WikiProject Central African Republic
Want to contributeː see the tasks list
Want to see what has already been mappedː see the uMap or the history of tasks
Want to see the last edits of the countryː see the last 90 days map or the last 7 days map or zoom wherever you want with this tool and create your RSS link
Want GIS dataː click here for the whole country or here for specific locations or create your own export
V・T・E Central African Republic, Africa |
latitude: 6.626, longitude: 20.940 |
Browse map of Central African Republic 6°37′33.60″ N, 20°56′24.00″ E |
Edit map |
|
External links:
|
Use this template for your locality |
Central African Republic is a Country in Africa at latitude 6°37′33.60″ North, longitude 20°56′24.00″ East.
Map of Central African Republic
HOT in Central African Republic
From October 2012, HOT has conducted a mapping project in Central African Republic, as part of the EUROSHA project together with France Volontaires. The initial focus is on baseline mapping of Bangui and the regions in which the needs are most crucial. All these activities are meant to support the growth of a local OSM group in Central African Republic and the growth of the OSM project.
In December 2012, considering a rebellion took a great number of cities in the country, the EUROSHA Project has been canceled in the country and HOT activated the OSM communities in order to map specific areas of interest for the humanitarian community (see Current activities) with specific Tasking Manager tasks (see below). The residential areas of these towns have been 80-100% mapped, except for Bambari (20%), only covered by Orbview3 imagery. On March 24, 2013, after months of relative statu quo along with violence in some towns, the Seleka rebels took over Bangui, ending the hope to see the situation to go back to normal. A HOT Activation has been started to map Areas of Interest and start importing the humanitarian data provided by UNICEF (see below the Data Imports section).
Blog post: https://hot.openstreetmap.org/updates/2014-10-12_update_about_car_activation
RCA crisis - HOT Activation - mapping goals
Highlights
In November 2013, the UN warned the country was at risk of spiraling into genocide and France described the country as "..on the verge of genocide." The increasing violence was largely from reprisal attacks on civilians from Seleka's mainly Muslim fighters and Christian militias called "anti-balaka", meaning 'anti-machete' or 'anti-sword'. Christians make up half the population and Muslims 15 percent, according to the CIA World Factbook. As many Christians have sedentary lifestyles and many Muslims are nomadic, claims to the land were yet another dimension of the conflict (source: Wikipedia)
Useful links to get more info about the situation in the country:
- The Wikipedia page Central African Republic conflict (2012–13) relates the events since the rebellion rose up.
- The ReliefWeb page for CAR gathers all the maps and reports made by the humanitarian organizations.
- The Human Rights Journalists Network for CAR website (in French) provides a lot of news from the field
- The Radio Ndeke Luka (in French), supported by Fondation Hirondelle - Media for Peace and Human Dignity
- The Diaspora Multimedia & Audiovisuel is a communication agency in CAR that publishes a lot of pictures in its Facebook page
- The Humanitarian and Development Partnership Team (HDPT) unites all organizations working to alleviate the humanitarian and development crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR). They post several articles (in English and French) a day concerning the situation in CAR on their facebook page.
- The facebook page of the United Nations in the Central African Republic provides also a lot of news (in French) about the situation in the Central African Republic.
Severin Menard and Amadou Ndong are coordinating this OpenStreetMap Response to the CAR Crisis.
email contact : activation@hotosm.org
Contributing
All the tasks related to this Activation are listed in this sub-page: Central_African_Republic/HOT_Activation_tasks.
The various goals are described below.
Ongoing: Mapping of affected cities and towns
As part of a HOT activation, mapping selected towns affected by the rebellion starting in December 2012 with satellite imagery, based on Areas of Interest identified by local humanitarian stakeholders. Go to the HOT Tasking Manager and map tasks in the featured jobs. Regarding what has done so far, see the table below and please edit it after every contribution.
Ongoing: Mapping the country main frame: roads, place names and residential areas
Providing a consolidated road network is one the main aims of this activation. Unfortunately, the country is not fully covered by high resolution Bing imagery. It may occur some extra imagery would be released. To map the road network efficiently, different tools are being tested. Please provide any feedback of useful tools that would serve this purpose on the hot arobase openstreetmap.org talk list. It would make sense to map the residential areas while mapping the roads, taking the time to map quickly a landuse=residential around every crossed village or hamlet.
