/2026

Community members are scheduled to present at events in at least four countries in the next few months. Our event calendar has never looked so international! 🇦🇹🇩🇪🇺🇸🇲🇽 osm.wiki/OHM/Events Planning to name-drop #OpenHistoricalMap in a talk, organize a mapathon, or livestream your mapping? Let us know!

Events. April 10, 2026: Graz Linux Days 2026 in Graz, Austria. April 30, 2026 – May 3, 2026: FOSSGIS OSM Community Meetup 2026 Number 25 in Essen, Germany. June 11, 2026 – June 13, 2026: State of the Map U.S. in Madison, Wisconsin. June 16, 2026 – June 19, 2026: 14th Symposium on Mexican Geography Instruction in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico.

A table ranking countries by the number of events. United States leads with 23 events, trailed by Germany with two. Austria, Belize, Colombia, the United Kingdom, Mexico, the Netherlands, Panama, and the Philippines each have had one.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 03/02/2026

This is the single largest increase in the average age of an element and the single largest decline in the average year since recordkeeping began in June 2023. That’s actually a good thing: it means we’re mitigating #recentism, bringing more historical balance to our coverage.

A line chart of dates along the X axis from May 2025 to present and average age in years along the Y axis from 110 to 140 years. The series seesaws between 125 and 135 except for a drop toward the latter half of last year to 120 before rebounding to 127 this month.

A line chart of dates along the X axis from May 2025 to present and average year along the Y axis from 1920 to 1950. The series mostly stays within the 1930s, steadily rising to the early 1940s in 2025 before a steep drop back to 1938 this month.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 01/01/2026

The main #VectorTiles tileset contains route information for more informative transportation map styles. A new tileset contains territories as polygons, so your custom map can color in a country or other administrative region.

A raw view of the data showing route_lines features with indexed tram route attributes.

A raw data view of the world highlighting country territories as polygons, showing details about Numidia and France.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 01/01/2026

The map can label #toponyms in #MinorityLanguages #IndigenousLanguages #AncientLanguages, like no other world atlas you’ve ever flipped through.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 01/01/2026

If you contribute to @wikipedia.org @wikidatacommunity.bsky.social #WikimediaCommons #Wikivoyage, you can join OpenHistoricalMap in just a few clicks, without having to juggle yet another password for yet another wiki. It works a lot like our existing OpenStreetMap login support.

Hi Example, In order to complete your request, OpenHistoricalMap needs permission to access information about you, including your email address, on all projects of this site. No changes will be made with your account.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 01/01/2026

#OSMCha can visualize giant changesets without timing out or throwing an error. No one will sneak another empire into OHM without the community noticing it.

OSMCha showing a changeset that adds many streets to Mannheim.

OSMCha showing a changeset that adds boundaries around the world to the French Empire.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 01/01/2026

#scrapers and #crawlers are waging a constant #DDOS on our site and driving up cloud hosting costs. We’re coping, but if it keeps getting worse, will OHM last? 🫠

Protection pack (web ACL) activity: summary of your protection rules and how their order contributes to terminating actions. Block-Old-Chrome-UA, Block-countries, and ipset-block-production siphon off about a sixth of the traffic. Of 53,720 requests, 47,700 are allowed and 6,030 are blocked.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 13/11/2025

It was a privilege to introduce the software #internationalization and #localization community to #OpenHistoricalMap (and #OpenStreetMap and @maplibre.org) at #UTW2025. Join us in mapping yesterday already! #i18n #l10n

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 05/11/2025

Anyone mapping the history of the German Autobahn? We have a particularly fleißig mapper who has set up a project for the daunting task of mapping the historical evolution of die Bundesautobahn & he's off to a great start... #HGIS #OpenStreetMap #OpenHistoricalMap #DH #Germany #Highways #History

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 17/10/2025

If you’re in #Loouhvull for #NACIS #NACIS2025, look out for these OpenHistoricalMap stickers. Snag one and keep it real! (For the record, we have a scale bar too.)

Four OpenHistoricalMap stickers say it isn’t a real map if it doesn’t have a time slider. The stickers are surrounded by other map-related stickers.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 17/10/2025

Love this! Added some metadata to link to an image & to more info. A little hyper-local curation of the hyper-local mapping. Please fix any mistakes made by this former RVA resident (long before the Gun Hole!) www.openhistoricalmap.org/node/2140307... #RVA #LocalHistory #Micromapping

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 03/10/2025

Mabuhay! If you’re in Manila for #sotm #sotm2025, come find us for some troublemaker’s stickers!

