Syria

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Syria, Asia
Wikidata

latitude: 34.615, longitude: 37.965
Browse map of Syria 34°36′54.00″ N, 37°57′54.00″ E
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Syria is a Country in Asia at latitude 34°36′54.00″ North, longitude 37°57′54.00″ East.

Arab Republic of Syria is a country in Southwest Asia with Arabic as official language

Map

OSM Syria Community

OSM Syria (OpenStreetMap Syria, مجتمع OpenStreetMap سوريا) is a volunteer-run open mapping community for Syria. It started in December 2024 and brings together mappers inside Syria and in the diaspora, from GIS professionals to people editing the map for the first time.

The community runs online mapathons, free training and in-person workshops and meetups, mostly in Arabic. In 2025–2026 it took part in the ReMapping Syria campaign with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. Records of every meeting and activity are kept in an open public community document (in Arabic).

No previous experience is needed to join: fill in the joining form (less than 5 minutes).

Contact and channels

Things you can do to help

  • Map buildings and roads in the community's projects on the HOT Tasking Manager (see also the Syria-Remapping-2025 campaign).
  • Fix data with the community's MapRoulette challenges: 54911, 54895.
  • Add schools, health facilities and other points of interest you know locally, with both name:ar and name:en where possible.
  • Contribute street-level imagery on Mapillary.
  • See how the map improved: before-and-after comparisons for Douma and Al-Qutayfah.

Administrative regions in Syria

Governorate boundaries for Syria added from maplibrary.org's ESRI shape file. Southmost border Syria - Jordan corrected which seemed to be wrong.

Administrative regions and neighborhood boundaries can also be added from OCHA: [1]. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Street Names

Example of Street Sign in Damascus. Both Arabic and English names can be obtained from these signs

Street Names for highways, alleys and other roads can be obtained either by using street signs(if available) or asking locals what they call the street.

Mapping guidelines

These guidelines are maintained by the OSM Syria community. They follow the general Good practice of OpenStreetMap; where something isn't covered here, the worldwide rules apply. To suggest a change, start a discussion in the community forum thread.

Map what is on the ground

  • Map what exists and can be checked today, not plans, claims or past situations (On the Ground Rule).
  • Don't copy from Google Maps, Google Street View, Yandex, or any map, website or dataset that doesn't explicitly allow it. See data sources below.
  • Don't map private information about people, and don't map temporary features such as checkpoints, roadblocks or areas of control.

Names and languages

  • name=* holds the name used locally, normally in Arabic as written on signs, for example name=دمشق.
  • Add name:ar=* with the same Arabic name, and name:en=* with the English name where a commonly used one exists (on signs, official sources or in wide use). Don't invent transliterations for name:en.
  • Don't put two languages in name=* (not دمشق Damascus).
  • Add name:ku=*, name:syc=*, name:hy=* etc. where a place has an established name in Kurdish, Syriac, Armenian or another local language.
  • When a street or place has been officially renamed, put the current name in name=* and keep the previous one in old_name=* (and old_name:ar=*).
  • Proposed: write Arabic names in standard spelling as on signs (keep hamza and taa marbuta as written; no tashkeel).

Buildings, damage and lifecycle

  • Trace buildings as they are now on recent imagery; align imagery with existing data before tracing (use GPS traces or well-mapped roads as reference).
  • A building that is clearly destroyed or completely collapsed: remove building=* and use a lifecycle prefix, such as destroyed:building=yes (destroyed by disaster or conflict) or demolished:building=yes, or delete it if nothing remains.
  • A building that is ruined but still standing: keep building=* and add ruins=yes.
  • Don't record temporary or partial damage levels in OSM. Damage assessments belong in separate datasets.
  • When a building is rebuilt, map it again as a normal building and remove the lifecycle tags.

Roads

  • Follow the road classification above: M motorways as highway=motorway, single-digit national roads as highway=primary, and ref=* as signed.
  • Add surface=* on roads that aren't paved; use highway=track for agricultural or desert tracks.
  • Inside towns, use highway=residential for streets with houses and highway=service for alleys and access roads.

Places and boundaries

  • Use place=city, town, village and hamlet by the place's size and role, and place=neighbourhood or quarter for parts of cities.
  • Administrative divisions are governorates (محافظة), districts (منطقة) and subdistricts (ناحية). Use the admin_level values in the admin_level table, and check the existing boundary relations before adding new ones.
  • Don't change country borders or disputed areas yourself; raise it in the forum first.

Points of interest

  • Schools: amenity=school (or kindergarten, college, university), with name:ar/name:en, operator=* and operator:type=government, private or ngo.
  • Health: amenity=hospital, clinic, doctors or pharmacy, plus the matching healthcare=* tag.
  • Prefer mapping a facility as an area (its grounds) with the tags on the outline, rather than a separate point.

Data sources and imagery

  • Allowed imagery in iD and JOSM: Bing, Esri World Imagery, Mapbox Satellite, and drone imagery from OpenAerialMap when its licence allows OSM use. Set the imagery you used as the changeset source=*.
  • Open datasets (such as OCHA administrative boundaries on HDX) can only be used if their licence is compatible with the ODbL. Data under CC BY 4.0 needs explicit permission first. Ask the community before using any external dataset.
  • Importing data (adding many features from an external source) must follow the import guidelines: document it on the wiki, discuss it with the community, and use a dedicated account.

Organised editing and mapathons

  • Mapathons, trainings and other group mapping are organised editing. Document each activity on the wiki, with dates, organisers, areas mapped and hashtags, and link it from this page.
  • Proposed: use the hashtag #OSMSyria in the changeset comment for community activities, plus the Tasking Manager project hashtag.
  • New mappers' edits are reviewed through validation on the HOT Tasking Manager. Experienced mappers are encouraged to become validators.
  • Write clear changeset comments in Arabic or English describing what you changed.

Mass and automated edits

Highway/Roads classification in Syria

Motorways in Syria

  • Mashreq international roads (2001)
  • M (highway=motorway) : The M1 and M3 are motorways and the M5 has a motorway sectio* Map buildings and roads in the community's projects on the [https://tasks.hotosm.org/organisations/osm-syria HOT Tasking Manager] (see also the [https://tasks.hotosm.org/explore?campaign=Syria-Remapping-2025 Syria-Remapping-2025 campaign]).
* Fix data with the community's MapRoulette challenges: [https://maproulette.org/browse/challenges/54911 54911], [https://maproulette.org/browse/challenges/54895 54895].
* Add schools, health facilities and other points of interest you know locally, with both <code>name:ar</code> and <code>name:en</code> where possible.
* Contribute street-level imagery on [https://www.mapillary.com Mapillary]. 

* See how the map improved: before-and-after comparisons for [https://beforeafter.mapki.com/jobs/d9df2cf9-6197-4bba-9e73-3f798140a29d Douma] and [https://beforeafter.mapki.com/jobs/096cfb18-0512-4d0d-bc99-e5b4e6542ce4 Al-Qutayfah].

  • n but the M4 is an ordinary road (highway=primary).
  • M1 Halab (Aleppo) - Jordanian border.

Main roads in Syria

  • Single digit road numbers (highway=primary) are used for main national roads.
  • 1 coast road
  • 2, 3 and 4 are east-west routes increasing to the north
  • 5 north-south route increasing to the east. 5 is parallel to the M1 and some sections overlap.
  • 6 and 7 are north-south routes increasing to the east (but 7 is diagonal and crosses 2 and 5 at Dimashq (Damascus).

Railways

  • relation Hejaz Railway
  • relation Latakia–Aleppo railway
  • relation Aleppo–Meydan Ekbez railway
  • relation Aleppo–Çobanbey railway
Ref Name Towns Km OSM status
M10 Northern Iraq-East Mediterranean Hajj Omran (Iraq/Iran) - Irbil - Mosul - Rabieyyah (Iraq/Syria) - Yaaroubia (Syria/Iraq) - Kamishli - Aleppo - Lattakia relation 3018358|
M15 Aleppo-Ramadi Aleppo - Deir Ez Zor - Albu Kamal (Syria/Iraq) - Al kaem - (Iraq/Syria) - Ramadi relation 3018537|
M20 Central Syria Kamishli - Hasakah - Deir Ez Zor - Homs - Tartus relation 3018653|
M30 Western Iraq-Eastern Mediterranean Al Rutbah - Al Walid (Iraq/Syria) - Tanf (Syria/Iraq) - Damascus - Jedeidet Yabus (Syria/Lebanon) - Masna' (Lebanon/Syria) - Beirut relation 3018805|
M45 Syria-Jordan-Saudi Arabia-Yemen Bab Al Hawa (Syria/Turkey) - Aleppo - Homs - Damascus - Nasib (Syria/Jordan) - Jaber (Jordan/Syria) - Amman - Ma'an - Al Mudawara (Jordan/Saudi Arabia) - Halat Ammar (Saudi Arabia/Jordan) - Tabuk - Qalibah - Medina - Mecca - Abha - Elb (Saudi Arabia/Yemen) - Baqim (Yemen/Saudi Arabia) - Sana'a - Ta'izz relation 3018402|
M51 Eastern Mediterranean Coast Kassab - Lattakia - Tartous - Dabboussieh (Syria/Lebanon) - Abboudieh (Lebanon/Syria) - Tripoli - Beirut - Naqoura relation 3018435|
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