For the place names, see Populated Places section]. It would make sense to use the GNS files when importing UNICEF data (see next section), so that the two datasets tend to offset together their potential inaccuracy.
Ongoing: Importing UNICEF data
UNICEF authorized the import of their data covering the western half of the country, and made of the following:
- UNICEF data for health facilities. Data coming from 2012, constituted of 342 nodes spread on 6 regions (half a country). Achieved on March 2, 2014
- UNICEF data for schools. Data coming from 2012,constituted of 934 nodes spread on 6 regions (half a country).
- UNICEF data for water points. Data coming from 2012, constituted of 1937 nodes spread on 6 regions (half a country).
The way to process the imports has been described in this page
As imports are a relative complex process that requires experience, the TM jobs supporting the imports are not open to anyone. If you are interested to contribute, please send an email to hot arobase openstreetmap.org.
Ongoing: Missing Maps field mapping in Bangassou region
Missing Maps conducted field mapping in April 2015 in Bangassou town and the surrounding areas. Members of the MSF health promotion team in Bangassou (local staff and expat coordinator) were trained in data collection using ODK Collect and OSMAnd. Prior to the Missing Maps visit, lot of data was gathered in terms of village names, landmarks and water points. During the visit, this was organised better and shapes were created for the quartiers and arrondisements of Bangassou town.
The local MSF health promotion team will continue to gather village data as they travel to new villages in the course of their work and will collaborate with Missing Maps volunteers to get this data onto OSM.
This uMap shows remote mapping coverage by Missing Maps volunteers.
For more information, contact pedrito1414
Ongoing: Mapping cities and towns
Bangui has been intensively mapped by the EUROSHA volunteers during their deployment in the country. Following the Rebellion in Bangui, numerous refugees are crossing the border to DR Congo to take refuge in Zongo, that had been mapped in detail in order to help humanitarian organizations.
Bangassou was intensively mapped by Missing Maps and MSF between Nov 2014 and April 2015.
During the next weeks and months, other cities and towns had been mapped.
This uMap provides the current progresses of the cities and towns mapping in OSM, as well as the areas that are not covered by high resolution Bing imagery.
The table below also provides information about the mapping state and download points.
City | Admin level | Name Prefecture | Importance | TM job | Imagery to use | TM Status | Global validation | Comments | Source | GIS Data |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bangui | Capital | Ombella M'Poko | High | Bangui | Bing, 2012 | Done | To be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Bambari | Prefecture | Ouaka | High | Bambari | OrbView-3 | ongoing | source=OrbView-3, USGS, 2006-02-20 | HOT Exports link | ||
Kabo | Sub-Prefecture | Ouham | High | Kabo | Bing, 2012 | ongoing | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | ||
Batangafo | Sub-Prefecture | Ouham | High | Batangafo | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Kaga-Bandoro | Prefecture | Nana-Grébizi | High | Kaga-Bandoro | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Bria | Prefecture | Haute-Kotto | High | Bria | Bing, 2011 | done | to be done | source=Bing | ||
Sibut | Prefecture | Kémo | Medium | Bing, 2011 | ||||||
Alindao | Sub-Prefecture | Basse-Kotto | Medium | Bing, 2012 | ||||||
Damara | Sub-Prefecture | Ombella-M'Poko | Medium | Damara | Bing, 2010-2012 | ongoing | only partially covered by Bing high res imagery | |||
