Morocco Populated Places and Residential Areas with Multilingual Names

This geospatial dataset provides point and polygon features for populated settlements and residential land use across Morocco, exported by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in March 2026. It categorizes locations into five distinct settlement types including cities, towns, and isolated dwellings based on OpenStreetMap tagging standards. The data is available in multiple formats including SHP, GeoJSON, and CSV to support various GIS workflows.

Use Cases

• Demographic modeling using the population and place classification columns
• Linguistic mapping of indigenous Berber place names using the name:ber attribute
• Emergency response planning by identifying isolated_dwelling and village locations

Strengths

• Multilingual toponyms provided in English, Arabic, and Berber scripts
• Available in six file formats including SHP, KML, and GeoPackage
• Standardized OpenStreetMap tagging for settlement hierarchy

Limitations

• Inconsistent population data across records
• Volunteer-contributed data may have varying levels of positional accuracy
• Geographic bias toward more frequently mapped urban areas

Provenance

Source

OpenStreetMap via Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)

Collection Method

Crowdsourced geospatial data exported via the HOT export tool

Freshness

Updated as of March 2026; reflects the state of OpenStreetMap at the time of export.

Geography

Morocco