Where does OSM source its datasets for China place names & boundaries?

Clotilde · 2019-07-08T16:06:03.000Z

Hi all!

I am trying to find out what is the source used by OSM for China place names, given the restrictions on surveying and mapping in China…

The wiki page (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_China#Possible_Sources) only mentions “possible sources”.

I would have thought the Chinese government would publish at least some standardized geographical data that is openly available…?

Thanks in advance!

TZorn · 2019-07-08T18:22:35.000Z

From my experience there are a lot of active mappers in China that add place names to the map in the same way as in other regions, by local knowledge or surveying.

Clotilde · 2019-07-09T08:11:33.000Z

Thanks for the quick reply Leverkusen!

I thought perhaps that they might have used some datasets though, at the beginning? They couldn’t have relied on users to map everything from scratch…?