We visually document the history of communities and societies, of landscapes and thoroughfares. We’re doing it for the love of knowledge and the places we call home. As a scrappy #DigitalHumanities project, our needs are tiny by tech project standards, but our volunteers still count on us to […]

We moved to a new server earlier today. Services should be back up. Let us know if anything is unreachable for you.

Excited to be at #WikiConferenceNA in Edmonton this weekend. Find @mxn to hear about how OpenHistoricalMap can be a partner to #Wikipedia in the campaign against #recentism in the digital humanities.

September is almost over and we didn’t post #OpenHistoricalMap statistics for August yet! Since the start of August, we added 3.9 million dated elements, more than doubling what we had before. That includes 1.6 million more buildings and 17,192¼ more railroad miles than we had before. #HockeyStick

RE: https://blog.oldinsurancemaps.net/2026/08/25/joining-the-osm-us-charter/ Looking forward to bringing our projects even closer together with the coordination that @OpenStreetMapUS provides!

We’re excited to partner with @oldinsurancemaps #MapReader #Allmaps to build a new pipeline for extracting information from #OldMaps and preparing them for OpenHistoricalMap via #IIIF and @MapRoulette. Thanks to @nlnet for recognizing the potential in this big idea! […]

Our main Historical map style is improving bit by bit! Graveyard names, airport codes, and a fix for streets that change names over time: https://forum.openhistoricalmap.org/t/openhistoricalmap-stylesheet-updates/795 #FamilyHistory #AviationHistory

OpenHistoricalMap stylesheet updates

type=street rendering improvement type=street was overriding the ways it was on. So for example this residential street would have only rendered between 1905-1921 instead of from 1793. Cemetery pattern, icon and name The landuse=cemetery and amenity=grave_yard were only rendering a colour and had no pattern, name or icon. Now all Christian cemeteries have a cross pattern and all graveyards have a tombstone pattern and a label and icon. Note: The cemetery still doesn’t render the name. Wi...

forum.openhistoricalmap.org

In August, the #OpenHistoricalMap community added 55,017 dated elements, 12,693 buildings, and 18,888¾ railroad miles. The average age of a dated element fell by 2 months, and the average year shifted a fortnight later. All this with the help of 28 new contributors – welcome! […]

Intricate annotations on #OldInsuranceMaps lead to story after story. Emma Farahay recounts some of this local history from #Sandusky. https://openstreetmap.us/events/state-of-the-map-us/2026/sanborn-in-sandusky-a-search-for-local-stories/ #StateOfTheMapUS

Sanborn in Sandusky - A Search for Local Stories

After being inspired during Mapping USA by OpenHistoricalMap and OldInsuranceMaps.net, explore the history of Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps in Sandusky, Ohio. How might these maps be used by local agencies ver...

openstreetmap.us

When you think of OHM, do you think of a blank map? There’s a ton of hidden coverage (and some mistakes too), but you have to find it amid the vastness of time and space. @mxn takes you on a tour of the sprawling collection of tools for more efficiently analyzing our open historical map data and […]

You come across a back road with a grand name. What’s the story behind it? Where else did it used to go? How do you find out more about something the Internet knows little about? https://openstreetmap.us/events/state-of-the-map-us/2026/ohm-in-search-of-the-eastern-turnpike/ #StateOfTheMapUS […]

RE: https://en.osm.town/@OpenStreetMapUS/116931684018662508 My presentation from SOTMUS is online for all to ignore! #sotmus26 #openhistoricalmap #OpenStreetMap #history #highways

Los estudiantes de cualquier país deben tener la oportunidad de descubrir la historia geográfica. @rub21 presentó OHM como un recurso interactivo para el aula en el XIV Simposio de Enseñanza de la Geografía en México @unam_mx […]

RE: https://en.osm.town/@watmildon/116852610620505668 With this match, we hit our #OwnGoal and don’t feel bad about it at all. ⚽️ Thanks to the 35 wonderful individuals who contributed to our 2026 fundraising drive, affirming the value of mapping everything everywhere all at once!

