The Overture Maps Foundation — a joint effort by Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and TomTom — to provide open mapping data — has announced a beta version of its global mapping dataset.
The dataset includes five basic data layers:
- Data on almost 54 million places of interest around the world
- 2.3 billion building footprints
- Information on transport infrastructure, such as roads, footpaths and others
- National and regional administrative bordersincluding names that have been translated into 40 languages
- AND base layer including land and water data
The foundation created this dataset based on several different open sources of cartographic data, such as OpenStreetMap, satellite/aerial imagery, government data, and open commercial data sources.
PODCAST: The Overture Maps Foundation is on a mission to provide reliable open map data
Interested developers can begin using and providing feedback on the map and schema data during this period to help prepare the dataset for general availability, expected later this summer.
The foundation says the data set is mostly stable at this point and only incremental changes are expected for the general availability release.
“This is a significant step forward for open map data by delivering data that is ready to be used in applications,” said Marc Prioleau, CEO of the Overture Maps Foundation. “It also paves the way for future improvements and expansion of the data set. Our member companies have already started using Overture and we look forward to a large number of users and feedback so that we can quickly go into production and deliver a comprehensive set of market-grade open maps.”