switch2osm

Make the switch to OpenStreetMap

Rich data

OpenStreetMap data is rich and detailed, containing huge amounts of data which is relevant to people on the ground - the people who collected it.

Features include:

Roads, railways, waterways, etc...
Restaurants, shops, stations, ATMs and more.
Walking and cycling paths.
Buildings, campuses, etc...

Up to date

OpenStreetMap is updated every minute of every hour of every day, and these updates are available to you in real-time.

Our fantastic community is making OpenStreetMap better right now. If there are features you need - you can add them and see them live within minutes.

Tune your experience

Why does your map have to look the same as every other one on the internet?

With OpenStreetMap data you can create your own map, showing the features that you want to show, the features which are important to your users.

Global data

OpenStreetMap data covers the whole world, making it easy to support users in any country, or every country.

With localised and translated names, you can see maps in the language you want to see them in.

No licensing fee

OpenStreetMap data is free and open - there is no subscription fee and no page-view fee.

With OpenStreetMap data, your only obligations are to attribute and share-alike, as explained in our license.

Other Uses

We’ve focused on tiles, but since OpenStreetMap – uniquely – gives you access to the raw map data, you can build any location or geo- application. These are the most common starting points.

Common tools

Osmosis is an all-purpose Java application for loading OSM data into a database. Most applications of OSM data use Osmosis in some way.
Osmium is a flexible framework, rapidly gaining popularity, which offers a highly configurable alternative to Osmosis.

Geocoding

Nominatim is OpenStreetMap’s geocoding service (placename<->lat/long). It has significant hardware requirements and many people choose to use the free instance offered by MapQuest Open.

Routing

OSRM is a new, fast routing engine designed for OSM data.
Gosmore is a long-established routing engine.
Public routing APIs using OSM data are offered by MapQuest Open and CloudMade.
Specialist routing APIs include CycleStreets cycle routing (UK)

Mobile libraries

iPhone/iOS libraries include Route-Me and CloudMade’s SDK.
Android libraries include osmdroid.

Vector rendering

Kothic-JS is an exciting, in-development new technology which renders OSM data “on the fly” using HTML5, without the need for raster tile images.

Contributing

Potlatch 2, the standard editor on the OSM website, is highly configurable and is used by many sites to offer an customised path to editing OSM data.