United States/Women Remembered
This project serves to improve the representation of prominent women figures in OpenStreetMap by mapping streets and buildings named after women, as well as art and statues depicting prominent women in the United States.
Introduction
Inspired by the Las Calles De Las Mujeres project by Geochicas, #WomenRemembered was initiated by women in the OSMUS community on International Women’s Day 2021 to improve the representation of women in OpenStreetMap in the United States. Similar to the Las Calles De Las Mujeres project, #WomenRemembered seeks to generate content in OpenStreetMap as well as linking to articles in Wikipedia, or where applicable, identify and close gaps in content.
To discuss this project and further ideas around representation of women in OSM, invite yourself to the OSMUS Slack and join the #geo-ladies channel.
Getting started
Add unmapped POI or name tags to locations in OSM representing prominent women using the tags #WomenRemembered #OSMUS
See below for guidance on tagging for this project.
You can also support representation of women and girls in OpenStreetMap by contributing towards Tagging in Support of Women and Girls.
Street Names
Add Wikipedia links to existing streets
Street names are largely mapped across the United States, however, there are significant gaps in Wikipedia data linked to streets named after prominent women. Tag streets with name:etymology=* and name:etymology:wikidata=* if they are named after the person or with subject=* and subject:wikidata=* if they commemorate the person.
Fix renamed streets
Look for streets where municipalities and local governments have permanently changed a street to be named after a prominent woman.
- Be sure that the change is a permanent change of the primary street name. See below for Honorary or Secondary names.
- Change the name=* to represent the new name.
- Maintain the previous name under the old_name=* tag.
- Follow guidance above to add wikipedia data.
Add Honorary (or Secondary) Street Names
Look for streets where municipalities and local governments have added honorary or secondary street names after a prominent woman.
- Add the alt_name=* tag to include the honorary or secondary street name.
- Follow guidance above to add wikipedia data.
Building Names
Tag buildings with name:etymology=* and name:etymology:wikidata=* if they are named after the person or with subject=* and subject:wikidata=* if they commemorate the person.
Art, Statues, and Memorials
Artwork representing and depicting prominent women
Tag artwork depicting prominent women with tourism=artwork as well as artwork_type=*, artwork_subject=* and subject:wikidata=*. See tourism=artwork for additional useful tags.
For statues, see Memorials.
Memorials remembering historical women
- Tag memorials remembering historical women with historic=memorial + memorial=*, as well as subject=* and subject:wikidata=*.
- Tag statues representing a historical person with historic=memorial + memorial=statue and name=*, as well as subject=* and subject:wikidata=*. See memorial=statue for additional useful tags.
Artwork by Women
Regardless of subject, it is also critical to showcase artwork created by women. Tag artwork with artist_name=* + artist:wikidata=*.
Tools
Many of the ideas above share a set of tools in common:
- iD – multiple-selection editing is especially handy when tagging road name etymologies; for the time being, the functionality is only available in the development branch of iD
- Overpass API and Overpass turbo – query OSM data based on tags, view matching features on an interactive map, and export the data in a variety of formats
- Sophox – query OSM data in conjunction with external data sources such as Wikidata, view matching features on an interactive map or as a table, and export the data in tabular form
- Wikidata – find a Wikidata item by its English Wikipedia article title