Jamaica Building Footprints from OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap exports provide building footprints across Jamaica, including residential homes, hospitals, schools, and places of worship. The data is compiled by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) and was last updated on 2026-05-14. It is useful for population estimation, damage assessment, and urban planning.

Use Cases

• Estimate population distribution based on building density and type.
• Assess structural damage after natural disasters based on building footprint locations.
• Plan urban development and infrastructure projects based on the spatial distribution of buildings.
• Analyze land use patterns by categorizing building types such as residential, commercial, and institutional.

Strengths

• Includes every OpenStreetMap feature tagged as a building, covering a wide range of types.
• Available in multiple geospatial file formats including GEOPACKAGE, SHP, and JSON.
• Last updated on 2026-05-14, suggesting recent data collection.

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 via the OpenStreetMap platform.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14.

Geography

Jamaica