Can’t eat a whole planet-sized pizza by yourself? Don’t worry, OpenStreetMap data is now available by the Slice!
SliceOSM is a new OpenStreetMap US Community Project that lets you draw an area on the map and download a fresh up-to-the-minute extract of OpenStreetMap data for that area in OSM PBF format. Originally developed in the Protomaps project, SliceOSM seeks to make regional extracts of up-to-date OSM data available to everyone.
SliceOSM makes it easy to download extracts of OSM data in the same standard OSM PBF format that is used for the official Planet file. The planet file is available from planet.openstreetmap.org, but it’s nearly 80 GiB, which can make it challenging to use. With SliceOSM, you can download a much smaller extract of OSM data for your local neighborhood, city, or national park, and then use any tool that supports the .osm.pbf format to work with the data. For example, you can use osm2pgsql to import the data into PostGIS, use Planetiler to create vector tiles from the data, load it into GraphHopper or Valhalla to plan routes, or use QGIS or DuckDB to perform analysis.
You can find SliceOSM at slice.openstreetmap.us. You can also read more about the history and tech stack of SliceOSM on the Protomaps Blog.
What is the Community Project Program?
OpenStreetMap US launched the Community Project Program in September to strengthen the volunteer-run projects and tech that support the vibrant and creative OpenStreetMap community.
Do you have a potential Community Project? Check out our guidelines and submit an application!
Contributing
Project maintainer Brandon Liu is looking for developers interested in improving the user interface and convenience features for SliceOSM. Check out the GitHub, and join the conversation at #sliceosm on the OSM US Slack!
