OpenStreetMap's State of the Map 2026 heads to Paris
OpenStreetMap State of the Map 2026
State of the Map 2026, the annual conference for OpenStreetMap mappers and users, will take place in Paris and online from August 28-30. The three-day event features talks, workshops, and discussions, with a venue at Cité Descartes in Champs-sur-Marne. Attendees can join via live streams or in person, and the conference is supported by sponsors including TomTom, Michelin, and Esri.
Every year, State of the Map brings together individuals and organizations that are pushing the boundaries of what open mapping can achieve.
- fitblipper
Contributing to Open Street Map has given me a ton of satisfaction. Knowing that my somewhat minor efforts to correct one address, add one feature, correct one trail will propagate to so many different places and help other people not get lost, find something new, or just be able to navigate more safely in the world makes me feel like I am leaving the world a better place more than a decade of working at FANG ever did.
- c0nsumer
I absolutely love OpenStreetMap. Back when I first started building (legal) mountain bike trails I realized that without a map they aren't the most useful. OSM gave me the system in which to document them, and then from there I was able to reuse the data to make print maps and eventually my current project: https://trailmaps.app
- hrnnnnnn
If you want a fun and easy way to contribute to OSM I recommend StreetComplete. You get a bunch of game-like quest icons for things like "what is the surface of this path?", and "does this road have a cycle path?", then you walk around and fill them in.
Very satisfying and feels like you're doing something actually useful. Also nudges you to visit parts of your neighborhood you might never have been to before.
- basil
Gamifying the map definitely helps to pull in contributors. StreetComplete got me editing more than anything else. I went a bit sideways with it: I used OSM data to build a territory game for cyclists, where you claim roads by riding them.
It's heavily processed OSM data with PostGIS. The fun part was figuring out how to decide what counts as a claimable road in the first place.
- netsharc
Happening at "Cité Descartes". I see what you did there.