June 19–21, 2025
OpenStreetMap US hosted the 13th annual State of the Map US conference on June 19–21 in Boston, Massachusetts. Thank you to everyone who participated. Talks were recorded and are available to view below.
The Mappiest Event of the Year
State of the Map US is the largest gathering of OpenStreetMap community members from across the country. In 2025 our conference highlighted the successes and challenges of mobility mapping with the theme “Charting the Course”.
Talks
15 Years of OpenStreetMap US
Learn about your conference host organization OSM US and our 15 years as a nonprofit.
MapLibre status: web, mobile, new tile format, server, edit, ...
MapLibre organization became the defacto standard for map visualization and related tooling. We will cover what our giant community has been up to in the last few years, and where we are...
Meet Your Mappers!
Have you ever wanted to know who has been mapping around where you live? Harder than it should be! Not anymore! Martijn van Exel created a tool that makes finding your fellow...
Pedestrian Working Group Updates
The Pedestrian Working Group spent the past year building community and consensus to improve data quality and reliability as it relates to navigation. Come find out what we’ve been doing, the proposed...
Improving OSM lake polygons using LiDAR data
Using 1-meter LiDAR-derived DEM data from USGS, I was able to generate very accurate polygons for thousands of lakes in the Wind River Range which were missing from OSM or were only...
Science Through Mapping: Engaging Students with OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap (OSM) serves as an invaluable tool in the science classroom, offering students hands-on experience with real-world data. From mapping the impacts of earthquakes to exploring carbon sequestration in climate science, OSM...
Introducing ChatMap: Open mapping with chat apps
ChatMap, the new tool from HOT (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team), transforms WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal chats into instant maps. It extracts location data and text, image or video messages—perfect for communities in disaster-prone...
Open Street Level imagery for US with Mapillary and OSM US
Mapillary is an open street-level imagery platform powered by community-contributed imagery.Mapillary helps the community enrich and validate OpenStreetMap data. We formed partnership with OSM US and distributed GoPro MAX cameras to increase...
Mapping Access to Places of Worship with OpenStreetMap
Places of worship enhance community wellbeing by providing spiritual spaces and social services, yet access varies across the U.S. Using OpenStreetMap data, we mapped locations, calculated service areas, and estimated population access...
Mapping Trails in Metro Boston
For almost 15 years, MAPC has been aggregating and developing a centralized GIS trail database for the greater Boston region. Hear how the database is being used to plan a regional greenway...
Maintaining a family of related map styles: efficient cartography with Stamen’s style builder
Cartographers often need to create multiple map styles that share most of the same elements; for example, a light and dark mode version of a map. To avoid repeating code across dozens...
Smarter navigation for two-wheelers & informal transit: leveling-up OSM for Southeast Asia
In Southeast Asia, two-wheelers and informal transit like jeepneys and angkots power urban mobility, yet most navigation apps overlook them. At GrabMaps, we’re using OSM to build hyperlocal navigation tailored for these...
Integrating OpenStreetMap with AI to Power Transportation Infrastructure Projects
Discover how Cyvl leverages OpenStreetMap (OSM) data—such as street names and shapefiles—to enhance AI-driven transportation projects. By integrating OSM’s open data with advanced technologies, Cyvl streamlines asset inventories and data management for...
How we mapped the Richmond Water Crisis
In January Richmond, Virginia lost water for a week due to a catastrophic failure at our water treatment plant. Amid this chaos we conducted a survey of our neighbors to learn more...
Safe Routes to School
Safe routes to school is a key concern for parents, educators, and city planners alike. OpenStreetMap offers a powerful, community-driven platform for mapping essential pedestrian infrastructure, speed limits, traffic calming measures, and...
Expanding internet access with OSM: Philly Community Wireless
This presentation highlights how Philly Community Wireless uses OpenStreetMap to communicate, maintain, and plan free internet networks in North Philadelphia, inviting discussion on mapping and labeling these networks in OSM.
Govt as a Contributing OSM Member and User - A Success Story
The OSM community is a valuable partner for government agencies often overlooked. Through close collaboration, shared requirements for new and emerging technologies can be achieved. TriMet adopted OSM over a decade ago...
Teaching and Assessing Civic Engagement with OSM
Civic engagement is a core competency in public education. This talk demonstrates how OSM is used in Geography classes to teach the production and consumption of maps as an act of spatial...
Hold On To Your Pearls, Grandma, We’re Switching to OSM!
Authoritative data is a big part of the OSM ecosystem, but most of that data lives in a silo. What if it were different? What if the authoritative data was managed directly...
Improving Map Data with Emerging Technologies
As the landscape of technologies continues to evolve, how to integrate these advancements to expand and improve geospatial data more efficiently and accurately? This talk will utilize pedestrian networks and navigation as...
Mapping for Neurodiversity - A Call to Innovate
How can mapping or Open Street Maps enhance the lives of neurodivergent people? What is neurodiversity? Neurodiversity is an umbrella term that, at its core, triumphs different types of brains: autism spectrum...
Atlas of Intangibles
In my research, titled Atlas of Intangibles, I examine alternative forms of data collection, such as visual ethnography, ‘score-based’ data walks, and collective mapping. I investigate and develop experimental mapping strategies to...
SF Bay Area's Mapping Data Services Platform
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is creating a mapping data services system to host, maintain, and share geospatial data within the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. This system will allow stakeholders to...
The State of the Map in Maryland and How I Mapped Howard County
The State of Maryland has benefited from multiple imports of county buildings and addresses. My goal was to add addressed buildings in Howard County. The plan started with a bicycle, GPS and...
Magyar Mapping with NNG Kft: How Enterprises Can Contribute to OSM
OpenStreetMap thrives on community, but enterprises also play a key role. NNG Kft., a Hungarian automotive navigation company, embraced OSM with its 2023 launch of NNG Maps. This talk explores NNG’s contributions:...
MapRoulette
MapRoulette has provided OSM mappers with small, meaningful tasks to improve the map for over 13 years. Thousands of mappers use MapRoulette every month as individuals, part of a mapping team, or...
OpenStreetMap as a Tool for Raising Visibility of Indigenous Communities in the Amazon
In the Amazon, many communities face challenges worsened by their lack of representation on official maps, perpetuating marginalization. Collaborative mapping, supported by open technologies, brings visibility to these territories by generating data...
Mapping New Bicycle Infrastructure
You don’t always have to wait for satellite imagery to be updated to map new bicycle infrastructure in your city! In recent years American cities have been establishing and expanding their bicycle...
Mapping Muddy Branch Trail
This suburban watershed trail that extends 11 miles from Gaithersburg, MD to the Potomac River. The nonprofit that maintains it is new to OpenStreetMap. In this talk we will talk about OSM...
Practice-Based Lesson using OSM Helping to Develop New Mapper skills in the Classroom
This will highlight a Project Based Lesson for teachers who want to introduce OSM in their classroom and be able to provide space for students to understand the WHY of mapping and...
Mapping USA's Libraries: Putting Every Library on the Map!
This project aims to map public libraries across the USA in OpenStreetMap by adding missing locations and enriching metadata with operator type, website tags, and more. My progress—documented on a dedicated WikiOSM...
Shining a light: basic strategies for local historical mapping
For centuries, Boston Light has peered through the fog as a guide to mariners in the harbor. Every contribution you make to OpenHistoricalMap will serve as a landmark to guide other local...
From map gazing to humanitarian action: My journey through OSM and the world of open mapping
This talk explores how I went from staring at subway transit maps to learning that loving maps is something one can do for a living. We’ll journey together through my getting started...
What's new in OSMCha
Overview of some technical improvements we’re making to OSMCha: a new, faster data backend for creating augmented diffs (available as an API service for other apps to use too), a new easier-to-interpret...
Finding crosswalk types, tactile pavings and sidewalk widths at scale with AI
Mapping pedestrian pathways and tagging elements in OSM is a challenging endeavor. Our AI pipeline, PROPHET, automates this process using aerial imagery, street data, and computer vision to generate pedestrian pathways at...
