FAQ

What is OpenStreetMap? And what is the OpenStreetMap Foundation?

OpenStreetMap is an open initiative to create and provide free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them. It is a massive online collaboration, with hundreds of thousands of registered users worldwide.

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is an nonprofit organisation, a legal body incorporated by the registrar of companies for England and Wales.

What is the purpose of the OpenStreetMap Foundation?

The goal of the foundation is to support but not control the OpenStreetMap project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data and to providing geospatial data for anybody to use and share.

The OpenStreetMap Foundation was formed to enable aspects of the project not easily accomplished by individual mappers. For instance, the OpenStreetMap Foundation owns the OpenStreetMap servers, and holds sponsorship funds from donors.

For more information see the OSMF About page.

Who may become a member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation?

Any individual may become a member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation by paying the annual membership fee.

How many employees does the OpenStreetMap Foundation have?

The OpenStreetMap Foundation has no employees. All OSMF activities are performed by volunteers. This means we’re a lean, efficient organisation when it comes to spending the donated funds, but it has some disadvantages. We may consider taking on paid staff in the future.

Where do I get OpenStreetMap data?

This is the raw data describing the positions of roads, rivers, towns, points interests etc. It can be used to make a map, but is not a map. If you want that, wrong question, see ”Where do I get OpenStreetMap maps?”!

The best starting point is a snapshot of the OpenStreetMap database. It is in XML format. Data is available for the whole world and is updated regularly. Smaller extracts for certain countries and parts of the world are also available.

You can write programs and scripts quite easily to extract what you need or you can use some of the tools and procedures developed by the OpenStreetMap community.

Is OpenStreetMap data free?

Yes. There are no fees or royalty payments of any kind.

Are there restrictions on using OpenStreetMap data?

There are no restrictions on who can use the data. Individuals, clubs, societies, charities, academe, government, commercial companies. When we say everyone, we mean everyone.

There are no restrictions on where you can use the data. Privately or publicly. Commercially or non-commercially. Paper maps, electronic maps, books, newspapers, TV, gazeteers, search systems, routing, games … or indeed anything you can think of that will surprise us.

There are two restrictions, some call them freedoms, on how you use the data. See the following sections on Attribution and Share-Alike.

Attribution

We would like you to tell people where you got your data from.

Share-Alike

We would like more data to be made publicly and freely available. This depends on what license is used. Right now, we use CC-BY-SA. If you improve our data and want to distribute the new data, it must be done under the same license. If you make a map from our data, whether you use other data or not, you must publish under the same license. Under our proposed new ODbL license, the rule for publishing improved data is the same. If you make a map, you are free to publish that under whatever license you like. If you have improved our data to make it, then you need to share that data under the ODbL.

Where do I get OpenStreetMap maps?

If you are not making your own maps, the list of resources for OpenStreetMap maps made by OpenStreetMap community members, clubs and companies grows day by day. OpenStreetMap examples.

If you just want to see what our maps can look like go to www.openstreetmap.org/ . The ”+” button in the top right corner gives you the option to choose different styles.

If you want an electronic map of a specific area quickly, the Export tab of www.openstreetmap.org/ will allow you download a map of your selected area as JPEG image, PDF file or in other formats.

Or you might want map tiles.

What is a map tile?

Map tiles are made by dividing the map into squares and making an image file, such as .png or .jpg, for each square. Sets of map tiles can be made for different zoom levels. There is one map tile showing the whole world. There are four map tiles making up the whole world at the next zoom level, 16 at the next and so on right down to hundreds of thousands for showing the whole world at a local neighborhood level of detail.

Can I use your map tiles?

We are in principle happy for our map tiles to be used by external users for creative and unexpected uses – in contrast to most web mapping providers.

However, the OpenStreetMap servers are run entirely on donated resources. They have strictly limited capacity. Heavy use of OSM tiles adversely affects people’s ability to view and edit the map, and is an abuse of the individual donations and sponsorship which provide hardware and bandwidth. As a result, we request that users of the tiles abide by the tile usage policy. OpenStreetMap tile services can also be obtained from other third parties, or you can investigate setting up a tile server of your own.

Do you offer consulting or commercial services?

No. There are companies who specialize in commercial services built upon OpenStreetMap data. Those companies may be able to help you. As policy, the Foundation makes no endorsements or recommendations.