Tanzania Populated Places: Multilingual Settlement Data from HOT
Updated 3mo ago
8filesSHP
Available on 1 platform
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Description
This geospatial dataset maps populated places and residential land use areas across Tanzania, exported from OpenStreetMap by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) in March 2026. It categorizes settlements into five distinct types ranging from isolated dwellings to major cities, providing localized nomenclature and administrative context. The data is available in four GIS-ready formats: SHP, GeoJSON, GeoPackage, and KML.
Use Cases
Spatial distribution analysis of settlements using the 'place' and 'landuse' tags
Linguistic mapping of Tanzanian geography using the 'name:sw' and 'name:en' columns
Administrative hierarchy modeling using the 'is_in' attribute to link settlements to regions
Strengths
Provides localized Swahili labels via the 'name:sw' attribute
Includes five distinct settlement scales from 'isolated_dwelling' to 'city'
Available in four standard GIS formats including SHP and GeoJSON
Limitations
Geographic completeness is subject to OpenStreetMap contributor activity and may vary between urban and rural regions
Population counts are often missing or may not reflect the most recent official census data
Provenance
Source
OpenStreetMap contributors via Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)
Collection Method
Crowdsourced geospatial mapping and community-led digitization
Freshness
Updated as of March 2026.
Geography
Tanzania
Distributed under the ODC Open Database License (ODbL); any derivative works must attribute OpenStreetMap contributors and maintain the same open license.