Initially the OpenStreetMap project focused mainly on surveying and collecting basic transport infrastructure (roads, paths, …) and „points of interest“ (shops, facilities, …). In many countries at least the road network is very complete and we have begun to expand our focus to include a new challenge: adding address data to OSM.
At the end of August 2017 the OSM dataset for Switzerland contained nearly 830’000 addresses, which is likely near the half of all addresses in Switzerland. What actually an address is and what the criteria for inclusion in an overall count is are subjects of debate and difficult to nail down, so some fuzziness is to be expected.
A large portion of the addresses have been added by classic on the ground surveying, however in some regions there are open data address sets available that can be used for quality control and in some cases are even available on licence terms that allow direct inclusion in OSM (note all imports in to OSM are subject to the import guidelines).
Open data address datasets available on compatible licence terms:
- Switzerland GWR
- Canton Basel Stadt
- Canton Bern
- Canton Schaffhausen
- Canton Solothurn
- City of Zürich
- Canton Zürich
Open data address datasets that are available but that have incompatible (the data cannot be directly used in OSM) usage terms:
- Canton Basel Land
- Canton Geneva
- Canton Glarus
- Canton Schwyz
- City of Winterthur
While the GWR dataset covers all of Switzerland, the cantonal datasets are in some cases contain additional information (for example building type). Currently there is an ongoing effort to import the addresses for the Canton Bern.