Ippy | Sub-Prefecture | Ouaka | Medium | none | Bing, 2011 | almost done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Bamingui | Sub-Prefecture | Bamingui-Bangoran | Medium | none | Bing, 2012 | almost done | to be done | source=Bing | ||
Mbrès | Sub-Prefecture | Nana-Grébizi | Medium | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | ||
Ouanda Djallé | Sub-Prefecture | Vakaga | Medium | Bing, 2011 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | ||
Kouango | Sub-Prefecture | Ouaka | Medium | Kouango | Bing, 2011 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Kembé | Sub-Prefecture | Basse-Kotto | Medium | Kembé | Bing, 2011 | done | to be done | source=Bing | ||
Dimbi | Town | Basse-Kotto | Medium | Dimbi | Bing, 2011 | almost done | to be done | source=Bing | ||
Mobaye | Prefecture | Basse-Kotto | Medium | None | ||||||
Moyenne Sido | Town | Ouham | Medium | Bing, 2012 | almost done | to be done | source=Bing | |||
Bossangoa | Prefecture | Ouham | High | Bossangoa | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Nana-Bakassa | Sub-Prefecture | Ouham | High | Nana-Bakassa | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Bouar | Prefecture | Nana-Mambéré | High | Bouar | Bing, 2012 | done | done by [1] | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Zémio | Sub-Prefecture | Haut-Mbomou | Zémio | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | partially covered by clouds | source=Bing | ||
Kouango | Sub-Prefecture | Ouaka | Kouango | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | ||
N'Délé | Prefecture | Bamingui-Bangoran | Medium | Bing, 2012 | done | done by [2] | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | ||
Bozoum | Prefecture | Ouham Pendé | High | Bozoum | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Bohong | Sub-Prefecture | Ouham Pendé | High | Bohong | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Sibut | Prefecture | Kémo | High | Sibut | Bing, 2012 | done | done by [3] | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Bocaranga | Sub-Prefecture | Ouham Pendé | High | Bocaranga | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Berbérati | Prefecture | Mambéré-Kadéï | High | Berbérati | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | source=Bing | HOT Exports link | |
Mbaïki | Prefecture | Lobaye | Medium | Mbaïki | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | Partially covered by Bing imagery | source=Bing | HOT Exports link |
Bangassou | Prefecture | Mbomou | Moyen | Bangassou | Bing, 2012 | done | to be done | Field mapped by Missing Maps and MSF. | source=Bing and survey | HOT Exports link |
Road network
The road network between the main towns is to be completed and harmonized, based on the typology set for the Mali crisis, called Highway Tag Africa.
Based on this methodology, we can consider that the road connecting the capital cities of prefectures should be tagged highway=primary. Theses cities are: Bangui, Bozoum, Bossangoa, Berbérati, Bimbo, Bambari, Mobaye, Mbaïki, Bouar, Bangassou, Sibut, Kaga Bandoro, Nola, Bria, Obo, Birao, Ndélé. A list of prefectures with population census can be found on Wikipedia.
The Bing high res imagery is sometimes missing, but it might happen the road is nonetheless visible on the low res, LandSat based, imagery. It then can be complemented this way, but a fixme tag can be added to point out the bad accuracy.
highway=secondary would be dedicated to road joining Préfectures and Sous-préfectures or Sous-préfectures together. Sous-préfectures can be tagged place=city or place=town considering their population.
As a first step, we will start by creating or completing the primary road network linking these prefectures capital together. If someone considers that extra cities should be added considering their economic importance, this can be discussed over the HOT list.
