#MapLesotho
- 2. I got involved in mapping in 2015 and at that stage the country was being mapped to assist the task of evolving evidence based planning system in Lesotho. The back story to that is that no good maps of the country existed electronically and though our government ministries has widespread use of GIS, nobody has detailed and up to date spatial information to do anything that requires a map.
- 3. There was nothing done on OSM for Lesotho in 2014,but today it is probably the most densely mapped nation with the most nodes per capita, that’s 20 million nodes for 2 million people or the most nodes per square kilometre. The way it is mapped followed a logic, and took 4 years to get to the point where it was useful for planning. This year my country started making 10 Local Area Plans to regulate planning based of OSM data, and QGIS.
- 4. Mapathon • 10 tasks on HotOSM • 300 mappers from inside and outside the country • involved planners, surveyors, environmentalists and students in the mapping wherever we could.
- 5. The question is…. how are we going to sustain our community?
- 6. The Irish people who first showed us how to use OSM told us the importance of constantly recruiting and including new people to sustain an effort that would last for years. I have also learned that there are youth mappers groups which we don’t have in Lesotho.
- 7. We managed to get all of the hotosm tasks finished. And in 2018 we took the last few down, and diversified and identified new tools (Mapillary and Field Papers) to get better quality and better details into the OSM data for our nation.
- 8. If you can even help us out, there are plenty of little errors to correct or shapes to improve and model.
Editor's Notes
- #3: I cant tell you the full and detailed history of #MapLesotho being openstreetmap effort in my country Lesotho. to understand all of this go to www.maplesotho.com #2 What I will tell you is that I got involved in 2015, and at that stage the country was being mapped to assist the task of evolving an evidence based planning system in Lesotho. The back story to that is that no good maps of the country existed electronically, and though our Government Ministries has widespread use of GIS, nobody has detailed and up to date spatial information to do anything that requires a map
- #4: #3 There was almost nothing done on openstreetmap for Lesotho in 2014, but today it is probably the most densely mapped nation with the most nodes per capita thats 20 million nodes for 2 million people, or the most nodes per square kilometre. Because nobody from Lesotho has been able to come to the State of the Map conference until this year I guess it is my duty to thank lots of the people here who made that happen (big smile). The way it is mapped followed a logic, and took 4 years to get to the point where it was useful for planning. This year my country started making 10 action area plans to regulate planning, based of openstreetmap data, and QGIS.
- #5: #4 Thore are about 300 mappers who contributed in the country , and though there were lots of once off mappers we always felt part of something bigger as we worked week after week on the 10 tasks that were put up on hotosm. we were inclusive of people outside the country, and inside, we involved planners, surveyors, environmentalists and students in the mapping wherever we could. The question could be how are we going to sustain our community?The Irish people who first showed us how to use openstreetmap told us the importance of constantly recruiting and including new people to sustain an effort that would last for years. I have also learned that there are youth mappers groups which we don’t have in Lesotho
- #8: #5 We managed to get all of the hotosm tasks finished. And in 2018 we took the last few down, and diversified and identified new tools to get better quality and better details into the openstreetmap data for our nation. Please have a look at this we have written it all up on the osm wiki page for project Lesotho. If you can even help us out, there are plenty of little errors to correct or shapes to improve.
- #10: #6 Please if you can stay within touch with us in #MapLesotho. We are on twitter and also our website shows you who maps there a lot. We all have lots more to learn about mapping. Thank you! Because nobody from Lesotho has been able to come to the State of the Map conference until this year I guess it is my duty to thank lots of the people here who made that happen.