The Future of Map Data from Street-level Imagery
Mapillary is a rich source of visual information about the world around us, and is known for providing map data like traffic signs derived from what is visible in imagery. In this...
HorizonDB: High-throughput geocoding at Radar
Radar CTO Tim Julien shares the internals behind HorizonDB, Radar’s geospatial datastore. Learn how Radar designed a high-throughput, low-latency datastore for search and geocoding use cases—covering architecture, performance, and key lessons.
Raster & Vector analysis using Uber H3 Indexes and PostgreSQL
In this talk, we will explore how we can use Uber H3 indexes for both vector and raster analysis. We’ll discuss performance considerations, limitations, advantages, and how H3 tiles with raster cell...
Between Two Turns: Identifying and defining turn paths
When preparing OSM data for use in a routing engine, graph topology is typically simplified to reduce network complexity. This compresses detailed ways into single edges, ideally between single-node intersections. However, complex...
Something you might not know about Overture Maps
Overture Maps will have been around for 2-½ years in June. Its goals and mission are distinct from those of OSM but it is also a huge user and beneficiary of the...
A geographical mapping and characterisation of food resources in a Ghanaian university campus
Food environments are viewed as the interface where individuals interact with the wider food system to procure and/or consume food. Data collection was undertaken based on GIS open-source technologies and collaborative mapping...
Offline Rock Climbing Mobile Maps
OpenBeta is a community-powered rock climbing guide. In 2025, we launched an open-source mobile app to make it easier for climbers to access and contribute to the database while outdoors. This talk...
Analyzing OSM data in Postgis: using docker and imposm to download it efficiently
Learn how to efficiently download OpenStreetMap data into a PostGIS database, using docker and the imposm ETL. The data can then be queried using all the PostgreSQL/PostGIS capabilities, opening the door to...
No Child Left Inside: Mapping Playgrounds to Help Every Child Play
Play is essential for kids to grow up healthy, happy, and ready to thrive, yet many lack access to safe places to play. Surprisingly, there’s no national database of playgrounds, making it...
OpenStreetMap for Transit Tourism: Have a Rail Good Time!
What if transit riders had digital service signs directing them to places to stay, eat, drink, and shop near transit stations? Now they do! My presentation will describe how I used OSM...
Beyond Street Imagery: Crowdsourcing LiDAR
KartaView is adding support for open LiDAR data, enabling contributors to capture and share 3D point clouds alongside street-level imagery. This advancement enhances road data accuracy, streamlines indoor mapping and unlocks exciting...
Pixels, Please! Powering Maps with Open Imagery
Imagery is mapping’s lifeblood, yet we’re often stuck with stale pixels! Explore how OpenAerialMap’s STAC migration is unleashing fresh, high-resolution, local imagery data from drones to satellites. We challenge imagery providers to...
Urban park equity in Phoenix, Arizona
Urban parks provide ecological and social benefits to residents, but marginalized populations often have limited access to high-quality parks within walking distance. I will explain how I used open-source GIS tools to...
Making maps with Ultra
This talk will dive into how Ultra, née Overpass Ultra, can be used to make maps from OSM data and a variety of other sources.
Multimodal HH-routing (highway hierarchy) in OsmAnd
OsmAnd uses Highway Hierarchy (HH) routing to optimize offline navigation by structuring roads into levels based on importance, improving speed and accuracy. Each month, OsmAnd processes OpenStreetMap (OSM) data and updates offline...
OSM Data Validation: Moving from Daylight to Overture
Interested in QA’d OSM data? This talk will describe how all of the QA work once done by Meta as part of the Daylight Map Distribution is transitioning to Overture and anyone...
(Re)Charting the Course of Empires in OHM
Inspired by Charlie Plett’s work mapping the British Empire in OHM and the book, “How to Hide an Empire” (about the American empire (yes!)), this session will focus on the myriad aspects...
