Potential datasources
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If you know about the current state of affairs, please help keep everyone informed by updating this information. (Discussion)
See Import/Guidelines and Automated Edits code of conduct for more information. Imports/automated edits which do not follow these guidelines might be reverted!
The following is a list of potential datasources. Some of these are already in use, or have been imported fully. Others are under investigation, and some have been rejected (details of rejections are on here too). There are basically two criteria:
- Licenses - We are only interested in 'free' data. In fact we must be able to release their data with our OpenStreetMap License. This means it's OK to use Public Domain data; for other sources, please check license compatibility. (Overview: Category:Data Licenses)
- Accuracy/Quality - All GIS data is limited in terms of accuracy and coverage of features. Some datasources are very basic. Because of our wiki style map building approach, this isn't necessarily a problem. We could import it anyway, and improve it later. However there are limits to this reasoning, it does for example require active OSM community members for the area affected. Also in areas where we already have superior coverage through other means, we will not be interested in importing lower quality data. For example a low accuracy map of the main roads of London, is actually useless to us, whereas similar coverage of an unmapped city would be useful.
With these criteria in mind, look at the following, see if there are license issues and if they are useful to us or we can collaborate, and mail the Mailing lists with results.
Listing datasources here is only the first stage in a careful investigation/planning process for imports. If you're interested in performing imports please be aware:
Datasources which we have imported should also go on the Import/Catalogue. We also have a list of Related Projects
General
Out-of-copyright mapping
See separate page on out-of-copyright maps.
Coverage by country
See: Category:Data sources by country
Global Coverage
MapSwipe project
- Main article: MapSwipe
MapSwipe is an app that allows users to identify areas where contribution is needed. It is a supporting tool of HOTOSM.
World Port Index (position and data of harbors worldwide)
- National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency WPI - public domain
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (contains Army Map Service Topographic Map Series)
The CIA World DataBank
The CIA World DataBank II is a collection of world map data, consisting of vector descriptions of land outlines, rivers, and political boundaries. It was created by the U.S. government in 1986.
There is now a 0.5-compatible import script for OSM at [1]. Please document your upload progress on WikiProject_Import_WDB.
GEOnet Names Server
Main page GEOnet Names Server
This database contains 5.5 million geo features (mainly place names). It's updated monthly by the agency.
- http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html
- http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/cntyfile/gm.zip
- ftp://ftp.nima.mil/pub/gns_data/
The data is messy and with spelling mistakes and strange historical name entries. Accuracy is also poor. We have imported GNS data in some countries, usually where mapping is not progressing massively anyway. This hasn't been carried out systematically at a global level.
ourairports.com
ourairports.com public domain map of airports.
CODATA Roads Data Catalog
A catalog of roads data sets, globally, compiled by the gRoads project. There are hundreds of data sets listed here (many probably already investigated), under all sorts of licensing schemes. There are certainly data sets new to the OSM community that are worth investigating.
The interim PDF is posted at Media:CODATA_Roads_Data_Catalog_v1.pdf
There are possible plans to post this database to the web, with query front end.
List of Marine Lights
NGA List of lights is a database of lights, radio, and fog signals. It contains almost all lights on the world.
Natural Earth
See their website.
Esri Community Maps AOIs
This is a worldwide dataset with vector feature data for special areas of interest (AOIs) that have been contributed using the Esri Community Maps Editor app. The data that is reviewed and accepted by Esri is included in Esri basemaps and also made available to export for use in other maps. The dataset currently includes about 150,000 features of various types, including buildings, streets, parking lots, landscape areas, and points of interest. The data is provided under a CC BY license with explicit waiver for use in OpenStreetMap. Selected layers (e.g. buildings) could be exported from the dataset and made available for use in OSM editing to save time in re-creating these features from scratch.
See Esri Community Maps AOIs for more details.