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Is there a website where one could see (say relatively up-to-date) global heatmap history of OSM edits? I would like to see if there are any trends in the locations being edited - maybe that edits are "moving" from the developed world (where most of the at least basic mapping is done already) to the developing world (Asia, Africa etc.). It would be nice to be able to track these stats.

I know it certainly would be possible to build such heatmap myself from the diffs, but I want to avoid this at first.

asked 25 Nov '16, 11:07

Kozuch's gravatar image

Kozuch
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edited 25 Nov '16, 11:08


Itoworld has various nice heatmaps including for example recent edits for the last 90 days. It's a snapshot with a good-but-not-great update frequency.

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answered 25 Nov '16, 12:03

Vincent%20de%20Phily's gravatar image

Vincent de P... ♦
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That product is not available anymore.

(22 Jun '19, 17:26) Kozuch

While the map you describe is certainly fun to look at, it won't actually answer the questions you are interested in. It would basically shows population density, with an emphasis on a small number of changesets with huge amounts of small changes.

A simple useful approach is looking at a site like missing maps osm stats or osm analytics , and see if the speed of mapping roads is increasing in the developing world.

As far as I've seen when looking at the data, even as the road network becomes complete in Europe, people keep working on them, adding ever more detail. So if you want to know if "mapping attention" is shifting, I think you'd be better of with a map of simply the number of changesets or the number of different contributors. Some goodies in that direction are in this Mapbox osm analysis lab. A thorough study would also take into account population and size of the economy to relate mapping activity to mapable objects.

[EDIT] I think this one goes closest to what you're looking for. It tries to tell too many things at once IMHO. I've opened it in Germany for you. The red dots show an explosion of number of daily active users as soon as 2008, and then it basically stays more or less the same. In the second graph, the red dots are the number of people yearly working on roads. Similar profile. The number for 2016 is quite low, probably because of some lag in getting the data. Then look at buildings: a much smoother rise. Interesting to compare this to the explosion in DR Congo from 2014, ups and downs in Haiti or the steady-as-she-goes in Peru.

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answered 25 Nov '16, 17:06

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joost schouppe
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edited 25 Nov '16, 17:31

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question asked: 25 Nov '16, 11:07

question was seen: 4,114 times

last updated: 22 Jun '19, 17:26

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum