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29/01/2026-04/02/2026
[1] OSM Kids! | © MapLibre — OpenFreeMap — OpenMapTiles — map data © OpenStreetMap Contributors.
Mapping
- Two proposals are waiting for your vote:
- The
flashing_lights=*proposal as of Thursday 5 February 2026. The proposal suggests a new design for flashing lights beyond just crossings. - The markers indication proposal until Tuesday 17 February 2026. This proposal is intended to introduce minimal necessary tagging to solve the indication of utility markers on their respective map markers.
- The
Mapping campaigns
- The Italian OSM community’s January campaign
ended and it has resulted in the addition of 30,000 Wikidata links across the country. Following a community vote February’s project will focus on mapping street lamps and lit=*tags. - Developed in response to the OpenStreetMap Italia community’s street lamp mapping initiative , Matt Whilden launched an interactive dashboard that visualises street lamp mapping progress, featuring daily data updates, a leaderboard, baseline and newly mapped lamps, and a time-slider for tracking changes over time.
- DNL852 has created a machine learning algorithm to identify all the pedestrian zebra crossings in Slovakia and Czechia. The newest local orthophoto imagery was used and the process can be also used for other easily recognisable objects (e.g. to identify bus stops painted on the street or colourful recycling containers or others). The results of the ML algorithm were transferred to a MapRoulette challenge.
ended and it has resulted in the Community
- FOSSGIS congratulated OSGeo on its 20th anniversary and expressed hopes for continued wider adoption of open-source software in the geospatial domain, along with healthy growth of a globally active community.
- reDoubleYou described the status of his mapping activities around the town of Sa Pobla on the Spanish island of Mallorca in a blog post.
- Andy Townsend has noticed a growing trend in the UK of pubs near railway stations installing electronic departure boards, and subsequently developed a Postpass query to locate OpenStreetMap objects tagged with
amenity=pubin combination withdepartures_board=*.
OSGeo on its OpenStreetMap Foundation
- The SotM Organising Committee explained how the SotM 2026 Travel Grant Programme supports accessibility and diversity for the global SotM, to be held in Paris, France, offering multiple grant sizes from free tickets to up to £1,300 to help with travel and accommodation costs. The programme’s call for applications is open until 1 March 12:00 UTC and includes smaller remote-attendance grants to subsidise mobile data for those with limited connectivity. The selection process uses a points system to rank applications and aims to enhance participation from a diverse range of contributors, especially first-time attendees.
- The Wikimedia Foundation’s Product and Technology team has notified the OpenStreetMap Foundation system administrators that access to Wikimedia APIs for the OSM wiki may be restricted due to inefficient use of Wikimedia Commons images. To avoid a potential block, the team has requested that image requests be limited to standard thumbnail sizes. As a result, minor adjustments to thumbnail dimensions may appear across the wiki in the coming days, and any resulting layout issues are being monitored.
Local chapter news
- The Overture Maps Foundation has become a supporter of OpenStreetMap US, as an Organisational Member at the Strategic level. Overture’s membership will be used to support OSM US tooling, namely MapRoulette, which is a tool that makes it easier for mappers to contribute to OpenStreetMap.
Events
- The team behind State of the Map Europe 2025 have sent out their final newsletter, with links to reports, photos, and session recordings from the conference.
Education
- soundsbeard has published a video on makertube.net with the title ‘openstreetmap (osm). ways to contribute’, which deals with ways to contribute to OpenStreetMap, from JOSM to StreetComplete and other tools.
Maps
- [1] Daniel Schep announced OSM Kids! at Mapping USA 2026, an OpenStreetMap-based interactive Web map that emphasises the visibility of child-themed points of interest, such as playgrounds, theme parks, and toy shops.
- Minh Nguyễn has released a proof of concept of OpenHistoricalMap Americana, which applies OpenStreetMap Americana’s cartographic design to OpenHistoricalMap’s historical road coverage.
- hmaharoof has developed OpenMediaMap, an open and free crowdsourced initiative aimed at digitising and geo-locating historical photographs while preserving their accompanying information. The platform accepts submissions of photographs taken before 1 January 1930.
