Who is OpenStreetMap?

Everyone who participates in the creation and progress of OpenStreetMap is part of the OSM community. There’s also the OpenStreetMap Foundation, a registered nonprofit in the United Kingdom that supports OpenStreetMap and makes sure it is running smoothly.

• Contributors: people who add or update data on OpenStreetMap. The majority of these are volunteers; some are humanitarian workers or are employed by companies.

• Data Consumers: many different companies, organizations, governments, researchers and individuals use OpenStreetMap data for any number of uses: transportation and routing, GPS and navigation, health care, city planning, cartography, municipal services, academic research, GIS and more. Some of the users of OSM data are listed here.

• Developers: coders, developers and designers who use OpenStreetMap to make tools like routing, data editing, quality assurance, project management and more.

• Local and Regional Communities: regional, country, state or city organizations that organize OpenStreetMap editing and events in their areas, but some of which are officially organized, others gather informally. Many of these groups organize their own conferences.

• Humanitarian Groups: many humanitarian organizations create data and use OpenStreetMap data to support their projects, either for planning and preparation, logistics, or response. Often there are volunteer mappers who help digitize imagery, as well as on-the-ground data collectors and mapping staff.