In June, the #OpenHistoricalMap community added 257,368 dated elements, 13,964 buildings, and 25,620 railroad miles. The average age of a dated element fell by 30 months, and the average year shifted 30 months later. All this with the help of 37 new contributors – welcome! […]

Animated railway map within the former Kingdom of #Wurttemberg from 1845 to 2025, courtesy of Bauer33333 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Entwicklung_der_Eisenbahnen_in_W%C3%BCrttemberg.webm

File:Entwicklung der Eisenbahnen in Württemberg.webm - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

Today is the #LastDay of our 2026 #fundraiser. Thanks to the dozens who have already given! A generous individual has offered to #DonationMatch any donation that comes in by the deadline (up to $500) so that we can meet our goal. Can you spare an impossibly long roll of quarters, or the modern […]

Our fundraiser ends in a few days. We’re still a bit short of our modest goal. If you’ve been putting it off, please consider taking a moment to show your support. Your donation will help us keep the project running and meeting the moment. Show the Internet that you believe in telling a fuller […]

Our road mappers have been hard at work adding major highways throughout the United States. #Route66 is more or less fully mapped from 1926 to present between the Colorado River and Seligman, and several related routes are mapped too, thanks to Matthew Anderson. #Route66turns100

Three of our prolific contributors share how they got into historical mapping and offer some tips for you to join them. There’s plenty to do, whether you’re interested in boundaries or roads, whether you prefer to recreate old maps or transform written accounts into something more visual […]

Próxima semana nuestro desarollador @rub21 va a presentar OpenHistoricalMap en el XIV Simposio de Enseñanza de la Geografía en México @unam_mx https://forum.openhistoricalmap.org/t/presentando-openhistoricalmap-en-el-xiv-simposio-de-ensenanza-de-la-geografia-en-mexico/769 #UNAM #CIGA_UNAM

In May, the #OpenHistoricalMap community added 105,036 dated elements, 13,301 buildings, and 88,230 railroad miles. The average age of a dated element fell by 9 months, dipping below a century for the first time since recordkeeping began, and the average year shifted 5 months later. All this […]

In April, the #OpenHistoricalMap community added 137,660 dated elements, 106,732 buildings, and 37,220¼ railroad miles. The average age of a dated element fell by almost 2 years, and the average year shifted 17 months later. All this with the help of 36 new contributors – welcome! […]

a long time ago i followed @sgillies blog and the moment he announced he had left a job we hired him to work at mapbox, a major coup. now is the time for you to do the same thing for your company, i guarantee you will not regret it: https://sgillies.net/2026/04/24/laid-off.html

Using GPS in the year 1565 There’s a wonderful web app (“Allmaps Here”) that shows your GPS location on old maps. I love it. https://www.verbeeld.be/2024/11/17/using-gps-in-the-year-1565/ #maps #allmapshere #cartography #georeferencing

Last Week in the #PleiadesGazetteer (13-20 April 2026): Over the past week the Pleiades editorial college published 21 new and 205 updated place resources, reflecting the work of Jeffrey Becker, Anika Campbell, Tom Elliott, Greta Hawes, Brady Kiesling, Chris […] [Original post on hcommons.social]

In March, the #OpenHistoricalMap community added 643,241 dated elements, 18,358 buildings, and 5,816½ railroad miles. The average age of a dated element fell by 24 years, and the average year shifted 17 years later. All this with the help of 28 new contributors – welcome! […]

Community members are scheduled to present at events in at least four countries in the next few months. Our event calendar has never looked so international! 🇦🇹 🇩🇪 🇺🇸 🇲🇽 https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenHistoricalMap/Events Are you interested in […] [Original post on mapstodon.space]

Oops! #OpenHistoricalMap was supposed to be a map of history, but then the linguists found us and turned us into an accidental map of the history of writing. @mxn shows how we and @maplibre are bringing #HGIS to more language traditions all over the world: Recording […]

In February, the #OpenHistoricalMap community added 47,171 dated elements, 5,175 buildings, and 7,924¾ railroad miles. The average age of a dated element fell by 10 months, and the average year shifted 5 months later. All this with the help of 43 new contributors – welcome! […]