weeklyOSM 813

12/02/2026-18/02/2026

1] | DER SPIEGEL has built its own open-source mapping stack based on MapLibre and Protomaps | © MapLibre – Protomaps – map data © [OpenStreetMap Contributors.

Mapping

• Comments are requested on the proposal bicycle_parking=absent. This tag aims to document that no bicycle parking is available around a feature, for example a shop or station, making such gaps in infrastructure discoverable in data analyses. Related discussion is also taking place on the forum.

Community

• Clifford Snow introduced the ‘Safe Routes to School’ initiative, which supports families who want their children to walk or cycle to school in a safe way. The project focuses on identifying the most suitable routes and collaborating with local authorities to make those routes safer. The team is currently looking for additional volunteers to improve the data. Those who would like to contribute can join the #safe-routes-to-school channel on the OSM US Slack.
• OpenCage has published an interview with Nicolas Collignon, CEO of Kale AI, a company developing urban delivery routing solutions powered by OpenStreetMap.
• Anne-Karoline Distel showed how to add information about what is or was quarried at a quarry in OpenStreetMap, noting that such data can be valuable for historical research, whether in industrial, social, or even church history.
• Marcelm005 has proposed a project to map the Lincolnshire ER Routes, emergency routes that enable people to quickly evacuate from flood-prone areas.
• rtnf is trying to learn how OSM tile servers work.
• The OpenStreetMap US community is currently deliberating on the most effective method for querying OpenStreetMap objects based on their geometric shapes.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• The next OSM Foundation Board meeting will take place on Thursday 26 February 2026 at 13:00 UTC.The meeting will be accessible through the video room.The topics to be covered are:
  • Chairperson’s report
  • Secretary’s report
  • Treasurer’s report
  • 2026 board face-to-face meeting update
  • French cadastre changes and release of code updates for ‘OSM components’ on GitHub
  • Creation of an OSMF Coinbase account for BTC donations
  • Potential statement/policy for OSMF’s participation with other parties in proposals for EU-funded projects, and related topics:
    • Draft blog post: OSMF approach to EU-funded project collaborations
    • Potential OSMF participation in Horizon Europe CSA (GeosTeX)
    • European Institute of Technology (EIT) communications
    • 2026 Sovereign Tech Agency call for tenders
  • Request for comments for GERS as an OGC Community Standard
  • Guest comments or questions.
• The Marche Region (Italy) reported ► about its recent entry among the supporters of OpenStreetMap as a ‘Silver Member’. This is the first time that an Italian public body has officially recognised the usefulness of OpenStreetMap and decided to actively contribute to its financial support.

Local chapter news

• OpenHistoricalMap has kicked off their first donation drive to help fund technical development and operations.

OSM research

• A Danish survey conducted in January 2026 found that in Denmark, OpenStreetMap contained approximately 20,878 km more paths, footways, and tracks than the official Danish road network dataset, GeoDanmark Vejmidter. The survey was carried out by the Danish organisation GeoDanmark.
• A new study published in Nature Communications uses OpenStreetMap land use and AOI data to help classify 110 million buildings across 109 Chinese cities, demonstrating how open, community-mapped data supports national-scale urban inequality analysis and evidence-based planning.

Maps

• kafked has presented his side project rename.world on Hacker News. rename.world is a MapLibre-based map where users can click any place and propose new names. Around 40,000 renames have already been submitted; the non-commercial project runs on SvelteKit, with self-hosted vector tiles, and is explicitly not intended for navigation.
• The Welikia project shows the native ecology of New York City (i.e. what it was before settlement), using OSM as base map. The project is maintained by the Urban Conservation team at the New York Botanical Garden.

OSM in action

• 1] At the News-Infographics-Analytics-Maps 2026 conference in Berlin, data visualisation journalist Ferdinand Holsten presented how the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL has built its own open-source mapping stack based on MapLibre and Protomaps. This allows DER SPIEGEL to host tiles for interactive maps independently of commercial services such as Mapbox. The presentation, which is now available as a video on media.ccc.de, outlines the workflow from data preparation to tile generation and the integration into an interactive storytelling. Ferdinand Holsten has kindly [provided us with an automatic translation of the presentation into English.
• Jake Coppinger (UrbanSpectra) has published a map tracking community and government projects across a river catchment, utilising OpenStreetMap data (Sydney, Australia).
• rbb24, part of public service broadcasting in Germany, naturally uses ► OpenStreetMap, with correct attribution, in its reporting of locations.

Open Data

• HeiGIT reported that it has published new open and ready-to-use global risk assessment datasets, with the objective to simplify risk analysis by removing major technical barriers to data preparation. These datasets are designed for easy use with the risk assessment QGIS plugin and enable humanitarian stakeholders to conduct multi-hazard, evidence-based risk assessments to support anticipatory action.
• Xiong et al. have published a dataset, which contains a topologically connected representation of the European high-voltage grid (220 kV to 750 kV) compiled from OpenStreetMap data extracted with overpass turbo.

Software

• sylvester_aswin has introduced their project Map Frame, which allows users to generate minimalist map posters based on OpenStreetMap data. Any location worldwide can be selected and downloaded as a 4K PNG (3600×4800); the first poster is free, additional downloads cost one US dollar.
• Carlos Froh introduced OnRouteMap, a web tool that helps find petrol stations, supermarkets, snack bars, drinking fountains, and similar places along your uploaded GPX track.
• The solo developer thattechiedude, from Hudson Valley, has presented ROLLIN, a map platform rating locations from 0–100 based on six features such as wheelchair access, accessible toilets, and lifts. The project uses OpenStreetMap data, cross-references Google Places, and adds community verification, and offers a free API tier for developers.
• Terence Eden, the developer of OpenBenches, has recently implemented a login with OpenStreetMap function in OpenBenches.
• Ulf Rompe has developed ‘What Did You Do‘, a simple tool that shows the number of OpenStreetMap edits made by each software application within a certain period of time.

Programming

• Thomas de Wolff has introduced his Go library geo/osm on Reddit, offering fast parsing of OSM PBF files through handwritten protobuf decoding, optimised readVarint and readSint routines, and custom zlib decompression. The library can skip specific object types, generate file statistics, and extract geometries by region filter, making it suitable for building custom renderers.
• In response to recent Overpass API service instability, Matt Whilden has developed microcosm, a GitHub Actions script that retrieves a narrow slice of OSM data and updates it nightly.
• Andy Townsend discussed the difficulties encountered in setting up your own Overpass API server.

Did you know that …

• … you can zoom one-handed in Organic Maps?
• … you can easily submit a brand to the Name Suggestion Index project by using NSI Submit a Brand?
• … there is a Mastodon instance run by and for OpenStreetMap contributors that is funded by the OSMF?

Other “geo” things

• Emmanuel Mathot and Jonas Sølvsteen wrote on the Development Seed blog about the release of the ‘EOPF Sentinel Zarr Explorer’, a framework for spatial analysis based on Sentinel images. The cloud-based geospatial project is funded by the European Space Agency through the Copernicus Space Component programme, and was developed by a consortium led by Development Seed and EOX, with community outreach led by thriveGEO.

Upcoming Events

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 MarcoR, MatthiasMatthias, PierZen, Raquel IVIDES DATA, Strubbl, Andrew Davidson, barefootstache, derFred, mcliquid. We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions. _