Integrating Bike Lanes and Cycle Routes into OSM: An Essential Pillar for Efficient Mobility
Cycling infrastructure is essential for sustainable mobility, but its impact relies on accurate mapping in OSM. A pilot project in Bogotá, Medellín, and Villavicencio developed a methodology to map bike lanes using...
The other streets: adding NYC Honorary Street Names to visualize communities
NYC streets have Honorary Street Names proposed by different local community leaders. This presentation centers on an area between Washington Heights and Inwood, Manhattan, and looks at the honorary names. It includes...
Run every street in a city with OpenStreetMap data
A simple-sounding challenge - running every street in a city - has a surprisingly complex definition. What counts as a street? What defines a city? OpenStreetMap’s data reflects the world’s messiness, from...
We Bought a Map Store: Two Years In
At SOTMUS: SLC, I told the story of how I became the owner of the oldest map store in New England. I discussed challenges of small business ownership, insights into how the...
Improving POI Accuracy with Crowdsourced Geographic Poses
Mapping POIs accurately can be challenging at scale especially to include entrances. Often POIs in OSM aren’t aligned well to buildings or other features. Using smartphones and increasingly smart glasses it is...
Mapping Pedestrian Infrastructure at Scale for the State of Washington
Join us to explore what it takes to map pedestrian infrastructure across Washington (~180,000 km²)! We’ll dive into the technical stack that enables scalable mapping and how human+AI techniques accelerates the process...
MapSwipe Today and Its Future in OSM
MapSwipe is a mobile and web app that enables crowdsourced data collection for OpenStreetMap (OSM). Today, MapSwipe helps prioritize mapping efforts by identifying areas needing updates. This talk will explore future possibilities...
Saying Farewell to Stamen's Map Stack
Stamen’s Map Stack was a platform created in 2013 for customizing existing basemaps by stacking, blending, and compositing raster tiles. This unique experience enabled quick, user-friendly map prototyping and endless creative expression...
Fixing data that is as old as me
My session will review my personal method for correcting TIGER roads. My process is idiosyncratic, but I find that though I do not follow the common method, it results in more accurate...
Collaborative field mapping with Field-TM
Despite heroic efforts by mapping communities on HOT’s Tasking Manager, many parts of the world are still unmapped. Often the data does not reflect the reality on the ground, particularly when it...
Ponds from Space: Monitoring Pantropical Aquaculture and Coastal Habitats using Satellite Imagery
This session will overview how Clark CGA researchers are leveraging geospatial analytics and satellite imagery to monitor and visualize land change transitions as they relate to coastal habitats and aquaculture development across...
AR: The Next Interface for GIS and Spatial Computing?
This session explores inCitu’s work bringing augmented reality to architecture and planning engagement, AR integrations to map data, and how AR can be a new, accessible interface for creating 3D geospatial data...
Pedestrian Mapping with Aerial Imagery: An ML-Driven Approach
Join us for an in-depth look at how Machine Learning (ML) models can be used to detect missing footway data in OSM. By finding missing marked crosswalks using ML, we can help...
VirtuGhan : Virtual Computation Cube for EO Data
VirtuGhan is a Virtual Computation Cube designed for efficient on-the-fly tile computation of Earth Observation Data, similar to Google Earth Engine but utilizing open-source tools. It enables tiles based calculations on satellite...
UDef-ARP: Python Open-Source Tool and Its Implementations
UDef-ARP is an open-source Python tool designed to facilitate the Verra VT0007 Unplanned Deforestation Allocation. It is also implemented in TerrSet, QGIS, and ArcGIS.
From Data to Destination: Lyft’s Approach to Routing with OpenStreetMap
How do you determine the best route from point A to point B? In this talk, we will explore the core components of Lyft’s routing algorithm, highlighting how it integrates with OpenStreetMap...
Mapping FXBGO! Bus Stops: Enhancing Transit Access in the City of Fredericksburg, VA
This session explores the effort to map all 398 bus stops on the 16 FXBGO! local routes in Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Spotsylvania, Virginia. By surveying each stop, capturing images for Wikimedia Commons,...
