3w ago

What details are "worth" mapping?

I'm currently mapping the village i live in (northern Germany). The building outlines and streets where already done by somebody else, so i mainly added the addresses to most buildings in my village and corrected some of the outlines. I did this with Organic Maps and later Vespucci.

Now my question: what other information is important enough to map?

I could go around and map every tree and specify the roof types for the buildings, but that would take ages and I think there are other details that are way more important to map for everyday openstreetmap users.

Is there some wiki page that lists the most important attributes that should be mapped? I searched on the OSM wiki but couldn't find such a list.

Thanks in advance.

19 comments

I would agree with most people. I think drinking fountains, public toilets, shelters and just general shops (edit:with opening hours a bonus) are the most useful. Buses is also pretty cool info to have directly there. You can check Streetcomplete to diversify your contributions with ease as well, including adding wheelchair accessibility.
You could also take photos for !Panoramax@sopuli.xyz too? Then others can use your photos to add more stuff or just see the photos of your area.

Whatever you think. I met with mappers who only map rail and related stuff, others only different kind of pipes and manhole covers, some focus on electrical infrastructure, and street cabinets. Some people map anything that has a number or id. My favorite is street parking, lanes and sidewalks.
So map what you enjoy the most, this is not a job, it's a hobby.
- Have they/you seen an interesting rendering (other than editing tools and perhaps Overpass queries) for man_made=manhole? Taginfo lists just one project and that one (Straßenraumkarte Neukölln) seems pretty limited in geographic scope (only Berlin?).

Apart from the basic street layout, any information that's worth having for everyday life, e.g. bus stops, benches, trash cans, etc.
Also, you could try StreetComplete and see what infos are missing elsewhere.

I think you should map what you enjoy mapping.
I map benches because I enjoy benches (444 mapped already.) and entrances that I use in my job.
Shops and services would be most useful along with bus stops and forest footpaths.

Things that someone might look for: shops, restaurants, vending machines, benches, trashcans, water fountains.
To make the map appear a lot more beautiful and complete: map parks, playgrounds, dog parks, sports pitches, etc. as areas; map any fences, walls and gates around and within them. Lots of playgrounds are just mapped as nodes, so if you find such cases, fix them.
- I second this - things that someone might look for - for a simple reason: OSM will always need more people mapping, and if the maps are useful to more people, more people will use it and recommend it to their friends. And a small portion of those users will eventually become mappers. Some of those will even form or join a local mapping community.
  So the more useful info there is, more mappers will come, and the feedback loop will take care of the rest. :)

At a time where shopping local is more important than ever, when I take a walk and pass in front of businesses I take the time to ensure they are properly listed with their current business hours.

@shoki
Points of interest and amenities are probably the next most useful. Things like street lighting and sidewalks quite helpful for pedestrians. It's more important that you are still enjoying mapping. If there is something that you know is useful but you find tedious it's ok to skip it and either leave it for someone else or come back to it later
As it sounds like you're on Android, I'd recommend @streetcomplete for easily adding detail while on the go.
@openstreetmap

To me it would probably be "navigational" stuff, like bike/pedestrian crossings, sidewalks and bike paths, one-way streets and illegal turns etc. Plot some test routes for walking/biking/driving and verify the directions make sense. Then the main POIs if not already added, maybe some basic zoning? Also make sure that the features that already exist are properly tagged.
Anyway, I think you shouldn't focus too much on what "you're supposed to map" and just map the features that you find useful/interesting. There are a ton of ways OSM can be used, so start with your own use case, and by making it better for you you will make it better for everyone :)

Thank you all for your answers! I'm overwhelmed with the amount of good tips and suggestions!
I'll probably test some of them and see if they're fun to mal and useful for my village.

My general philosophy for how most people would use the map is "where are things and how do I get there?" With that in mind, I usually focus on adding stores, amenities, and other bits of infrastructure that people are likely to interact with, as well as making sure the roads and sidewalks are accurate.
I don't always feel like working on these things though, so there are some days where I will just map grass, trees, fences, or whatever else I find interesting at the time.

Public toilets are a good info

@shoki I would vote for things like Business and public utilities details are useful. e.g where is the post office, cafe, library, shop. Road information such as speed, direction, bus stops and bus services also very handy.

POIs POIs POIs, the shops and their opening hours are often outdated. Or you could micromap playgrounds.

Streetlamps are important, so are water wells or drinking water etc. Also you can map road surface or surface type

Anything that has a physical location or relationship can be mapped.
If you can find existing datasets you can add those to the map without needing to manually collect the data.
You can also consider things like floodplains, historical flooding records, traffic flows and anything else will a geographical bent.
This will never be finished because things are always in flux.
One thing that you should consider is what maintenance looks like. Keep track of where datasets came from and when you retrieved them. Some countries, regions and municipalities maintain public data that you might be able to use. Make sure you comply with any licences attached to the data.
You can also use things like the local cadastre which tracks land and building boundaries and ownership.

Have a look to https://mapcomplete.org/ as well

@shoki
all is important

19 comments