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Aug 28 15:49 UTC

OpenStreetMap State of the Map 2026 (2026.stateofthemap.org)

49 points|by lode||17 comments|Read full story on 2026.stateofthemap.org

Comments (17)

16 shown
  1. 1. Jimpulse||context
    Does OpenStreetMap comply with US executive order naming?
  2. 2. plasticsoprano||context
    Well, when you visit it https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=7/23.765/-87.100 there's no naming of that area at all. At least when looked at from a US IP. And when you search "Gulf of America" it returns "Gulf of Mexico". So take from that what you will.
  3. 3. wongarsu||context
    Also https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=8/43.622/-78.852 shows "Lake Ontario". But it does carry the tag "official_name:en-US": "Lake America", so search will find Lake America and a mapping app could decide to show the official name

    Though generally official names are the names nobody uses. For example the country labeled "France" also has the attribute "official_name:en": "French Republic"

  4. 4. hansvm||context
    Fiat never works for linguistic shifts. That order is about as likely to work as telling a kid to stop saying "six seven."
  5. 5. alex1138||context
    I'm in favor of legislation to stop the '67' craze
  6. 6. dspillett||context
    Just tell them they've lost the game.

    If they ask what the rules of the game are, they've just lost again.

    They didn't invent being deliberately obtuse.

  7. 7. mikeocool||context
    The President of the United Stated doesn’t actually have the authority to tell anyone besides the executive branch what to name geographic places. So the order only forces official US government maps created by USGS and the like to be updated. Other maps can choose to update if they want to.

    Open Street Map tends to reserve the “name” tag for what things are commonly called by the local community. It appears that for the Lake Ontario and The Gulf of Mexico they’ve added an “official_name:US” tag to capture the names in the executive orders.

  8. 8. gmiller123456||context
    Even though he can't tell others to follow them, they often choose to do so anyway. E.g. Google Maps displays the Gulf of America.
  9. 9. kenmacd||context
    It doesn't for me (although it does include it in parentheses after the real name), so I'm going to hope this is only an 'only in the US' change.
  10. 10. zikduruqe||context
    It's community driven, so I highly doubt the public will change it.

    Now, I'd love for each geographical region to take their very worst area, and rename it after a certain politician for the lulz.

  11. 11. scrollop||context
    Hopefully not. Whatever changes Mr Trump demands will likely be temporary, regardless.
  12. 12. kylecazar||context
    It's up to the renderer what to display. OSM data tags according to global consensus, so they use Gulf of Mexico for the 'name' field. There is an attribute for 'official_name:en-US' that returns Gulf of America. They do the same with other disputed names/places.

    https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:official_name:en-US

    "Few if any renderers consume official_name=* or any of its subkeys; in practice, the purpose of this key is for geocoders to find the feature when a user searches for the official name."

  13. 13. netsharc||context
    Happening at "Cité Descartes". I see what you did there.
  14. 14. hk__2||context
    Of course I learn about it exactly when I’m out of Paris for just a couple of days.
  15. 15. numpad0||context
    Weird little quirk I've recently encountered, somewhat related to OSM: the `mkgmap` tool used to convert OSM data to Garmin map files display Chinese pronunciation as English names next to POI names in Japanese, due to 1) Japanese OSM maps have a lot of entries written in Japanese without indication of language, 2) no one is doing anything about it, due to Wikipedia style community nuances or something, and 3) the tool have no "--assume-language=$LANG" style of options(plus Japanese script->pronunciation mapping isn't even remotely bijective).

    e.g. There's a bicycle parking next to the parkside exit at Ueno station, "上野駅公園口自転車駐車場". This is:

      meaning:        Ueno    station   park    entrance   bicycle     parking  ground in English,
      read IRL:      ue   no    eki     kouen    guchi    jitensha     chusha    jou   in Japanese, but written
      on the map:  shang  ye    yi    gong yuan   kou   zi zhuan che  zhu che   chang  as Chinese(in Pinyin but I don't know how to type it).
    
    ...I would imagine that utility of that is limited for non-Japanese users. Makes me wonder what are the reasons why master OSM data hadn't had missing pronunciations autogenerated or mkgmap tool given an auto selected language flag, but I'm not intending to be OSMian nor am I wanting to be the one to define national borders for bunch of nation states, so there's that...
  16. 16. SaudAljuaid||context
    Interesting discussion. I didn’t know OSM handled official naming separately from community naming. Thanks for the explanation.