New Humanitarian Style

We’ve added a new map style option to the OpenStreetMap front page. Feast your eyes on the new “Humanitarian” style:

This style has been developed by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team to support their work, highlighting features they are most interested in, as well as just providing a contrasting stylisation of the map. The developer Yohan Boniface explains:

“OpenStreetMap data is as rich and varied as the real world. And, just as when you look through a window you can’t take in the whole world, so it is with a map based on OSM data: you can’t show it all. This is why we decided to provide the view from another window, through our own map and cartography, focusing on the world as seen through HOT’s community.”

“You may have noted that the colour scheme is light and pastel. This is certainly an aesthetic choice offering a nice contrast with the “standard” OpenStreetMap style. Consistency in the colour is also key to the readability of a map. But there was another goal for this. Now maps are everywhere, whether it is online or printed. But a generic map like the one we are building is generally only part of the message: whether it is online or printed, maps are often used with some custom data on top of them. For example, markers can be added to an online map to show specific points of interest. But also, more simply, they can be printed in order to draw on top of them. This could be details of a trip, a vaccination campaign, or additional map data when mappers are surveying. In all those situations, the map should do its job, providing geo information, but also leaving visual space for the main message.”

Read more about the new style on the HOT blog.

You can access this new style along with our other featured tiles any time you’re browsing the front page map, by clicking the layer icon on the right hand side.

This post is also available in: Japanese