I am from Somalia’s newest federal State called SSC which used to be part of the self declared seperatist group called Somaliland. We broke free back in the year 2023 and established our own state after fighting a brutal war where we achieved total victory on the day August 25 2023 (feel free to search the Las Canod war)
I am shocked SSC is not yet included in the borders until I found out someone deliberately wiped SSC off the map. I have a picture of the user who I believe is from somaIiIand.
The moderator Balli Abokor is deliberately targeting SSC and deleting our borders
Can someone include SSC on the updated map of Somalia
Please and thank you
-SSC-Khatumo State
Here is the user (please ban him from changing the map of Somalia)
With every disputed territory, finding an appropriate representation in OSM of both the higher level entities (here Somalia, Somaliland) and subdivisions of them can be difficult.
Often what OSM ends up doing is having both sides’ views of internal divisions represented in some way.
For the avoidance of doubt the whole of Somalia has historically been in OSM as an admin level 2 entity and the whole of Somaliland within it as admin level 3. The DWG has had a number of complaints that some OSM-based maps (particularly OSM Carto) did not distinguish these sufficiently.
Below that there have been a number of disputes about subdivisions as well.
What I’d suggest that you do is to explain what you think is wrong with OSM’s current representation and provide evidence for why it is wrong (don’t just invite people to do a web search for something). Perhaps umap might be a useful tool to explain what you think boundaries should be.
Naturally the discussion must involve people on all sides of a dispute, and the best place for that initially is probably in this forum.
Best Regards,
Andy (from OSM’s Data Working Group)
The map has lumped in SSC-Khatumo with Somaliland which is entirely inaccurate. OSM maps has stated that maps should be drawn based on which entity has “control” on the territory. Reality on the ground is SSC has defacto control I’ll share some pictures of the president (and yes Somalia calls its regional state leaders presidents) visit to his constituents where the flag of SSC is flying high
This is the president of SSC-Khatumo with a clear picture of his state seal and flag alongside the internationally recognized flag of Somalia
Proof of his visit to taleex the welcome banner created by the residents of taleex welcoming him; it says translated from Somali to English. President SSC-Khatumo; Welcome to the Taleex region. I also want to point out the flag of SSC flying high in Taleex/Taleh
President visits Buuhoodle a city in the region of Toogdheer which Somaliland claims but the reality on the ground is SSC-Khatumo controls it! Pictures of his visit to Buuhoodle
You can see the signs the citizens are holding where it mention Buhoodle also the residents have the SSC flag I also included the buuhodle hospital.
I can go on with other visits of the president where it shows SSC has defacto control over the territory. This is no longer a matter of “disputed” as OSM claims!
2 years ago on August 25 we defeated Somaliland and rightfully kicked them out of our state and the fact that SSC is still considered “disputed” is disingenuous.
As of 2023, SSC-Khaatumo has de facto control over its territories after successfully expelling Somaliland forces. The administration operates independently, with full governance, security, and public services under its authority.
Given that Somaliland no longer holds any military or administrative presence in SSC-Khaatumo, the region is no longer disputed—it is firmly under SSC-Khaatumo’s control. I urge OpenStreetMap to update the borders accordingly to reflect the reality on the ground, in line with your mapping principles.
SSC-Khatumo have expelled somalilqnd in 2023 and now is a functioning state that got recgonise from the federal government. Time to change the Map either to all Somalia or because secessionist somaliland is not recognised
This is not a vote. We have now had three people piping up in this thread who have never made a single edit to OSM. I would be interested to hear from actual mappers in the area, not from political activists who apparently have learned about OSM just yesterday.
This was listed under discussion not a vote so I don’t get why you feel the need to bring it up? Also because we are “new” does that make our voices any less significant?
We are from the new state of SSC-Khatumo! Would you like it if your native state was deliberately altered and pitted together with a region you went to war with and rightfully defeated and kicked out? Ofcourse we would raise the issue and let competent mappers solve the issue! Unfortunately I am not a mapper I don’t know how to change and fix this error! That is why I brought it up for discussion! @woodpeck !
You can call it activism all you like. This is in line with your mapping principles! The borders of SSC-Khatumo should directly reflect the reality on the ground! Which i have shared, SSC-Khatumo controls its territory.
2 years ago someone raised an issue about changing the map of Somalia and requested mappers to add the new state of SSC. You actually involved in the discussion by the way and even said it should be easy to include SSC in the map
Thankfully a person by the name of @Duja added approximate boundaries of the new SSC Khatumo state it was then deleted 9 months ago by a person named Balli abokor for baseless reasonings which is not factual and is disproven.
If you’re looking for actual mappers on the ground posting updated control maps of Somalia, check out @AAGA_CAWLAN101 on X—he’s the one to follow. Additionally, those who alter maps due to political activism are often the ones claiming control over territories they don’t actually govern. If you want to know the actual territory controlled by the SSCKHATUMO, you can get the facts straight—it’s not even that complex.
On another note, there is no internationally recognized border between southern Somalia and the north. Those in Hargeisa, who claim a unilateral declaration of independence, don’t control the lands along the so-called border.
I’ve asked that person to join the discussion here.
On other points:
Linking to Twitter isn’t especially helpful as if you’re not signed in what you see is essentially random (often just a login page).
Well go on then - please link to something that we can actually read.
Indeed - the fact that this thread exists (again) is testament to that.
To recap, in OSM Somalia has always encompassed the entire area. Somaliland is at admin_level=3, typically used for disputed areas. It’s “a bit like a country, but not quite like a separate country (yet)”. I suspect that it is still reasonable, given the relative fluidity of the situation, to have those in OSM as they are, even if neither has full control over each complete area. The question is therefore what should the status of the deleted relation be?
I’d support the restoration of @Duja’s original mapping. Clearly this is still a disputed part of the world but I think the previous relation seems to be valid enough.
It’s difficult to find internationally recognised sources/boundaries, so just going by Wikipedia:
The Khatumo State page graphic is different to the now-deleted OSM relation
The Somaliland regions and districts graphic includes the Khatumo State area (implying it’s part of Somaliland and not an autonomous state of Somalia).
(Obviously Wikipedia is not definitive and the graphics designers may well have used OSM data to create them!).
The EU Institute for Security Studies (EU ISS) an agency within the European Union with a grey tick on X(Twitter) has already acknowledged this by including SSC-Khatumo in their recent map.
If the deleted relation is restored, I recommend adding:
disputed_by=Somaliland recognised_by=Somalia
and a note linking to this thread. Although Somaliland is itself a disputed territory and not a recognised country, I think this at least shows the boundary is contested.
OSM works by consensus. Yes, any mapper can restore it but it’s better to get community consensus. I can tell you feel very strongly about this, and I probably would too if it were my country, but let’s see if the mapper who deleted the relation engages and if there are other views.
Thank you for sharing the article @Casey_boy i did read it by the way; it reads " Since 2022, it (somaliland) has lost control of a significant portion of its eastern territory to pro-unionist forces who established their own administration, SSC-Khatumo".
The reason i strongly feel this way is because i live there and the state SSC-Khatumo is not represented on any map of somalia shockingly. In the new state SSC-Khatumo, we have our own police force, army and even intelligence agency since all states in somalia are mostly autonomous. (will link picture below)
SSC was considered disputed back in 2022 when it was at war with Somaliland over the disputed territory and because of that it wasn’t recognized by the federal government of Somalia. Now SSC is recognized and it deserves to be placed on the map.
Despite SSC-Khatumo being recognized as a federal state not a single OSM mapper has reflected the changes on the map and borders of somalia.
