Design
Watch a Decade of Data Come to Life on OpenStreetMap
The open-source, citizen-driven mapmaking tool has democratized the insular world of cartography.
OpenStreetMap passed its 10th anniversary last fall. Over those years, it's led a quiet revolution in digital mapmaking.
Using GPS tools, satellite photographs, and their own local knowledge, citizen cartographers the world over have used the open-source platform to map the world little by little, creating a free, nimble alternative to geographic data from Google, Microsoft, and the like. In many ways, OSM represents a democratization of cartography, a field long closed off to non-experts.