Canada

Provinces of Canada: Alberta · British Columbia · Manitoba · New Brunswick · Newfoundland and Labrador · Nova Scotia · Ontario · Prince Edward Island · Québec · Saskatchewan · Territories: Nunavut · Northwest Territories · Yukon

V・T・E Canada, North America

latitude: 71.59, longitude: -96.64

Browse map of Canada 71°35′24.00″ N, 96°38′24.00″ W

Edit map

Users in Canada GPS traces Geohack for OSM with more maps

External links: Notes Quality checks with Osmose Keep Right! OSM Inspector Streets without names CheckAutopista2 Public transport with öpnvkarte.de Wikipedia: en, de, fr Wikimedia Commons OpenStreetMap contributors map Mapillary KartaView

Use this template for your locality

Canada is a country in North America at latitude 71°35′24.00″ North, longitude 96°38′24.00″ West.

	Canada Mapping Project, the home of Canada on the OpenStreetMap wiki.
	Hello! Welcome to the project for mapping efforts in Canada! You can find here national events, ongoing projects, map status and mapping guidelines, as well as links to other pages directly related to the mapping of Canada. You may also find a list of contacts and mappers involved with the OpenStreetMap community in Canada.

Canada (pronouced /ˈkænədə/) is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is the world's second largest country by total area. Canada's common border with the United States to the south and northwest is the longest in the world.

This page is a starting point with information relating to Canadian mapping activity.

Provincial project pages: Ontario, Québec, British Columbia, Alberta, more…

City project pages: Toronto, Montréal, Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa, more…

Contact

There is a mailing list set up for Canadian mappers. Most discussion about country-wide matters takes place there. Both official languages are welcome. Join the list here.

There is also a chat room for Canadian mappers on OFTC's IRC network: irc://irc.oftc.net/#osm-ca. For more international discussions related to general mapping (in English only); you probably also want to join the main OSM channel at irc://irc.oftc.net/#osm.

There is a Slack project: https://osm-ca.slack.com/. Invite link: https://join.slack.com/t/osm-ca/shared_invite/zt-2l8vxfotx-jARD56QBm0GgYi3lcf63ug

There is also a OpenStreetMap Canada Facebook page Please make sure everyone who indicates that they are a 'fan' to become an admin to the page, this way, all content of the page can be edited by everyone. (Just like OSM & the wiki)

There is also a website that includes a task manager for mapping in Canada

Collecting data

GPS tracks perhaps the best way to collect data. When you go out on trips, take along your GPS device and upload your traces to OSM. Be sure that your GPS device is set not to lock traces to the copyrighted data stored in the device; the purpose of collecting traces is to create new, unencumbered data. Photo mapping is an efficient way to create detailed maps.

Mapping parties are a great way to kick off mapping efforts in a sparsely-mapped area. By contacting other local area mappers, you can arrange to meet in a place that is convenient for everyone. When you meet with other mappers you can then learn first-hand the other techniques that are available, as with OSM, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

For those without a GPS, fieldpapers.org allows you to draw directly on a printed OSM map, scan it, and trace from it using an OSM editor.

Administrative Boundaries

For boundaries of municipalities and neighbourhoods, see Canada admin level.

Name	Boundary	Notes
Alberta	391186 391186	Edmonton
British Columbia	390867 390867	Victoria
Manitoba	390841 390841	Winnipeg
New Brunswick	68942 68942
Newfoundland and Labrador	391196 391196
Northwest Territories	391220 391220
Nova Scotia	390558 390558
Nunavut	390840 390840
Ontario	68841 68841
Prince Edward Island	391115 391115
Québec	61549 61549
Saskatchewan	391178 391178	Regina
Yukon	391455 391455

Importing government data

Since 2008, the federal government has released a wealth of geodata for use in OSM. The OSM community is at work completing the existing OSM content with the government data.

Initial efforts were based on simple feature data from GeoBase, which includes administrative boundaries, place names, roads, and bodies of water. This import was mostly done wholesale in areas with little previous OSM data. Before street names were added into the GeoBase data, street names from Statistics Canada were imported; this resulted in many incorrect street names because of the differing geometry between the two datasets.

Currently, the data source of choice for importing is CanVec from Natural Resources Canada, containing most of the GeoBase data, plus extras such as important buildings. NRCan is generating an OSM XML version of the CanVec 6.0 dataset, and the most populous areas are now available. These files can be imported using offline editors such as JOSM. Please only import areas and features you are familiar with. If you have any questions about how to import the data, ask on the list or channel.

---

Here are some other government sources that may contain additional data.

Toporama, a WMS service serving rasterized CanVec data, can be used as a background layer in OSM editors. To use it in JOSM's WMS plugin, use these links: [1] (more detailed), or [2] (less detailed). The GeoBase NHN WMS at [3] provides more detail for water features, such as water flow direction and water junctions.