The admin levels for CAR have been proposed this way, to be discussed. According to Proposed_tag:capital, the prefectures should then been tagged capital=4 and the Sous-prefectures places capital=6
Missing road section | OSM view | Approx. Length | Issue | Date solved | Mapper |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kaga-Bandoro - Bouca | Click | 90 km | No high res imagery | ||
Batangafo - Bossangoa | Click | 30 km | No high res imagery |
List of national Routes according to Wikipedia:
Name | Course | OSM view | Approx. Length | Covered by imagery? | Status | Date | Mapper |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
RN1 | north from Bangui via Bossangoa to Moundou, Chad | 482 km | complete | ||||
RN2 | east from Bangui via Bambari and Bangassou to the Sudanese border at Bambouti | 1202 km | partly low-res images east of Obo | complete (needs a bit of work east of Obo) | |||
RN3 | west from RN1 at Bossembélé via Bouar and Baboua to Boulai on the Cameroon border as part of the east-west Trans-African Highway 8 Lagos-Mombasa | 453 km | complete | ||||
RN4 | from RN2 at Damara, 76 km north of Bangui, north 554 km via Bouca and Batangafo to Sarh, Chad | 630 km | complete | June 6. 2013 | Theodin | ||
RN6 | south and west from Bangui, 605 km via Mbaïki, Carnot and Berbérati to Gamboula on the border with Cameroon | 605 km | complete | ||||
RN8 | north-east from RN2 at Sibut, 023 km via Kaga Bandoro, Ndéle, and Birao to the Sudanese border | 23 km | needs work north of N'Dele | ||||
RN10 | south from RN6 at Berbérati, 136 km via Bania to Nola | 136 km | complete | ||||
RN11 | from Baoro on RN3 south, 104 km to Carnot on RN6 | 104 km | complete |
List of Prefectures and Sub-prefectures with their main city:
Prefecture | Prefecture capital | Sub-prefecture | Sub-prefecture capital tagged with capital=6 | Prefecture capital connected with primary | Sub-prefecture capital connected with secondary | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mbomou | Bangassou | Bangassou | capital=4, place=city | |||
Mbomou | Bangassou | Bakouma | capital=6, place=town | |||
Mbomou | Bangassou | Gambo-Ouango | capital=6, place=village | |||
Mbomou | Bangassou | Rafaï | capital=6, place=town | |||
Basse-Kotto | Mobaye | Mobaye | capital=4, place=city | |||
Basse-Kotto | Mobaye | Alindao | capital=6, place=town | |||
Basse-Kotto | Mobaye | Kembé | capital=6, place=town | |||
Basse-Kotto | Mobaye | Mingala | capital=6, place=town | |||
Kémo | Sibut | Sibut | capital=4, place=city | |||
Kémo | Sibut | Dekoa | capital=6, place=town | |||
Nana-Mambéré | Bouar | Bouar | capital=4, place=city | |||
Nana-Mambéré | Bouar | Baoro | capital=6, place=town | |||
Nana-Mambéré | Bouar | Baboua | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ouham | Bossangoa | Batangafo | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ouham | Bossangoa | Bossangoa | capital=4, place=city | |||
Ouham | Bossangoa | Bouca | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ouham | Bossangoa | Kabo | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ouham | Bossangoa | Markounda | capital=6, place=town | |||
Sangha-Mbaéré | Nola | Nola | capital=4, place=city | |||
Sangha-Mbaéré | Nola | Bayanga | capital=4, place=city | |||
Sangha-Mbaéré | Nola | Bambio | capital=6, place=town | |||
Lobaye | Mbaïki | Mbaïki | capital=4, place=city | |||
Lobaye | Mbaïki | Boda | capital=6, place=town | |||
Lobaye | Mbaïki | Mongoumba | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ombella-M'Poko | Bimbo | Bimbo | capital=4, place=city | |||
Ombella-M'Poko | Bimbo | Boali | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ombella-M'Poko | Bimbo | Damara | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ombella-M'Poko | Bimbo | Yaloke-Bossembele | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ouham-Pendé | Bozoum | Bocaranga | capital=6, place=city | |||
Ouham-Pendé | Bozoum | Bozoum | capital=4, place=city | |||
Ouham-Pendé | Bozoum | Paoua | capital=6, place=town | |||
Haut-Mbomou | Obo | Obo | capital=4, place=city | |||
Haut-Mbomou | Obo | Djemah | capital=6, place=town | |||
Haut-Mbomou | Obo | Zemio | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ouaka | Bambari | Bambari | capital=4, place=city | |||
Ouaka | Bambari | Bakala | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ouaka | Bambari | Ippy | capital=6, place=town | |||
Ouaka | Bambari | Grimari | capital=6, place=city | |||
Ouaka | Bambari | Kouango | capital=6, place=town | |||
Haute-Kotto | Bria | Bria | capital=4, place=city | |||
Haute-Kotto | Bria | Ouadda | capital=6, place=town | |||
Haute-Kotto | Bria | Yalinga | capital=6, place=town | |||
Bamingui-Bangoran | Ndélé | Ndélé | capital=4, place=city | |||
Bamingui-Bangoran | Ndélé | Bamingui | capital=6, place=village | |||
Vakaga | Birao | Birao | capital=4, place=city | |||
Vakaga | Birao | Ouanda Djallé | capital=6, place=village | |||
Nana-Grébizi | Kaga Bandoro | Kaga Bandoro | capital=4, place=city | |||
Nana-Grébizi | Kaga Bandoro | Mbrès | capital=6, place=town | |||
Mambéré-Kadéï | Berbérati | Berbérati | capital=4, place=city | |||
Mambéré-Kadéï | Berbérati | Carnot | capital=6, place=town | |||
Mambéré-Kadéï | Berbérati | Gamboula | capital=6, place=town |
Populated Places
The OCHA COD (Common Operational Datasets) for CAR provides a GIS layer with 6,849 places, with this metadata: "SIGCAF was a GIS effort conducted in 1996 and correspond with the 2003 census, with cartography prepared in 1:200,000 scale, on admin boundaries, as well as village locations. Village locations were taken with GPS in a systematic way." Unfortunately, as the source of this data is mixed and sometimes unknow, it appeared to be not compatible with ODbL and thus cannot be imported in OSM.
