OpenStreetMap - Kosova

We can say that Open Street Map is one of the main projects of our organization, and the most worked project of FLOSSK-ies which has generally began since the creation of FLOSSK.

This project has had great development in Kosovo too, where members of FLOSSK have not stopped their contribution to make a better map that today allot of people use it.

We as an organization have undertaken many initiatives and projects, and most of them were based on OSM,

• One of these is the project: Kumevotu
• Other important projects were also the work that we did on most of Kosovo cities themselves.
• We have made maps possible to use by community for cities and villages like: Brod, Gjilan,Gjakova, Ferizaj,  Prizren, Peja, Prishtina and other cities.
• Not to forget, we’d like to mention “Logistic Plus” company that donated GPS traces to develop Kosovo in OpenStreetMap, but even they did contribute as a company on this map.
• Apart from those mentioned above, there were work done in Shkoder, where people around Kosovo and also volunteers from around the word helped us make the map to help finding routes during floods in Shkoder 2010, through OSM.

What is Open Street Map?

OpenStreetMap is a global map constructed from a large community of volunteers worldwide. OSM is free to be created, edited and to use, creates and provides free geographic data (without charge) as a road map for anyone who wants them.

The project started because the maps that you think are cheap (free) Google Maps example, actually have legal or technical restrictions on their use, to prevent people from using them in creative ways, manufacturing, or other things.

Maps are created using data from GPS devices, aerial photography, other free resources, or simply by local knowledge. Both rendered images and vector graphics are available for download under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license 2.0

OSM is just as easy to edit as well as Powered: anyone can change everything, if you know the name of an object, the name of the road or something like that.

Any small change, creation of a new building, the creation of a new road could be modified much faster than at any other map.

Here you will see a video that shows how fast was OSM developed during 2008.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwlqUremx4Y

Who needs it?

Perhaps we will need it in a short future.l

First example is tourism, here’s a site of tourism guidance in Kosovo that is based on this map: http://kosovoguide.com/

If you want to know more about OSM and how to work with maps, Download the handbook(manual) written by Besfort Guri “Open Street Map - krijoni harten tuaj” FLOSSK member: “Click Here”

Note: The handbook is written in Albanian Language “sq”

And down here you can Explore the Kosovo Map in OSM:

View Larger Map!