- OpenStreetMap Americana can now simulate a globe, as an alternative to a Web Mercator projection.
- For their detailed mapping and documentation of the historical Jewish cemetery in Gruenstadt (State of Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany) (we reported earlier), Mannheimer Mapathons and its partners in Gruenstadt were named ► as award-winners in the state competition Ehrenamt4.0 (Volunteer4.0). The award was given by the State President, Alexander Schweizer, at the Chancellery in the castle in Mainz (state capital) on 17 January 2026.
OSM in action
- Victor M, of Pplware, has reported ► about several new features of Mapbox’s in-car navigation system. The system has been deployed in select vehicle models, including the 2026 Toyota RAV4.
- In response to Storm Kristin that severely impacted Portugal, SOS Leiria has launched an emergency platform , powered by OpenStreetMap data, enabling users to request or offer assistance at specific locations. The service requires no account registration and includes offline functionality, allowing it to operate even when internet connectivity is disrupted during emergency situations.
►Software
- Andres Gomez Casanova reported on an ‘OSM Mesh Notes Gateway’ project published on Github by the Asociación de Cartografía Colaborativa de Colombia. It is a system designed to support mapping activities during disasters and other connectivity outages.
- Eugene highlighted several key features of OsmAnd Web Explore, demonstrating the tool by exploring notable locations across Patagonia in South America.
- OsmAnd presented their ski profile: detailed piste, lift and route maps for alpine adventures, including 3D terrain and avalanche warning colours. Ideal for skiers and ski tourers, based on OSM-Datenosmand.net.
- openstreetmap-website welcomed the new year with new progress on the transition to MapLibre, as well as a number of small improvements.
- Aron Sommer has released OpenMapEditor, an open-source, local-first web editor for personal geographic data. It supports drawing paths, areas, and markers, importing and exporting GeoJSON, GPX, KML, and KMZ files, routing, elevation profiles, custom WMS layers, a POI finder using OpenStreetMap’s Overpass API, and Strava integration. All processing happens in the browser. The source code is available under the AGPL-3.0 licence.
- Organic Maps launched the gtfs-osm-matcher, a tool to build mappings between stops in various GTFS feeds and OpenStreetMap, enabling GTFS data to be displayed on the map.
- rphyrin has developed offosm v26.2.3, an OSM map that you can access while you’re offline.
- TrickyFoxy published a recap highlighting all feature additions made to the better-osm-org userscript throughout 2025.
project published on Github by the Asociación de Cartografía Colaborativa de Colombia. It is a system designed to support mapping activities during disasters and other connectivity outages.
Programming
- sphaerophoria, in his streams, has built his own map engine based on OpenStreetMap data in a somewhat chaotic style. He processes OSM in real time, prepares geometry for the GPU, and renders the map using WebGL.
- Paul Norman explained how to use the OSMF vector tiles to create custom vector tiles, with a focus on rendering trees and forests.
Releases
- CoMaps is now available on the Linux desktop.
- Organic Maps has released its January 26 update, fixing out-of-memory crashes when planning cross-country routes and adding GeoJSON export support for bookmarks and tracks.
Did you know that …
- … you can retrieve statistics about instances of the uMap on GitLab?
Other “geo” things
- In 2008, the city of North Oaks asked Google to remove its Street View imagery, arguing that it violated the city’s trespassing ordinance. In 2026, Chris later exploited a series of legal loopholes to map the city despite the long-standing restrictions.
- Citizen science is being used by cryosphere scientists to study and monitor the Arctic permafrost in a project titled UndercoverEisAgenten, which takes us on a drone journey over the ever-changing permafrost landscapes.
- David Oesch released a proof of concept for the automated detection of topographic features from aerial imagery using AI. This project utilises open-source models to identify objects such as buildings or roads and provides this information for mapping applications. A guide explains the local installation of the tools for individual experiments with geospatial data. Developers and mappers can now experiment with automated terrain mapping using open-source resources.
- netzbegrünung has published a map illustrating which microblogging network leads in the number of posts using hashtags of the German state capitals, based on data collected between 1 September 2025 and 31 January 2026 across X, the Fediverse, and Bluesky.
