OpenStreetMap (abbreviated OSM) is a free,

open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gerd Dudek, Buschi Niebergall, and Edward Vesala album), 1979 * ''Open'' (Go ...

map database updated and maintained by a community of

volunteers Volunteering is an elective and freely chosen act of an individual or group giving their time and labor, often for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergenc ...

via

open collaboration Open collaboration refers to any "system of innovation or production that relies on goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants who cooperate voluntarily to create a product (or service) of economic value, which is made freely available to ...

. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial photo imagery or

satellite imagery Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell im ...

, and import from other freely licensed geodata sources. OpenStreetMap is

freely licensed Free content, libre content, libre information, or free information is any kind of creative work, such as a work of art, a book, a software, software program, or any other creative Media (communication), content for which there are very minimal ...

under the Open Database License and is commonly used to make electronic

map A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

s, inform

turn-by-turn navigation Turn-by-turn navigation is a feature of some satellite navigation devices where directions for a selected route are continually presented to the user in the form of spoken or visual instructions. The system keeps the user up-to-date about the bes ...

, and assist in

humanitarian aid Humanitarian aid is material and Humanitarian Logistics, logistic assistance, usually in the short-term, to people in need. Among the people in need are the homelessness, homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. Th ...

and data visualisation. OpenStreetMap uses its own data model to store

geographical feature In geography and particularly in geographic information science, a geographic feature or simply feature (also called an object or entity) is a representation of phenomenon that exists at a location in the space and scale of relevance to geograph ...

s which can then be exported into other

GIS file format A GIS file format or geospatial file format is a standard for encoding geographical information into a computer file. It is a specialized type of file format for use in geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing image processing tools, a ...

s. The OpenStreetMap website itself is an online map, geodata

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

, and editor. OpenStreetMap was created by

Steve Coast Stephen Coast (born 20 December 1980) is a British entrepreneur and the founder of the OpenStreetMap community-based world mapping project and CloudMade, a geography-related company. Early life Coast grew up in Walderslade and London, United Ki ...

in response to the

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

, the United Kingdom's national mapping agency, failing to release its data to the public under free licences in 2004. Initially, maps in OSM were created only via GPS traces, but it was quickly populated by importing

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

geographical data such as the U.S.

TIGER The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is a large Felidae, cat and a member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Asia. It has a powerful, muscular body with a large head and paws, a long tail and orange fur with black, mostly vertical stripes. It is ...

and by tracing imagery as permitted by source. OpenStreetMap's adoption was accelerated by

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

's introduction of pricing in 2012 and the development of supporting software and applications. The database is hosted by the

OpenStreetMap Foundation The OpenStreetMap Foundation (abbreviated OSMF) is a non-profit organisation whose aim is to support and enable the development of freely-reusable geospatial data. Founded in 2006, it is closely connected with the OpenStreetMap project, although ...

, a non-profit organisation registered in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...

and is funded mostly via donations.

History

founded the project in 2004 while attending

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

, initially focusing on mapping the United Kingdom. In the UK and elsewhere, government-run and tax-funded projects like the

created massive datasets but declined to freely and widely distribute them. The first contribution was a street that Coast entered in December 2004 after cycling around

Regent's Park Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, Borough of Camden (and historical ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

with a

GPS tracking unit A GPS tracking unit, geotracking unit, satellite tracking unit, or simply tracker is a navigation device normally on a vehicle, asset, person or animal that uses satellite navigation to determine its movement and determine its WGS84 UTM ...

. In April 2006, the

was established to encourage the growth, development and distribution of free

geospatial Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position). It is also call ...

data and provide geospatial data for anybody to use and share. In April 2007, Automotive Navigation Data (AND) donated a complete road data set for the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and

trunk road A trunk road is a major highway with a specific legal classification in some jurisdictions, notably the United Kingdom, Sweden and formerly Ireland. Trunk roads are planned and managed at the national-level, distinguishing them from non-trunk ro ...

data for

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

to the project. By July 2007, when the first "The State of the Map" (SotM) conference was held, there were 9,000 registered users. In October 2007, OpenStreetMap completed the import of a

US Census The United States census (plural censuses or census) is a census that is legally mandated by the Constitution of the United States. It takes place every ten years. The first census after the American Revolution was taken in 1790 under Secretar ...

road dataset. In December 2007,

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

became the first major organisation to use OpenStreetMap data on their main website. Ways to import and export data have continued to grow – by 2008, the project developed tools to export OpenStreetMap data to power portable GPS units, replacing their existing

proprietary {{Short pages monitor