OpenStreetMap - South Africa Map Extract

Theme: Economy Date Added: 2018-11-21

Resource Type

Data Assets

SHP

What is it?

OpenStreetMap (OSM) sources data from a global community of mappers on roads, railways and related spatial information and makes this data available for everyone to use.

Key Points

  • Mainly road, rail and point of interest information
  • Administrative boundaries for municipalities and provinces
  • Updated data extracts are published daily
  • Licensed under CC-BY-SA

Why is it Important?

OpenStreetMap provides good quality road and rail information through one portal which is available as open data and can therefore be accessed by everyone, relatively easily. This complements official road and rail information that can be obtained through national, provincial and local government websites, and via private GIS companies.

How can it be accessed and used?

Maps can be viewed directly through the OpenStreetMap website. More advanced users can access the underlying data used to generate the map for South Africa by downloading the fairly large (200MB+) PBF or SHP files from the resource URL.

You can view the SHP file directly in QGIS or use QGIS or various online tools such as mapshaper to convert the file to another format. You can then upload it to an online mapping tool such as Kepler.

The OpenStreetMap road and rail data can be used to analyse or visualise transport related information, such as the proximity of houses to different travel options.

In OpenStreet Map you may also want to:

For other transport-related data sources try:

  • Exporting another region or specific dataset from Open Street Map using HOTOSM export.
  • Extracting transport-related data from the NGI Topographical Vector Data hosted on SASDI e.g. Northern Cape
  • Accessing roads, airport and ports related data from government websites such as the provincial departments of transport, e.g. KwaZulu-Natal

Transport infrastructure in the Northern Cape Province

Location: Northern Cape
Format:
Year: 2018Last Checked:None
Online: Access URL
Column/
File Names:
  • name: Name of feature
  • surface: Road surface type
  • operator: Transport service provider

Metrorail Gauteng - Johannesburg–Pretoria

Location: Gauteng
Format:
Year: 2018Last Checked:None
Online: Access URL
Column/
File Names:
  • name: Johannesburg–Pretoria
  • operator: Metrorail
  • route: train
  • land
  • location
  • transport
  • rail

Resource contact name:OpenStreetMap Foundation

Creation or start date:2018-11-21

Resource contact updated at:2018-12-14

Spatial coverage  South Africa http://www.geonames.org/953987/south-africa.html

Where else has the resource been used?

Year Project Name::
2018 QGIS, InaSAFE, OpenStreetMap, and GeoNode in Understanding Risk 2018
2018 Accessibility in a Post-Apartheid City: Comparison of Two Approaches for Accessibility Computations
2014 Assessing the Quality of OpenStreetMap Data in South Africa in Reference to National Mapping Standards
Parent ORG:

OpenStreetMap
Serviced By: Geofabrik

About This Organisation

OpenStreetMap is built by a community of mappers that contribute and maintain data about roads, trails, cafés, railway stations, and much more, all over the world.