NRCan PDF sheets

JOSM_OSM_CanMatrix_TopoRama_mix.jpg

show much of the same data as CanVec, though the geometry may be as much a 1.2 km off from reality in some areas. This can be worked around using a map rectifier such as JOSM's PicLayer or Map Warper.

Statistics Canada data is used to import street names where they are missing from the other data sets. It is advised to not copy the geometry; however, you can use the street names database as a reference.

Atlas of Canada, available using WMS, contains some features not in GeoBase, CanVec, or StatCan, but only at a scale of 1:7500000.

Ibycus Topo is a Garmin map compiled directly from source CanVec data (shp files) as well as GeoBase data (shp files). This is a free (dont sell) non-routable map which also includes great contours from CanVec. (contours are not included in OSM, so GroundTruth Planet Contour is used instead). This can be used as a supplement when using OSM Maps as an overlay. NOTE: The .typ file (tags) which was used for conversion is slightly different than the tags used in the OSM version. However, as this import process will take some time, end-users are welcome to use both maps for navigating, and users can 'pretend' that the CanVec data is already in OSM, while finding new features to add to OSM.

ILMB BC Digital Road Atlas (2007, Partially Attributed) - https://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/geometadata/metadataDetail.do?recordUID=45674&recordSet=ISO19115

Open Data - many municipalities have Open Data datasets suitable for importing now, this is a list of them

See also:

• Canada WMS Layers

Canada-wide subprojects

If you have a goal that you are working towards or one that you would like to see get done (and are maybe willing to get the ball rolling) then add it to the list here, create a section where it can be coordinated and tracked, and a way of measuring progress.

Canada Post offices

See WikiProject Canada Post.

Projects

Building Outlines with Statistics Canada (deprecated)

Stats Canada has released building outlines under the federal government license. This is the associated import plan.

Canada Building Import

Building Canada 2020 Initiative and mapping project

Building Canada 2020 Initiative (BC2020i) was a community-led initiative with the vision to map all buildings in Canada on OpenStreetMap by the year 2020. The initiative has become Canada/Building_Canada_2020.

Simple information on buildings (geolocation, building footprint, full address and type of use) is of major societal value. This information, however, is often lacking in some areas or not completely accessible on a single open data platform. Creating a nation-wide, freely accessible and non-proprietary source of information on buildings will contribute to the development of the data infrastructures of the future, upon which a multitude of public and private projects could thrive.

Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada (deprecated)

This project appears to have become abandoned in late 2017 and/or has morphed into something approximated by Canada/Building_Canada_2020, above. Note Stats Canada is funded 1st April to March 31st. There is work being done in the background by Stats Canada and more open data buildings are expected to be released shortly. 2018/10/21

Former project documentation

Custom Garmin maps

• Create a Garmin MapSource install file for Canada and/or provinces
  • Using Lambertus routable maps, a National Install file is available on a monthly (or as needed) basis. Being hosted on Mediafire.com osm_routable_mapsource_Canada_2_feb_2010.exe

• Create a combined transparent routable OSM/topo map for all of Canada using Groundtruth SRTM data and, the most current OpenStreetMap data. So that it can be installed to Garmin MapSource & Garmin IMG tiles for use to install onto your GPS device.

• • The contour-only maps are currently (Feb 5th 2010) being generated, the files are being made available in the mediafire.com folder SRTM_GroundTruth_Canada These are all 10m contours, and about 100 megs each .zip file, and covering approximatly 2x2.5 NTS tiles (5 tiles at a OSM zoom level of 8. For example On OSM the box & the surrounding area.

Downloads

The Garmin MapSource (Windows) Installer file for each province is available here http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=3b30da6df5072902ab1eab3e9fa335caa2ed10992d240aa5

created from the OSM download of the outline of each province from http://downloads.cloudmade.com/north_america/canada .shp files are also available as well as pre-made .img tiles that you can install directly onto the device\

Trans Canada Trail

Newest Trans Canada Trail symbol see Key:wiki:symbol#Canada

Status: Please note the copyright restriction. ALL route infrastructure must be actually navigated with GPS and/or imported from one of the data sources that have the same compatible license as OpenStreetMap. See Canada Import Status. Specific Trans Canada Trail segments are mapped as province-wide relations tagged as a national cycleway network — network=ncn — coalesced as a super-relation, only if the route infrastructure elements are end-to-end usable by a bicycle (see Cycle routes). Otherwise, the Trail segments should be mapped as "regular" trails with tags of highway=path, highway=footway, highway=track or highway=bridleway.

Common Trans Canada Trail symbols can be tagged using Key:wiki:symbol#Canada. Note that symbols may vary from one segment of the route to the next.

