Building Footprints of Madagascar from OpenStreetMap for Population and Damage Assessment

Building footprints across Madagascar tagged with `building=*` in OpenStreetMap, including residential, hospital, school, and worship structures. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) provides this data via HDX, last updated on 2026-06 19. Coverage reflects volunteer mapper activity and is typically denser in urban areas.

Use Cases

• Estimate population distribution based on building density and type.
• Assess damage to infrastructure after a disaster based on building footprint changes.
• Plan urban development and service allocation based on building locations and types.
• Cross-reference field surveys with mapped building data for validation.

Strengths

• Includes diverse building types such as residential homes, hospitals, schools, and places of worship.
• Data is provided in multiple geospatial formats (GEOPACKAGE, SHP, JSON, HTML).
• Sourced from OpenStreetMap, a free, collaborative global mapping project.

Limitations

• Coverage is uneven, with urban areas well-represented and remote areas likely sparse.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and total size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

OpenStreetMap

Collection Method

Volunteer mapping contributions aggregated by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT).

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-19 11:59:20.321249

Geography

Madagascar