Three stickers saying I map abandoned railways, boundaries you can’t see, and overlapping buildings like there’s no tomorrow: openhistoricalmap.org.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 22/09/2025

We'd love to help Jacob & others build these extensions, if there's interest. 🙏 And, of course, if anyone would like to keep improving the RVA section of OHM, we'd love to support that, too... just sayin'! 😎 www.openhistoricalmap.org#map=16/37.53...

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 22/09/2025

People are probably knocking down your door to add new features, but obviously... we'd love to see an OHM base map that matches the year of the picture, storage of your POIs in OHM, tagging of places in OHM... you name it! www.openhistoricalmap.org/way/19947902...

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 05/09/2025

¡Buenas días de #Medellín y #SOTMLatAm #SotMLatam2025! ¡Agradecemos a encontrar todos los mapeadores aquí! @rub21.bsky.social y Minh Nguyễn van a presentar sobre la tema de #OpenHistoricalMap el sábado.

Un folleto de OpenHistoricalMap en un tablón de anuncios.

Rubén y Minh en el vestíbulo de la biblioteca.

Los folletos de OpenHistoricalMap y muchas pegatinas en la mesa de regalos.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 02/07/2025

June saw more newly added buildings than in any month since recordkeeping began (for us, anyway). Most of it comes from an import of the Basic Register of Addresses and Buildings that’s getting underway in the Netherlands. forum.openhistoricalmap.org/t/importing-... #BAG #Nederlands

All-time map of the world marking buildings added in June 2025, with a strong concentration in Central Europe and England, plus a smattering across North America, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia.

Map of Voorne aan Zee, Netherlands, marked with buildings added in June 2025, with particularly strong concentrations in Rockanje, Oostvoorne, and Kruiningergors.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 20/06/2025

@itspangler.bsky.social from @bplmaps.bsky.social holding court in the Leventhal Room at the Boston Harbor Hotel for rapt #StateOfTheMapUS attendees. Thank you, Ian & Leventhal! 🙏🏼🗺️⏳ #OSM #OldMaps

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 20/06/2025

On the walk to #StateOfTheMapUS at #BostonUniverdity and seeing geo / map / history references everywhere... #OSMUS #OpenStreetMap #Boston

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 18/06/2025

When worlds collide: "Navigating Map Libraries: The Leventhal Map Center and OHM," which will highlight how the #crowdsourced OSM world can work with #GLAM resources, using the resources at @bplmaps.bsky.social as an examplar! #DH #HGIS #Libraries #Archives

Beautiful old plan of Boston proper, showing changes in street and wharf lines, 1795 to 1895, provided by the Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 14/06/2025

Map labels match your preferred language setting, like the rest of the site. Now you can understand the map even if you don’t speak a language that was common halfway around the world centuries ago. It’s also a lot easier for mappers to know where to improve our language coverage. #l10n #i18n 🧵 3/4

Belgium, Luxembourg, Cologne, and other place labels in French as of 100 years ago

Belgium, Luxembourg, Cologne, and other place labels in Dutch as of 100 years ago

Belgium, Luxembourg, Cologne, and other place labels in German as of 100 years ago

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 14/06/2025

Do you already contribute to @openstreetmap.bsky.social? You can start contributing to OpenHistoricalMap too in just a few clicks, without having to juggle yet another password for yet another mapping site. Once you have a taste of OSM #SingleSignOn via #OAuth2, you’ll never look back. 🧵 2/4

Authorization Required: Authorize OpenHistoricalMap to access your account with the following permissions? Read user preferences, Sign in using OpenStreetMap.

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 11/04/2025

Great thread on in-depth mapping of local history by @sk53onosm.bsky.social over on OSM Town Mastodon: mapstodon.space/@SK53@en.osm... 🙏 to OSMF for sponsoring OSM Town. #CliftonEstate #Nottingham #EastMidlands #HGIS #DH #VectorMaps #OSM #HistoricalSocieties #OldMaps

Screenshot of a Mastodon post on mapping the history of Clifton Estate by @SK53@en.osm.town

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OpenHistoricalMap @openhistoricalmap.org · 25/03/2025

Thanks for the shout-out! 🙏 The data goes back much further than 1825... that's just the default setting that can be adjusted in the UI.

Screenshot of map of Europe in Oct 1648 on OpenHistoricalMap.org

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