Mapping of New England's Historic Town Pounds
Just about every colonial New England town had one of these stone wall enclosures for containing livestock which had strayed from their owner’s land and were causing problems on other people’s property....
Updates From Development Seed!
In this lightning talk we will give a quick overview of updates across a few projects we are involved with: OpenHistoricalMap, OSMCha, OSM for Cities, Gradient, and OSM Teams. We will talk...
A decade of Imagery
For 10 years, Kaart has captured street level imagery in more than 65 countries around the world and contributed them to the OSM community. Join us as we take a stroll through...
From OSM to insight: analyzing spatial data with PostGIS and QGIS
OpenStreetMap isn’t just a map - it’s a massive database of geographic information. But how do you turn all that raw data into actionable insights? This session will introduce you to the...
Let's map things using JOSM!
JOSM is an extremely productive way to edit the map but can be quite intimidating to the un-initiated. Come and get help getting started or stick around and we can work though...
Make your own base map or overlay tiles with MapLibre stack and Planetiler
In this workshop we will generate base map tiles from OSM data using Planetiler, set up Martin tile server, set up nginx to serve our sample web site that will use MapLibre...
Highway & Trail Conflation with OSM
This is a deep tech dive into the process of conflating external datasets with OpenStreetMap, mixed with discussion about ground-truthing data.
Know Your Audience!
Procedure: divide the room into groups and assign each an animal. The task is to create a map of the common room with markers and paper while in the guise of the...
Navigating Map Libraries: The Leventhal Map Center and OHM
The Leventhal Map Center has an explicit mission to share the beauty and information in its historical maps through public and educational outreach and collaboration (https://www.leventhalmap.org/about/mission-history/). Given that, it’s a great match...
Observe, Collect, Map
Priti will lead a group of participants on a data walk, focused on documenting the neighbourhood from a sensory perspective. With observations recorded, the group will participate in a collective mapping exercise...
How to put an entire count(r)y in a container: transportable OSM data integration into Postgis
This session will give a hands-on tutorial to download OpenStreetMap data into a PostGIS database, leveraging docker and the imposm ETL. After importing the data, we will show how it can be...
Mapping Footways in Busy Areas
Many major cities across the United States have no data about presence of sidewalks, in various districts like downtowns, industrial areas, parks, residential zones, and more. In this workshop, we will take...
Underground Truth: How to Map a Pipeline
How many pipelines are in your backyard? Uncle Sam knows! Learn how to leverage government data to map missing fossil fuel pipelines on OSM.
Mapping Party! A field mapping event for new & old mappers
This is a field mapping party for everyone. Educators: join us to learn field mapping techniques. Mappers: join us to share expertise with teachers.
Building a Local OSM Community
Join a conversation with fellow community builders! Will an OSM Boston form? NorthEastOSM? Let’s get together and find out!
Regional air quality impacts of Amtrak passenger trains
Train travel is often considered an environmentally-friendly alternative to other transit modes; however, the United States rail network is primarily served by diesel locomotives. Amtrak is currently rolling out newer locomotives that...
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Meet our speakers
News and talks
See all postsGreetings from State of the Map US 2025
Another year another State of the Map US! Over 300 mappers gathered in Boston, Massachusetts in late June for OpenStreetMap US’s 13th annual conference, and to celebrate the organization’s 15th anniversary. This...
Launching the State of the Map US Public Service Scholarship
Many US government agencies have seen recent reductions in spending, limiting participation in conferences like State to the Map US. National events like SOTMUS are critical for building relationships and sharing knowledge....
State of the Map US 2025 Info Session
Join us for a Mappy Hour to get your questions about State of the Map US answered! Join Clay Smalley, Sean Whitcomb, and Martijn van Exel to hear about what it’s like...
State of the Map US 2025 Info Session
Thinking about participating in State of the Map US 2025 in Boston? Come learn from SotM US veterans about what to expect, and brainstorm ideas for your session.
Call for proposals now open for State of the Map US 2025!
You are invited to share your ideas and session proposals for the 2025 State of the Map US conference! This year’s theme, Charting the Course, will celebrate OSM in mobility and look...
