weeklyOSM 815

26/02/2026-04/03/2026

1] | Podoma in action in Italy | map data © [OpenStreetMap Contributors.

About us

• StreetComplete now has in-app support for weeklyOSM notifications, including a daily update from the weeklyOSM RSS feed, along with user settings to control message types. Also included in this update are notifications about OSM events nearby from the OpenStreetMap Calendar. You can read about all the improvements of v63.0 in the release notes.

Mapping

• James Wheare has started a wiki discussion on the conflicting definitions of the wetland=tidalflat tag.

Mapping campaigns

• 1] Daniele has just launched a Podoma instance on the Wikimedia Cloud Services platform to monitor ►[ OpenStreetMap Italia’s Project of the Month initiative.
• The Italian community’s February mapping campaign ► has ended. Thanks to all participants 100,000 street lamps were added, including details on support types, lamp types, and orientation.

Community

• In the latest instalment of their OpenStreetMap interview series, OpenCage has spoken with DW Innovation about SPOT, a tool designed to search for geospatial patterns within OpenStreetMap. The discussion explored how the project originated, the technical hurdles encountered during development, and the key insights gained following its launch.
• France’s Direction interministérielle du numérique has published ► an interview with Christian Quest discussing the Panoramax project, tracing its origins and early development, the initial challenges in building an active contributor community, and the obstacles it may face in the years ahead.
• MapRVA has launched The Yesterdays Bot, a Mastodon account that automatically shares geotagged historic photographs from the Yesterdays of Richmond, Virginia (USA), offering followers a glimpse into the city’s past through location-based archival images. The source is available on GitHub.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• The OpenStreetMap Foundation Board has formally submitted comments on a proposal by the Open Geospatial Consortium to standardise the Overture Maps Foundation’s Global Entity Reference System. In its response, the Foundation clarified that it does not oppose the concept of a globally interoperable geographic identifier system. However, it urged the OGC to recognise that geographic reality cannot be reduced to a single authoritative source. The board argued that geographic knowledge is generated not only within the data centres of major technology firms, but also through the distributed efforts of volunteers mapping streets, neighbourhoods, and communities around the world. Any standard seeking OGC endorsement, the Foundation said, should be inclusive enough to accommodate both centralised and community-driven sources of geographic data.

Maps

• OpenStreetMap Americana has made several more multilingual improvements to support language dialects and apply dual language labels to more places. Web developers can install Diplomat to give any MapLibre map the same localised labels as OSM Americana.

Software

• GanderPL has built an OSM tagging MCP server using the iD Tagging Schema.
• Conveyal has developed Osmix, a collection of composable libraries for reading, querying, merging, and transforming OpenStreetMap PBF data in browsers or Node.js.
• Sarath Sabarish has published a diary entry explaining how SafeStreets, a free walkability scoring tool, uses OSM data, Nominatim for geocoding, Overpass API for pedestrian infrastructure and 15-minute city scoring. The post includes a concrete Chiang Mai example showing how missing highway=crossing tags produce near-zero crossing scores, and calls on SE Asia mappers to improve pavement (sidewalk) and crossing tagging.

Programming

• Pascal Neis described his experience of using LLM AI programming applications. He tested several AI coding assistants to automate coding tasks, building tasks iteratively in a local environment ‘from Flappy Birds to WebGIS’. He compared Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI Codex, and Anthropic Claude. He is seriously considering trying this kind of setup with his students next semester.
• HeiGIT explained how street-level imagery combined with deep learning methods is transforming how we detect and map critical infrastructure characteristics, which are often missing from existing datasets. Applications range from road surface classification and waste detection to pavement width measurement and weather-adaptive routing.

OSM in the media

• At FOSDEM 2026 Petya Kangalova, Senior Tech Partnerships Manager at HOT, spoke about how this humanitarian NGO has built a comprehensive technology stack based on the OpenStreetMap environment, designed to support local communities in mapping their surroundings, to strengthen disaster response efforts and support humanitarian operations worldwide.

Other “geo” things

• NASA and DevGlobal are hosting an online session on the Lifelines Data Studios, resources for collaborative work in some important thematics related to disasters, like wildfires, flooding, and landslides. The one-hour meeting will occur on March 11, 2026, 11:00 ET (UTC-4). You can register for free.
• Chromy showcased Flexport Atlas, an interactive global map partially powered by OpenStreetMap data that tracks cargo vessels, ports, and aircraft with live data updated every two hours, including precise vessel statuses (moored, at anchor, or in transit), and port dwell times.

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 PierZen, Raquel IVIDES DATA, Strubbl, Andrew Davidson, barefootstache, derFred, izen57, s8321414. We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions. _