WikiProject Niger

• See WikiProject_Niger/Tagging for the guidelines about tagging map features in Niger.

Mapping Niger is still in very early stages. Almost no gps- tracks exist for this region.

Contents 1 Things that are done 2 Goals 3 Sources 4 Tools 5 Progress

Things that are done

Cities

• The capital Niamey is mapped almost to street level detail
• almost all of the 50 biggest cities are on the map, not to street level detail
• about 12000 towns and villages are imported from the Geonames Name Server

Roads

• some roads are there, traced after the lowres Yahoo imagery
• the import from the vmap0 road data is well under way, you can help by using the gpx file in the "Tools" section below and use it to trace the roads in JOSM.
• ...

Other

Goals

If you have a goal that you are working towards or one that you would like to see get done (and are maybe willing to get the ball rolling) then add it to the list here, create a section where it can be coordinated and tracked, and a way of measuring progress. And then get on with it :-)

• Niamey - Map the capital city
• having at least some highway road data...

Sources

• Fortunately, even the lowres Yahoo imagery gives at least some hints about the rivers, mayor roads and city outlines. The somewhat even, brownisch ground color and the sparse vegetation makes it possible to detect the bigger overland roads, the rivers and city outlines on the low resolution Yahoo imagery.
• OrbView-3 high resolution imagery of Niger is now available. It is possible to map roads, streets and populated places in the areas covered.
• A good datasource might be GEOnet Names Server and the VMAP0 maps- I really think about importing those since even some inaccurate data is better than no data at all. Virtually no mapping goes on in Niger so far, so I think I won't be pissing of any local mappers. Objections anyone?
• I found several public domain maps in wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Un-niger.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departments_of_Niger

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/africa/ according to this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lake_Chad_1973.jpg all the maps there are public domain

there are some lowres maps for the outlines of national parks of Niger floating around somewhere in wikipedia

• if you know any datasources please feel free to contact me User:Zenfunk.

Tools

• GNS POI overlay for JOSM:

I converted the GNS data for Niger into a gpx file. It contains over 31000 POIs for Niger, mostly names of settlements, but also administrative stuff (district names etc). http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/GNS

It can be used as an overlay for your JOSM session. It can be downloaded at: http://www.flusslinie.de/nigergnspois.gpx

I decided against a direct import, first because it is way beyond my skills ATM, and second it also has a lot of inaccurate and too old data in it. The overlay gives you an idea where some villages and towns are and how they are called. Together with the Yahoo and Landsat imagery one can pinpoint the exact location, the name of the settlement and roughly estimate the size (village/town?) of it. Also it gives you a hint about where to look for the roads in the satellite imagery.

The road data from the public domain VMAP0 dataset for Niger can be found here: http://www.flusslinie.de/nigerrdline.gpx You can also use it as a background for your JOSM session. Add the Yahoo or the Landsat imagery and you have a rough idea where to look for roads.

• Keep Right!

Great tool to check for bugs. http://keepright.ipax.at/report_map.php?db=osm_XA&zoom=10&lat=13.57011&lon=2.22946&layers=B00T&ch30=1&ch40=1&ch50=1&ch60=1&ch70=1&ch90=1&ch100=1&ch110=1&ch120=1&ch130=1&ch150=1&ch160=1&ch170=1&ch180=1&ch191=1&ch192=1&ch193=1&ch194=1&ch201=1&ch202=1&ch203=1&ch204=1&ch210=1&ch220=1&ch231=1&ch232=1&ch270=1&ch281=1&ch282=1&ch283=1&ch284=1&show_ign=1&show_tmpign=1

Progress

So far I did a lot of tracing of the Yahoo imagery. Niamey is coming together nicely, even some (2!) other mappers started to join me. The tracing of inter city roads is progressing as well. The accuracy is certainly poor and not quite up to the usual openstreetmap standards, but since we are lacking gps data one has to live with that for the moment. Tracing of overland highways can only be done by the low resolution imagery.

The osm file for Niger was about 353 KB when I started. Lets see how it will grow.

As of the 14th of August 2009 the osm filesize for Niger has grown to 557 KB. We are getting somewhere...

15.08.09: Almost all of the 50 biggest towns in Niger have been placed on the map (not to street level detail though.

20.08.09: All the mountain peaks with name and elevation where imported from the GNS database- many thanks to user:dbusse who made it all happen.

20.08.09: The manual import of vmap0 data has started.a

25.08.09: Import of 12000 villages and towns from the Geonames Name Server dataset is under way

25.08.09: The OSM file size for Niger is now at 919 KB- almost triple the size when we jumpstarted this about 3 weeks ago.

30.08.09: The OSM filesize for Niger is now at 1,2 MB- god job everyone.