Malawi Road Network from OpenStreetMap for Routing and Analysis

OpenStreetMap exports provide the road network across Malawi, including motorways, residential streets, service roads, footways, and trails. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) maintains this export, which was last updated on 2026-05-14. Completeness varies by region, with urban areas likely being more detailed than remote ones.

Use Cases

• Calculate travel routes based on the hierarchical road network.
• Analyze accessibility to services based on road types and connectivity.
• Plan evacuation scenarios using the mapped network of streets and trails.

Strengths

• Includes all OpenStreetMap features tagged with 'highway', covering a range of road types.
• Available in multiple geospatial file formats including GEOPACKAGE, SHP, and JSON.
• Data is licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL-1.0), allowing for sharing and adaptation.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data completeness varies, with remote areas likely being less detailed than urban centers.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale projects.

Provenance

Source

OpenStreetMap

Collection Method

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 20:53:19.527373; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Malawi