uMap: A Free Open-Source Alternative to Google My Maps

Abstract

Since their release in 2005, Google Maps-based tools have become the de facto solutions for a variety of online cartographic projects. Their success has been accompanied by a range of critiques denouncing the individualistic market-based logic imposed by these mapping services. Alternative options to this dominant model have been released since then; uMap is one of them. uMap is a free, open-source online mapping platform that builds on OpenStreetMap to enable anyone to easily publish web maps individually or collaboratively. In this paper, we propose to reflect on the potential and limits of uMap based on our own experiences of deploying it in six different mapping projects. Through these experiences, uMap appears particularly well-suited for collaborative mapping projects, due to its ease in connecting to remote data and its high level of interoperability with a range of other applications. On the other hand, uMap seems less relevant for crowdmapping projects, due to its lack of built-in options to manage and control public contributions. Finally, the open-source philosophy of uMap, combined with its simplicity of use and its strong collaborative capacity, make it a great option for activist mapping projects as well as for pedagogical purposes to teach a range of topics including online collaborative cartography.

Relevance Of The uMap Collaborative Platform As A Support For Choropleth Mapping: An Atlas Applied To All-Cause Excess Mortality Alerts By Traffic Light - 1st French Containment In 2020

“…It is a collaborative mapping software platform licensed under the Licence Publique Faites en ce que Vous Voulez (LPFVV/ WTFPL, Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License) [98] (free software: redistributable and modi able; Gratuit/Libre et Logiciel de Source Ouverte (GLLSO/FLOSS, Free/Libre and Open-Source Software) [59,99,100 ]. uMap is hosted on the French server openstreetmap.fr [59] with the domain name umap.openstreetmap.fr [57,101]. It is a Django project maintained by a community of developers.…”

“…Working in two environments, requiring different geomatics and development skills, enabled us to compare and re ect on the technical approaches used and the graphic and cartographic renderings obtained. Comparisons focused on database processing, development and geomatics tasks with remote server management, and geomatics tasks without remote server management [59]. These comparisons concerned two types of "work ows" [7], one based on a "software chain" and the other on "a single software environment":…”

“…We are not hampered by the few weaknesses of the uMap environment described in the literature by [59,62] notably that the platform is not very collaborative, which has no impact on our work.…”

Ppgisr: An R Package for Public Participatory GIS

“…While there is an active community developing spatially explicit and user-friendly decision support tools for these platforms, these do not include functionality that would allow users to add their own priority areas to the map [21,22]. User-friendly GIS platforms including uMap [23], Google Earth, and Open Data Kit (ODK) [24] offer this functionality, but would require developing additional workflows and protocols in order to collect user's spatial-explicit priority areas with ease. Moreover, there is less flexibility to add a ''decision layer'' for collecting responses that are comparable (e.g., census tract).…”

Digital Transitions for the Use and Reuse of Digital Assets for Museum Collections

“…uMAP provides an open-source and easy-to-use graphical interface for customizing maps and geolocating datasets specially created or retrieved from Open Data repositories. uMAP enables the creation of maps that use OpenStreetMap layers as background [Shahamati et al 2022]. In the prototype phase, a map drawn by J. J. Rifaud was used as background for the interactive map (fig.…”