Over the last few months, whilst our developer eyes were on raw data for London, REST APIs, AJAX, new applets and stuff, a few enterprising souls have actually been mapping their home towns in the West Midlands and stress-testing the OpenStreetMap software with impressive and surprising dedication.
![OpenStreetMap Birmingham, November 2005](//blog.openstreetmap.org/images/birmingham-nov-2005.jpg)
![detail of OpenStreetMap Birmingham, November 2005](//blog.openstreetmap.org/images/birmingham-detail-nov-2005.jpg)
Apart from that, they (and others) have also been filling in Britain’s motorways (both carriages!) including the M25 and all its major junctions.
![OpenStreetMap UK Motorways, November 2005](//blog.openstreetmap.org/images/uk-motorways-nov-2005.jpg)
![OpenStreetMap M25, November 2005](//blog.openstreetmap.org/images/m25-nov-2005.jpg)
This post serves as a quick thanks to these folks (especially Alex, Andy and Simon – if I missed you, let me know) who’ve taken the time and effort to do all this work, and a promise from me and the other developers that extra tools (such as street names – a high priority) are on their way soon, along with a few more sensible ways to get your data back out again (we’re looking at various vector formats) and a few things to make your editing lives easier.
Keep it up folks, and do let us know if there are other areas being mapped with such care and attention. I know that Lars keeps a gazetteer on his wiki page, and I’m also aware of Portsmouth and Bristol being filled out nicely, so I’ll try and find some more inspriational areas soon.