War cemetery maps

OSM has a limited amount of information about war memorials and cemeteries.

We do not have a specific map showing them, although using JXAPI it should be possible to extract them all: I imagine there are still only several hundred. If you want to make a custom map, Maperitive is probably the easiest route. Memorials of all kinds will be shown at high zoom levels on the main map (although they may be suppressed when there is a lot of detail).

At my suggestion we had a Project of the Week in 2010 to coincide with Armistice Day which is a day on which people killed in wars and conflicts are remembered in several countries. Most people interested in this topic will add new memorials as they come across them. See these blog posts from people who did a bit of surveying at the time: Open Maps, Tlatet and Weait.

There are a number of ways in which we could increase the amount of data we have: primarily by enabling OSM to use other sources in various ways: either by being allowed to derive from their work (e.g. a geolocated photograph) or by importing their data. If you are interested in adding to the information we have on War Memorials there is a lot that can be done by building relationships and contacts with these other groups. I imagine many would be interested if they got useful map resources in return.

I am aware of a number of other groups collating information on war memorials in the UK, but many have restrictions as to how their data can be used and these usually mean the data is not compatible with the licenses used by OpenStreetMap. For instance there is a very large body of geolocated photographs associated with memorials to the Royal Air Force.

Alternatively these sources of information could be used as the basis for surveying memorials explicitly for OSM. Again, a British example, but the Commonwealth War Graves Commission have a large amount of information which if released under a suitable license, could be used for locating and mapping war cemeteries (particularly as these will now be visible with Bing Imagery, which was not available last year.

These notes have a British bias, but the same principle applies in other countries: I'm just not familiar with the various official or charitable bodies which look after war graves and cemeteries. The Stolpersteine project is another example of something of a similar nature: but carried out much more systematically.

The WW1 memorial project in the UK is the UK Inventory of War Memorials. Their data licence is not compatible with OSM and they do not seem keen to cooperate with OSM, in spite of initial interest.

There is nothing to stop OSM mapping memorials separately from UKIWM, indeed if we do a good job it may encourage more cooperation. I have surveyed some of the memorials listed in their database and their records are badly out-of-data. Many of their records are taken from press cuttings printed during or just after the 1914-19 war, and the actual memorial has long ago disappeared. Their project is about updating their records rather than mapping them. The grid references they use are 6-figure OS references (poor resolution by OSM standards) and these are low quality too. I have volunteered to improve the data, but it is a huge task, especially because the data and photographs supplied to do the job is very poor quality. The project is crying out to be crowd-sourced. My enthusiasm has faded by the boring way the data has to be processed.

big cemeteries will show on satellite images which you could map ..If you type war memorial into the search box of map page it will list some that are mapped and there location