Racha Mapping Party
Racha Mapping Party – the first online mapping party in Georgia. We're mapping the city of Ambrolauri, the biggest settlement of Racha, and its surroundings for a week from July 27 till August 2.
For the first time, we selected the city of Ambrolauri in Racha. The city is located on both banks of the Rioni River, at an elevation of 550 m above sea level. The city serves as the seat of the Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti regional administration and of the Ambrolauri Municipality and has a population of around 2000.
This area was selected because it's covered by relatively up-to-date and high-quality orthophoto imagery of 2025 by National Agency of Public Registry (NAPR), and the region of Racha is getting more popular for tourists recently, but it doesn't have good maps. Also, the city isn't so big, which is an advantage for the first try.
For any questions, join the chat of the Georgian OSM community in Telegram. Feel free to use Georgian, English, or Russian language.
Dates
July 27 – August 2, 2026
Coordination
To avoid edit conflicts, we use Mapping Party Tracker. The so-called "pie" of the Ambrolauri and surroundings is by the link: https://mpt.osmz.ee/map/4
Claim one piece, draw all you can within its borders, and release it once you don't want to continue.
To Do
- Draw missing buildings and roads
- Adjust existing buildings and roads to the orthophoto imagery (most of them were drawn by low-quality imagery)
- Name streets, see #Street Name Convention
- Add addresses to buildings
Street Name Convention
See more details here
Mandatory tags:
- name is Georgian name. It can be taken from the NAPR layer
- name:ka the same as name, just copy it
Recommended tags:
- name:en
- name:ru
The majority of the streets in rural areas don't have a unique name but just a number. To quickly add all language tags to them and related buildings, use this service https://openstreetmap.ge/numbered-streets/
Sources
The main source for online party is aerial and cadastral data by NAPR. All data is available at the https://maps.gov.ge/ website. You can add some of those layers to both JOSM and iD editors.
| Layer content | Link to add | Layer type (matters for JOSM) |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 orthophoto (recommended first) | https://mp.napr.gov.ge/ORTHO_2025_BLK4/wmts/ORTHO_2025_BLK4/GLOBAL_MERCATOR/{z}/{x}/{y}.png | TMS |
| Older orthophoto | https://nt0.napr.gov.ge/NGCache?x={x}&y={y}&z={z}&l=ORTHO_GEORGIA_4 | TMS |
| Land parcels | http://nv.napr.gov.ge/geoserver/ows?FORMAT=image/png&TRANSPARENT=TRUE&VERSION=1.3.0&SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetMap&LAYERS=cite:LR_PARCELS_transparent&STYLES=&CRS={proj}&WIDTH={width}&HEIGHT={height}&BBOX={bbox} | WMS |
| Building footprints | http://nv.napr.gov.ge/geoserver/ows?FORMAT=image/png&TRANSPARENT=TRUE&VERSION=1.3.0&SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetMap&LAYERS=cite:LR_BUILDINGS&STYLES=&CRS={proj}&WIDTH={width}&HEIGHT={height}&BBOX={bbox} | WMS |
| House numbers and street names | http://nv.napr.gov.ge/geoserver/NGDB/ows?FORMAT=image/png&TRANSPARENT=TRUE&VERSION=1.3.0&SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetMap&LAYERS=ADR_STREETS&STYLES=&CRS={proj}&WIDTH={width}&HEIGHT={height}&BBOX={bbox} | WMS |
How to Use
iD
You can use only one layer at a time
1. Open the Background Settings item in the right toolbar
2. Press the three-dot button next to the Custom option
3. Insert one of the links from the list above into the textarea and press OK
JOSM
You can use multiple layers simultaneously.
1. Open Imagery menu in the toolbar
2. Select Imagery preferences...
For TMS layers:
3. Press the +TMS button to the right of the Selected entries list
4. Insert one of the TMS layer links from the list above into the 6. Edit generated WMS URL (optional) field
5. Enter layer name into the 7. Enter name for this layer field
For WMS layers:
3. Press the +WMS button to the right of the Selected entries list
4. Insert one of the WMS layer links from the list above into the 4. Edit generated WMS URL (optional) field
5. Enter layer name into the 5. Enter name for this layer field
6. Press OK
7. It may request to restart JOSM
8. Select the added layer from the Imagery menu
Communication
Telegram chat of Georgian OSM Community: https://t.me/osm_ge