Outdoor Maps

4UMaps Topographic outdoor map for hiking and mountain biking

Canadian best practices

See Map Features for worldwide tagging guidelines, and Canadian tagging guidelines for those specific to Canada.

Canada has a wide range of data that can be imported. So if you are local and on the ground the best place to start is checking the interfaces between the imported data and the data that was in place before. Typically you'll find that imported CanVec data has been truncated at the interface with original OSM data so make sure that the roads that should be joined are. You may find roads traced in from satellite images are not quite in the right place. GPS traces can help here.

When you browse the slippy map on openstreetmap.org, note the + sign to the right. Zoom in first then click on it, and tick the data box. Note the Points of Interest (POI) that show on the left. Click on one these and you'll see the tag values for the POI including things like website that are in the database. This means tags such as phone=*, website=* etc are worth entering even though they don't immediately show on the map but are accessible if you want to order a take away. Note the warning that comes up about the number of POIs and the amount of data that must be transferred. Ideally we do not want to store redundant data so for an address we want addr:housenumber=*, addr:street=*, and addr:postcode=*. Cities typically are marked in OSM as a place and a boundary relation and anything in the city's boundary is assumed to be in the city. So when we search, we take the city information from the objects describing the city itself. Provinces and country are the same. Address interpolation is a useful way of keeping the number of POIs down but still allowing a search by house number.

OSM has different methods of rendering. Some of these rendering systems can make use of French as well as English names. For bilingual areas such as Ottawa the convention is to enter the English name under name, and the French name under name:fr. Example name "Wilkie Drive" name:fr "promenade Wilkie". Renderers such as Maperitive can be set to display the French names as default.

Note also that most rendering systems will not show all the POIs on the map. The ones that are omitted can be shown by the use of "rules" but this is currently a little more complicated than casual users might like.

OSM is an electronic database that is converted or rendered into a visible map by programs. Programs are dumb but very fast. They work best with consistent tags so follow the Canadian tagging guidelines and the Map Features. For example cycle lanes should be labeled cycleway=lane to show up on + "Cycle Map". There are now some applications that work with the POIs, such as MapOSMatic, but in order to find the right ones the tags must be consistent. There are bots that are run on the data cleaning it up so it is not necessary to clean up existing tags, leave it to the bots.

Please add value by adding footpaths, specialist stores, playgrounds and parks. These are often missing from other maps.

What's with the forests in Canada?

The squared off sections of forest in Canada are the result of the ongoing CanVec data import. CanVec tiles were broken up into squares called the NTS grid to better manage the data import. If you see a forest that's squared off with a empty section beside it, it's most likely that that grid has not been imported yet.

Open Data

Open Data catalogs can be found here Note not all Open Data aligns with the OpenStreetMap licence. In 2024 the OSM Licensing Working Group (LWG) approved quite a few new regional open data licenses. Taken from the OSM Foundation's wiki, the following licenses have been deemed compatible with OSM, and data under them can be imported.

• OGL Canada 2.0, compatible (reference missing)
• Ottawa Open Data License 2.0, compatible (see LWG minutes 2017-03-02)
• Sunshine Coast Regional District, based on Version 2 of the Open Government License - British Columbia, compatible (LWG internal correspondence)
• OGL 2.0 British Columbia, compatible (LWG internal correspondence)
• OGL 1.0 Regional District of Nanaimo (based on OGL 2.0 BC), compatible (LWG minutes 2024-03-04)
• OGL 1.0 Ontario, compatible (LWG minutes 2024-03-04)
• York Region Open Data License, compatible (LWG minutes 2024-04-08)
• OGL 1.0 Toronto, compatible (LWG minutes 2024-04-08)
• Open Government License 2.0 (Niagara Region), compatible (LWG minutes 2024-06-10)
• Open Government Licence 2.0 – City of Guelph, compatible (LWG minutes 2024-09-09)

Many of these licenses have an attribution requirement, which is generally contrary to OSM's licensing. However, on March 2, 2017, when the LWG approved Ottawa's license, they also determined "that the attribution requirements of the Ottawa ODL 2.0 can be met by adding the required text to the wiki contributor page and corresponding changeset source attribute values, and that there is no downstream attribution requirement."

