Thanks to the OSM US members who voted in the 2025 OSM US Board elections.
We welcome newly elected Kiri Carini & Jazzy Smith and re-elected Matthew Whilden to the board!
We are excited for the year ahead with this wonderful team!
Call for Photos & Stories
OSM US wants to feature local mappers and community groups in our2024 annual report! Do you have photos, stories, or projects to share from last year? Email newsletter@openstreetmap.us!
OSM US Membership
Now is a great time to become a member and support the mapping community in the US!
As a member you'll receive discounts on ticketed events like State of the Map US and the ability to vote in OSM US board elections.
Minnesota's road network before James' tagging project (left) and after (right).
James is a prolific mapper, runner, and hiker based in Minneapolis who recently “finished” a project to correct all of the surface road tagging for rural roads in Minnesota! After seeing the fantastic maps above on theOSM US Slack, we had to reach out to him for this month’s Mapper Spotlight!
Why focus on rural roads in Minnesota? Adventure! I wanted to cycle to the nearest Amtrak station (in Winona) and take the train back, but I preferred riding on lower traffic gravel roads. When I went to map out a route using OSM data based apps (let me pitch cycle.travel for bicyclists), there were few gravel roads tagged along the way, despite reality being otherwise. After completing the few counties to plan that route, things started snowballing, as they do.
Did you make any connections or get help from the folks in #local-minnesota and surrounding states? I reached out and people were definitely interested in helping. Many were pretty new mappers and were a bit daunted by the size of the task, so I started a couple of MapRoulette challenges that had some help with those. As I went county by county, I did notice that there were some dedicated local mappers who had done a lot of road surface mapping.
Do you have another project in mind, now that this one is “finished”? Not a big formal project, but I think I’ll aim my mapping efforts towards sidewalks in the area where I live. I’m also hoping to get more involved with growing and connecting our local mapping community.
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Want to meet up with your local community but don't see an event near you? Check out the OSM Community index or join a #local- channel on the OSM US Slack.
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