Madagascar Populated Places from OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap exports for Madagascar contain settlements and residential areas. The data includes named cities, towns, villages, suburbs, and residential land, sourced from the collaborative OpenStreetMap project. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) last updated this export on 2026-05-14.

Use Cases

• Map settlement distribution based on named places and residential landuse tags.
• Target humanitarian or development interventions based on populated place locations.
• Analyze population patterns using the spatial distribution of residential areas.

Strengths

• Data is available in multiple geospatial formats including GEOPACKAGE, KML, SHP, and GEOJSON.
• The dataset is derived from OpenStreetMap, a widely-used, free, and collaborative mapping source.

Limitations

• Completeness varies by region; urban areas are usually well-mapped, but 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 18:38:36.343802

Geography

Madagascar