Browsing
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The following is Help Documentation concerning basic browsing of OpenStreetMap
Contents |
Browsing the Map
Browse OpenStreetMap on the openstreetmap.org homepage. This viewer allows you to zoom in and scroll around our world map.
To zoom in click the plus icon in the top-left corner. This will zoom towards the center of the currently displayed map. You can also zoom in with your mouse's scroll wheel, by double-clicking on the map or by holding down the shift key and dragging a box over the area you want to zoom in on.
To zoom out click the minus icon in the top-left corner or use your mouse's scroll wheel.
To pan and scroll around simply drag the map with your mouse.
You will see a general coastal layout of countries at high zoom levels, but as you zoom in, you can find roads which we have mapped out from GPS tracks. To jump straight to some of our more interesting/complete streetmaps see the 'Mapping milestones' page.
Finding Places
Enter the name of a town/city/road in the search box appearing beside the map - see Search for more information. Some places are also described on this wiki under Mapping projects
iconLayers
You can switch between two different "layers" offering different views of the same mapping data. Do this by clicking the icon in the top right.
The "Mapnik" layer is the default, "Osmarender" is an alternative. The styles look quite different. Which is better, is often a matter of personal preference. These views are rendered in very different ways. See renderer documentation on the Mapnik and Osmarender pages for more technical details. Note that because of the different rendering approaches, one layer may be more out-of-date compared to another (recently mapped roads not showing up). Also available as layers are the OpenCycleMap (including contour lines), the Transport Map and the MapQuest Open style.
The data browser
Also under icon in the top right, you can tick 'data' to activate the data browser. This gives you a view of the underlying data, allowing you to select the elements and view their tag data, and editing history. Similar features are also available within the Potlatch editor (See Editing). This view is read-only. It is a JavaScript interface which requires a powerful up-to-date web browser, but does not require flash support.
Linking to Maps
You can link to any map display using a URL of the form:
- http://www.openstreetmap.org/index.html?lat=[Latitude]&lon=[Longitude]&zoom=[Zoom Level]&layers=[Layer code]
To get such a URL for the map you are looking at, just click 'Permalink' in the bottom-right, alternatively click the 'View' tab at the top. This populates your browser address bar with the URL, which you can then share with others by copying & pasting into emails, online forums/blog comments etc.
The layer URL parameter takes a special code representing your layer selection. The parameter is optional and if you leave it out, we will default to showing the best map layer we have to offer (currently "mapnik"). If you do link to a layer code to select a different layer, note that we may not be able to guarantee that this code will remain the same forever, although we will endeavour to keep it the same. See Layer URL parameter for more information.
Adding a Marker
You can add a marker by using mlat and mlon in place of lat and lon in the URL. The map will be centred on the marker unless you also specify the centre of the map with additional lat and lon parameters like this.
The simplest way to get a marker is to click 'permalink', then modify lat and lon to mlat and mlon respectively. If you want the marker to appear in a specific position without knowing the exact coordinates, simply double-click a point on the map. The map will be zoomed in to that point and the point will be centered. Zoom out once (with the minus icon, not with the scroll wheel) to undo the zooming. Your point will still be centered.
See also Question: How do I add a marker to a map? which lists some other options
Short links
OpenStreetMap supports highly compact short URLs. Right-click on 'Short link' in the bottom-right. Copy the linked URL from the link properties. Note that a normal left-click on the link will mean you end up at the longer equivalent URL via the short link redirector.
You can add a marker to a short link URL by adding '?m' to the end of the URL.
Short links are great for emailing, tweeting, and otherwise sharing map links in situations where a long URL can cause problems. Note that these short links are case sensitive and contain I, l and 1. In some fonts these characters can be difficult to distinguish. For more about how the feature works see Shortlink
bbox URLs
The URL forms shown above will produce a map centred on the specified latitude and longitude. It is also possible to get a map that displays everything within a given bounding box. You can also add box=yes to show a visible box:
- http://www.openstreetmap.org/index.html?minlat=[Min Latitude]&maxlat=[Max Latitude]&minlon=[Min Longitude]&maxlon=[Max Longitude]&layers=[Layer code]&box=yes
Find suitable values for minlon, minlat, maxlon, maxlat values, can be a little bit fiddly. One way is to use the Export tab. Drag a box as if you were going to export an area, and then copy the values shown there.
You can also combine the bounding box and marker. Example: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?minlon=22.3418234&minlat=57.5129102&maxlon=22.5739625&maxlat=57.6287332&box=yes&mlat=57.5529102&mlon=22.5148625
relation/way URLs
It is also possible to directly ask openstreetmap.org to show a particular relation, way or node. Examples:
What next?
Once you've looked around our maps, you may be interested in Editing them, or various other ways of Getting Involved
You may also be interested in Using OpenStreetMap data/images.
Browser Problems and alternative map browsing options
If the maps are not showing up on the openstreetmap.org homepage for you, there are a couple of alternatives.
There is a similar interface running at: http://www.informationfreeway.org/ This offers different layer options. Because this is running a slightly different version of the slippy map software, you may find it runs better.
A more simplistic interface is running at: http://server.tah.openstreetmap.org/Browse/ This has no advanced JavaScript/AJAX involved, and so is more likely to run trouble-free on less advanced browser (e.g. mobile devices) or behind restrictive firewalls.
An other simple interface without Java or JavaScript but with support for the Maplint layer and data from OpenStreetBugs can be found at www.petschge.de/projek/mobilemap/. The display is optimized for small screen sizes and aims at mobile devices.
Even more simplistic interface can be found here: http://go.latlon.org/tiles/mobile.
Technical Details
Technical details about this map 'browsing' interface, are found on the "Slippy Map" page
