Lesotho Settlements and Residential Areas from OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap data for Lesotho includes named cities, towns, villages, suburbs, and residential land areas. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) exported this data, which was last updated on 2026-05-14. Completeness of the map data varies by region, with urban areas likely being more complete than remote areas.

Use Cases

• Create demographic context maps based on named settlements and residential land areas.
• Perform settlement-level targeting for aid distribution using the categorized place data.
• Conduct population analysis by studying the distribution and types of populated places.

Strengths

• Data is provided in multiple geospatial formats including GEOPACKAGE, KML, SHP, and GEOJSON.
• Explicitly includes features for both named places (`place=*`) and residential land use (`landuse=residential`).

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

OpenStreetMap

Collection Method

Volunteer-built, collaborative world map.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 17:50:11.610341; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Lesotho