Somalia Building Footprints from OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap exports provide building footprints across Somalia, including features tagged as residential homes, hospitals, schools, and places of worship. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) compiled this data, which was last updated on 2026-05-14. Completeness varies by region, with urban areas likely being better mapped than remote areas.

Use Cases

• Population estimation based on building density and type.
• Damage assessment for infrastructure following disasters based on building footprint changes.
• Urban planning analysis based on the spatial distribution of residential and public buildings.

Strengths

• Includes a variety of building types such as residential homes, hospitals, schools, and places of worship.
• Data is available in multiple geospatial formats including GEOPACKAGE, SHP, and JSON.
• Last updated on 2026-05-14, suggesting recent maintenance.

Limitations

• Completeness varies by region; 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.

Geography

Somalia