Last year, Amazon Web Services, Meta, Microsoft, and TomTom came together to create the Overture Maps Foundation (OMF) in an effort to create and provide open-source data for third-party mapping software. Their efforts have borne fruit as, after eight months of work, the organization releases its first open dataset.
With this launch, it could give third-party developers the opportunity to create navigation apps that could very well rival Apple Maps and Google Maps. The OMF states in its announcement that the dataset contains a ton of info split across four different “layers”. And these categories include “data on over 59 million places”, the world’s roadways, plus “administrative boundaries” such as regional names for certain locations.
