OSM US is excited to bring you another installment of our Mapper Highlight series, where we shout out mappers, projects, and OSM communities that catch our eye. This October, we interviewed William…

Inspired by the annual 30DayMapChallenge, the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group of the OpenStreetMap Foundation is organising the 31 Day OSM Challenge, aka Maptober, this October 2026!

Mapping USA is OSM US’s free online conference. Hop in the virtual mapmobile for a road trip across the US mapping community!

This is a recording of the September 23, 2026 OSM US Mappy Hour: POIs with Foursquare. First, OSM US Lead Software Developer presents on the basics of POIs in OpenStreetMap, then on Layercake, a new…

OpenStreetMap data extracted into thematic layers and converted to cloud-native file formats that are easy to use with software from DuckDB to QGIS.

Manual curation is a bottleneck, with backlogs hitting 200k tasks. By using a distributed data network, data expiration has been cut from 11 to 3 months, making the map 4x fresher. This volume…

There are many fun flavors of OpenStreetMap, from the classic style on openstreetmap.org, to Americana, OpenTrailMap, OpenCycleMap and more. Plenty of people create physical maps too, using QGIS or…

If you can spend an hour doing an activity that causes another mapper to do 2 more hours of mapping, that's an incredible increase in mapping. But what could possibly do that? Are these techniques…

An excited first look at the brand new MapRoulette interface! With this redesign, the goal was to give users a fresh user interface with targeted improvements, while not breaking the "flow" that has…

Full title: How OpenStreetMap Infiltrated our Relationship (or how you can get your loved ones into OSM) One day in 2021 Jacob opened up StreetComplete on a date, and now Alyssa works for…

OSM users want to know that the map reflects reality at their location and for their points of interest (POIs). This talk covers a statistical model that uses changesets to estimate OSM's data…

OpenHistoricalMap is more than a map. As an open data project, it aims to help people discover and understand the wealth of information that mappers have contributed, whether or not it fits on the…

OSM US is incredibly excited to announce the latest Charter Project: OldInsuranceMaps.net (OIM)!If you’re a map nerd you’ll remember ever seeing a Sanborn Insurance Map in person. They often come in…

OpenSidewalks (OSW) is an open data standard for mapping connected pedestrian networks, developed by the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology (TCAT) at the UW. In Washington State, a legislative…

On June 29, 2025, the Metrobus network in the Washington, DC area was radically altered overnight. Every route number was changed, bus stops were closed, and some routes were entirely different than…

GrabMaps' KartaDashCam transforms everyday ride-hailing trips in Southeast Asia into a passive mapping fleet. Using Edge AI, it detects traffic signs and POIs on-device to drastically reduce mapping…

In 2025, the Mapillary Camera Grant Program distributed 40 cameras to the OpenStreetMap US community. Over 5 million fresh 360 degree images and comprehensive coverage of cities from Lansing,…

This talk covers the details of using official government datasets from the BLM, NPS, and USFS, and processing the data to update OSM with anything useful, like a trail name or road reference number.

What good can you do with an OpenStreetMap road network? OSM has been the basis of several transportation network datasets like SharedStreets, OSMnx, and most recently Overture. Road network owners…

OpenStreetMap is more than data: it's a community. Coordinates of Connection explores how relationships, shared purpose, and collaboration strengthen the geospatial fabric across the U.S. From…

OSM data quality evaluations typically focus on measuring the accuracy and usability of the data. But how do contributors with diverse backgrounds, skills, and interests collectively decide what…

Hear the story of Mapping Teejop, a digital mapping project centering Indigenous history and presence in and around Madison, Wisconsin. Mapping Teejop is an educational project for classroom use - a…

"Are you a developer interested in building your own bus app?" In 2013, this question appeared on the SMSMyBus website - an ad for a real-time Madison Metro bus arrival API. Despite being a recent…

After being inspired during Mapping USA by OpenHistoricalMap and OldInsuranceMaps.net, explore the history of Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps in Sandusky, Ohio. How might these maps be used by local…

The Eastern Turnpike operated between the areas of Albany NY and Williamstown MA from 1799 into the late 19th century. A private toll road, it was typical of the period, and there were many such…

Mergin Maps simplifies field data collection, offering an open-source platform built on the power and familiarity of QGIS. Capture, share and publish geospatial data seamlessly with an intuitive…

This session covers a class project developed over the course of a semester: a Python program that takes both LANDSAT thermal band imagery and OSM ways exported via Overpass and calculates the Land…

After the 2025 Kerrville, TX floods and Los Angeles wildfires, KABOOM! needed to quickly support communities by identifying damaged playgrounds. In this 15-minute talk, learn about a GIS workflow:…

OSM has a LOT of data, and it can be hard to sift through it all! TheMap.is lets you easily browse OSM data by theme so you can focus on just the data you care about. Choose from thousands of…

Boundary disputes are a major but little-known challenge in mapping: how can you show disputed borders between neighboring countries that claim the same territory? Here in the U.S. we're used to…

The federal open-data portal HIFLD Open long curated geospatial data layers on critical infrastructure from across agencies. But its 2025 shutdown by DHS wiped out a common reference point for…

AI models are increasingly integrating open map data into their data corpus. Should the community leave AI labs to their own devices or help intermediate this interaction? To this end, this talk…

When HIFLD Open was taken offline in 2025, a community-driven effort launched to restore its 400+ critical data layers. As automata increasingly navigate systems for users, they prioritize what is…

In the United States, populated places have long been classified based on diverse personal perspectives, resulting in a patchwork that is inadequate for data consumers and difficult for users to…

On August 10, 1846, Congress established the Smithsonian Institution with a simple mission: “the increase and diffusion of knowledge,” and gave it “perpetual succession.” One hundred eighty years l…