The only ODbL compatible gazeeter known so far is the NGA Country file (GNS) for CAR, that counts 17,000+ places (not only populated, but also hydrographic, administrative, vegetation, etc., as explained in the metadata). It is unfortunately, generally outdated and tests showed the accuracy is not very precise, but nevertheless it is a good source of information to be compared with the places hold in the UNICEF humanitarian data (see the import section).
The data will be proposed on a specific Tasking Manager job as a downloadable file gathering the Populated Place spread into each grid extent. Most of time each populated place is close to a specific populated landuse visible on Bing imagery. Towns, villages and hamlets have to be create at their exact location, approximately in the middle of the populated landuse. This latter has to drawn and tagged and a landuse=residential.
Quality control
You can participate by checking the mistakes with Keep Right! or Osmose.
Data Imports
Information on CAR Imports is listed on separate pages, and led by HOT and the EUROSHA volunteers. See:
Central African Republic GIS data
- Access the HOT Exports service and create exports jobs to get GIS data on various formats. Here is a link for all Central African Republic with HDDM tags. Check also above in the Mapping of affected cities and towns spreadsheet to get direct links. Note: Jobs before April have topological errors. Start a new run to get up-to-date GIS data within a few minutes.
- The map of Central African Republic for GPS Garmin devices is also provided by the country-scale job. Please find here how to install this map on the GPS Garmin's micro SDcard.
- Common and Fundamental Operational Datasets on the site of OCHA.
- Interactive Forest Atlas for Central African Republic of the World Resource Institute.
Imagery & sources
Bing coverage for Central African Republic is available at a high resolution in many areas including Bangui, Bangassou,Bamingui, Berberati, Bambari, Batangafo, Bria, Kabo, Kaga-Bandoro, Ippy, Birao, Mbaiki, Ndele, Mrbes, Ouadda, Ouanda Ndjalle and Zemio. The imagery is relatively recent (2011).
Bambari is not covered by high resolution Bing imagery but there are 2 Orbview-3 images covering it. These two images, with enhanced contrast, are available online from OpenStreetMap France imagery server, as TMS and WMS. For JOSM, add the following TMS supplier in Preferences/WMS-TMS/+ : tms[19]:http://wms.openstreetmap.fr/tms/1.0.0/centrafrique/{zoom}/{x}/{y}. For Potlatch2, add the following background: http://wms.openstreetmap.fr/tms/1.0.0/centrafrique/$z/$x/$y.
Check the quality of the imagery with Bing Image Analyzer
Information
To get information on the situation in the field you can consult:
- the Network of Journalists for Human Rights in Central African Republic website(in French) who publishes a lot of located news and hosts a Crisis Map. Blog post explaining the concepts behind this Crisis Map: https://innovation.internews.org/blogs/creating-crisismap-central-african-republic-using-human-center-design-approach
- ReliefWeb
- Humanitarian Response
Communication
Connect to other OpenStreetMap contributors active in Central African Republic :