India Populated Places from OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap exports provide a dataset of settlements and residential areas across India. The data includes named cities, towns, villages, suburbs, and residential land, derived from OSM tags `place=*` and `landuse=residential`. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) maintains this export on HDX.

Use Cases

• Map settlement distribution across India based on named places.
• Analyze residential land use patterns based on the `landuse=residential` tag.
• Provide demographic context for regional planning based on populated place locations.
• Target interventions or services at the settlement level using categorized place data.

Strengths

• Data is derived from a free, collaborative global mapping project (OpenStreetMap).
• Includes multiple geographic data formats (GEOPACKAGE, SHP, GEOJSON, JSON).
• Covers a defined geography (India).

Limitations

• Completeness varies by region; urban areas are usually well-mapped, remote areas may be incomplete.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

OpenStreetMap

Collection Method

Volunteer-contributed mapping data exported via the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-15 09:53:52.400190

Geography

India