Upcoming Events
| Country | Where | Venue | What | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Montpellier | La Base | Mapathon OSM à La Base : cartographier Haïti pour la prévention des risques  | 2026-02-05 |
 | Dresden | Bottoms Up, Dresden | Stammtisch Dresden | 2026-02-05 |
| Montrouge | Réunion des contributeurs de Montrouge et du Sud de Paris | 2026-02-05 | |
| Freiburg im Breisgau | CCCFR | OSM-Treffen Freiburg/Brsg. | 2026-02-05 |
 | Amersfoort | De War Amersfoort | Workshop OpenStreetMap | 2026-02-05 |
| OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting | 2026-02-06 | |||
| Braunschweig | Stratum 0 | Braunschweiger Mappertreffen im Stratum 0 Hackerspace | 2026-02-07 |
 | København | Cafe Bevar’s | OSMmapperCPH | 2026-02-08 |
| Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne — CartONG [fr] | 2026-02-09 | |||
| Grenoble | La Turbine | Atelier de février 2026 du groupe local de Grenoble | 2026-02-09 |
 | 臺北市 | MozSpace Taipei | OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #85 | 2026-02-09 |
 | EPN d’Arlon, rue de Diekirch 37, Arlon | EPN d’Arlon — OpenStreetMap — Utilisation | 2026-02-10 | |
 | Milano | Building 3A Ground Floor — Politecnico di Milano | PoliMappers Maptedì | 2026-02-10 |
| Hamburg | Voraussichtlich: «Variable», Karolinenstraße 23 | Hamburger Mappertreffen | 2026-02-10 |
 | New York | Online | MSF USA Virtual February Mapathon | 2026-02-11 |
 | Zürich | Bitwäscherei Zürich | 184. OSM-Stammtisch Zürich | 2026-02-11 |
| München | Echardinger Einkehr | Münchner OSM-Treffen | 2026-02-11 |
 | Wien | Schlupfwinkel (Kleine Neugasse 10, 1040 Wien) | 77. Wiener OSM-Stammtisch | 2026-02-11 |
| Online Mapathon von ÄRZTE OHNE GRENZEN | 2026-02-11 | |||
| Seattle | 1215 E Columbia St, Seattle, WA 98122, US | Olympia, Connected | 2026-02-12 |
| UN Mappers: Validation Training | 2026-02-13 | |||
 | Delhi | ILUGD Meetup × OSM Delhi Mapping Party No.26 (North Zone) | 2026-02-15 | |
| EPN d’Arlon, rue de Diekirch 37, Arlon | EPN d’Arlon — OpenStreetMap — Contribution | 2026-02-17 | |
| Missing Maps London: (Online) Mid-Month Mapathon [eng] | 2026-02-17 | |||
| Lyon | Tubà | Réunion du groupe local de Lyon | 2026-02-17 |
| Bonn | Dotty’s | 197. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn | 2026-02-17 |
| Online | Lüneburger Mappertreffen (online) | 2026-02-17 | |
| MJC de Vienne | Réunion des contributeurs de Vienne (38) | 2026-02-18 | |
| Karlsruhe | Chiang Mai | Stammtisch Karlsruhe | 2026-02-18 |
| Karlsruhe | Geofabrik, Amalienstraße 44, 76133 Karlsruhe | Karlsruhe Hack Weekend February 2026 | 2026-02-21 — 2026-02-22 |
 | Belfast | School of Geosciences, Queen’s University Belfast | Belfast Mapathon | 2026-02-21 |
 | TAK Kadıköy Tasarım Atölyesi | OpenStreetMap Outdoor Editing | 2026-02-21 | |
| Atelier Vélo Utile | Rencontre OSM Saint-Brieuc | 2026-02-21 | |
| Kalyani Nagar | TomTom Pune Office, India | OSM Mapping Party at TomTom Pune, India | 2026-02-21 |
| Mumbai | OSM Mumbai Mapping Party No.7 (Western Line — South) | 2026-02-22 | |
| Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne — CartONG [fr] | 2026-02-23 |
Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.
This weeklyOSM was produced by MarcoR, MatthiasMatthias, Minh Nguyen, PierZen, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, Andrew Davidson, barefootstache, derFred.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.