1 million OpenStreetMappers

OpenStreetMap has just passed 1 million users! That’s a million people who have signed up on openstreetmap.org to join in with creating a free map of the world.

At first glance you may think that OpenStreetMap is a map. Those who know more will tell you that it’s actually a database; a flexible editable repository of free geospatial data. But above all OpenStreetMap is a community. A massive community in which people like you and me come together collaborate and help build this thing… and now there’s a million of us!

A massive community is what makes OpenStreetMap work. We need many people to sign up, and we need those people in every neighbourhood, in every corner of the globe, to chip in a little bit using our editing tools. In this way we have grown and progressed spectacularly throughout 2012. This wonderful video illustrates what a great year of map editing activity we had.

Who will join the OpenStreetMap community in 2013?

9 thoughts on “1 million OpenStreetMappers

  1. Sam Larsen

    Why do we keep calling them users – surely they are contributors.We have MANY more ‘users’

  2. Harry Wood

    Sam Larsen that’s true. We have many more ‘users’ in terms of end users of our data on websites/mobile apps etc (with no good way to measure how many) …but "contributors" isn’t the right word because in truth we have many *fewer* than 1 million contributors.I’ve written about the 1 million stat and what is means on my diary entry here: http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Harry%20Wood/diary/18354

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