World political map from OpenStreetMap data

Dražen Tutić,Tomislav Jogun,Ana Kuveždić Divjak,Martina Triplat Horvat

doi:10.1080/17445647.2017.1323683

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe paper presents the development of an automated procedure for creating a small-scale world political map from OpenStreetMap (OSM) data, and the map itself. A novel approach was used for cartographic processing, while the fitness for use of OSM data for this task was evaluated. It was anticipated and shown that creating a world political map from OSM data is a methodologically and technologically demanding task. The result was a political map of the world at a scale of 1:30,000,000, showing independent states, dependencies and areas of special sovereignty as in the OSM data set, with no adaptation to specific political recognition issues. A high degree of automation built on open-source software was achieved. The resulting map is an intermediate stage of production, requiring modest manual intervention for the final map. By allocating a code to the community (http://github.com/GEOF-OSGL/OSMPoliticalMap), we have provided opportunities for its continuing development.

Highlights

Children and adults often first encounter maps in geography books and atlases in the form of a smallscale world political map, showing countries in different colours, with the characteristics of a prototypic map (MacEachren, 1995)
The result was a political map of the world at a scale of 1:30,000,000, showing independent states, dependencies and areas of special sovereignty as in the OSM data set, with no adaptation to specific political recognition issues
The result of this research was a Main Map created exclusively from OSM data. This was the first such attempt to elaborate on geometry processing and evaluate the fitness for use of OSM data for this purpose

Summary

Introduction

Children and adults often first encounter maps in geography books and atlases in the form of a smallscale world political map, showing countries in different colours, with the characteristics of a prototypic map (MacEachren, 1995). This means it vividly presents basic information on countries of the world. The second reason is the declining rate at which new political entities are established. This is true, if we compare the present day with the twentieth century, but since the world is in a state of constant political flux, political maps deserve appropriate attention

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion