The OpenStreetMap (OSM) project was founded in the United Kingdom in 2004 and is aimed at creating a free world-wide geographic data set. OpenStreetMap wants to be for geodata what Wikipedia is for encyclopedic knowledge. The focus is mainly on transport infrastructure (streets, paths, railways, rivers), but OpenStreetMap also collects a multitude of points of interest, buildings, natural features and landuse information, as well as coastlines and administrative boundaries.
OpenStreetMap relies mostly on data collected by project members. Because OpenStreetMap's geospatial dataset is published free of charge and without any restriction of use, third party data sources can be used only if their copyright owners have agreed.
While the geometries of roads and paths were recorded using consumer-grade GPS devices in the early days of OpenStreetMap, nowadays aerial and satellite imagery are the main sources for this type of data. By using specialized editors the information is entered into the central database. For some areas, third party data has been imported.
OpenStreetMap data quality and coverage differ between regions. In most countries OSM is sufficient for orientating oneself, or for finding shops and addresses. Navigation by car, for cyclists and pedestrians is possible, too. In parts of Europe, the majority of the road and path network has additional attributes like road surface. In some cities, OpenStreetMap has simplified 3D shapes of buildings, trees and street furniture and surpasses what proprietary data vendors have to offer. If something is missing from OpenStreetMap, you can add it yourself and benefit from the update immediately.
The level of detail is not the same all over the world. In fact there are still some locations in OpenStreetMap which could benefit a lot from more detailed mapping and have primary roads and points of interest mapped only.
OpenStreetMap is a community project in which everyone can participate. Prior geography, cartography, or GIS knowledge is not required.
While some see OpenStreetMap only as a cheap replacement for (or add-on to) commercial datasets, the project has reached a quasi-monopolistic position in some industries due to a lack of suitable alternatives.
Public transport operators create maps for passengers and calculate their journeys. Police, firefighters and ambulance services use OpenStreetMap in their computer-aided dispatch systems. Well-known route planning applications for cycling and hiking use OpenStreetMap because there is no other dataset which contains more tracks and trails for non-motorized users and information about the usability of trails.
OpenStreetMap is a free and noncommercial project; everyone can simply download OpenStreetMap data free of charge and process them. But not everyone has the means and the time to extract the data they need and put them into a format suitable for their project. Additionally, professional users often require a certain level of service and continuity which a hobby project cannot provide.
At Geofabrik, we bridge the gap between free project and professional users with custom data offerings, with consulting, support, training, and software development. We help our customers and the community to work together for mutual benefit.
If you enlist the services of Geofabrik, you will have some of Germany's most experienced "OpenStreetMappers" working for you.
Geofabrik supports the OpenStreetMap project in many ways. Our team consists of active members of the OpenStreetMap community and we are a cooperate member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, supporter of OpenStreetMap Germany, and a sponsor of many of OpenStreetMap conferences and events.
In the early days, we helped the development of the German OpenStreetMap community in the beginning by sponsoring handling and shipping of a pool of project-owned GPS devices that were available for mapping events.
Geofabrik Downloads is a website offering OpenStreetMap raw data extracts for various countries all over the world for free. By making use of these regional extracts, data consumers do not have to download the full planet dump which is tens of gigabytes large and time-consuming to process. Over the years, Geofabrik Downloads has become the go-to place for anyone who wants to download OpenStreetMap data excerpts.
Geofabrik Tools is a collection of tools which serve various purposes. Map Compare allows you to compare OpenStreetMap maps rendered by several providers with maps from other providers (Google, Bing etc.). The OpenStreetMap Inspector is a widely used quality assurance tool and shows some special-interest data that is not shown elsewhere.