Alberta

City Name	License	Link to portal	Notes
Town of Banff	Custom	[4]
City of Calgary	OGL - City of Calgary	[5]
City of Edmonton	OGL - City of Edmonton	[6]	updated in 2022, now follows Canadian OGL
County of Grande Prairie	OGL-County of Grande Prairie	[7]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different
Medicine Hat	n/a	n/a	Medicine Hat has removed its open data server, and appears to be re-selling AltaLIS free data: https://www.medicinehat.ca/government/departments/information-and-computer-services/gis-mapping/digital-pricing
City of Red Deer	Custom	[8]
Strathcona County	OGL-Strathcona County	[9]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different
City of Grande Prairie	OGL-City of Grande Prairie	[10]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different
Calgary Region	Custom	[11]

Nova Scotia

City Name	License	Link to portal	Notes
Halifax Regional Municipality	OGL-CA	[12]	We have explicit permission to use data: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Halifax/Import

British Columbia

City Name	License	Link to portal	Notes
City of Chilliwack	Custom Data License	[13]
City of Kelowna	Public Domain	[14]
Township of Langley	OGL-Township of Langley	[15]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different
City of Nanaimo	OGL-Nanaimo	[16]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different
Regional District of Nanaimo	OGL 1.0 Regional District of Nanaimo	[17]	compatible (LWG minutes 2024-03-04)
Regional District of Central Okanagan	?	[18]
Regional District of North Okanagan	?	[19]
City of Prince George	OGL-City of Prince George	[20]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different
District of Saanich	OGL-District of Saanich	[21]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different
City of Surrey	OGL-City of Surrey	[22]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different
City of Vancouver	OGL-Vancpuver	[23]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different
District of North Vancouver	OGL-North Vancouver (Legal link in top right corner)	[24]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different
City of Victoria	OGL-City of Victoria	[25]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different

Manitoba

City Name	License	Link to portal	Notes
City of Brandon	Custom	[26]	Would have to ask if attribution on the https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors page would fulfil the attribution requirement
City of Winnipeg	OGL-Winnipeg	[27]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name being different

New Brunswick

City Name	License	Link to portal	Notes
City of Fredericton	Different license for different data, there are CC-BY and an unspecified Attribution license(address points)	[28]
City of Saint John	OGL-City of Saint John	[29]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name and licence text being different

Ontario

City Name	License	Link to portal	Notes	Date Checked
Government of Ontario	Custom	[30]	Compatible, must assign attribution	2024-03-04
City of Brampton	Custom	[31]	So far incompatible (liability issues, may pass costs on to you if they get sued: Same issue with Ottawa's old license)
City of Burlington	Custom	[32]	So far incompatible (liability issues, may pass costs on to you if they get sued: Same issue with Ottawa's old license)	2022-02-03
City of Hamilton	Custom	[33]	So far incompatible (liability issues, may pass costs on to you if they get sued: Same issue with Ottawa's old license)	2022-02-03
City of London	Custom	[34]	So far incompatible (liability issues, may pass costs on to you if they get sued: Same issue with Ottawa's old license)
City of Mississauga	Custom	[35]	So far incompatible (liability issues, may pass costs on to you if they get sued: Same issue with Ottawa's old license)
City of Niagara Falls	Custom	[36]	So far incompatible (liability issues, may pass costs on to you if they get sued: Same issue with Ottawa's old license)
Town of Oakville	OGL 2.0 Custom	[37]	So far incompatible (liability issues, may pass costs on to you if they get sued: Same issue with Ottawa's old license)	2022-02-03
City of Ottawa	OGL-CA	[38]	Currently under review/importing: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada:Ontario:Ottawa/Import/Plan
Region of Peel		[39]	Current status is on hold due to license(need to make sure they own all the rights): https://github.com/osmottawa/data-research/tree/master/Peel-Region
City of Greater Sudbury	OGL-CA v1.0 City of Greater Sudbury	[40]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name and licence text being different
City of Toronto	OGL-CA v1.0 - Toronto	[41]	Compatible after LWG approval
City of Waterloo	OGL-UK	[42]
City of Welland	OGL-CA City of Welland	[43]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name and licence text being different
City of Windsor	OGL-CA v1.0 - The Corporation of the City of Windsor	[44]	Not accepted for import into OSM due to name and licence text being different
City of Guelph	OGL-CA	[45]	Compatible, must assign attribution	2024-10-28
Niagara Region	Mixed based upon dataset, 99% OGL-CA v2.0 based with city names attached	[46]	Most datasets not accepted for import into OSM due to including city/town name in licence text
Region of Waterloo	OGL-UK	[47]	also contains data for Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo
City of Kitchener	[48]	[49]	Seems to be based on OGL-UK as with other parts of Region of Waterloo
Township of North Frontenac	used to be OGL-CA v1.0	[50]	2019-01-22 link to licence on open data page (which works) doesn't work
Haldimand County	Custom (on landing page)	[51]	Must assign attribution. Would have to ask if attribution on the https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors page would fulfil the attribution requirement
Grey County	Custom	[52]	Must assign attribution. Would have to ask if attribution on the https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors page would fulfil the attribution requirement
York Region	Custom	[53]	Very open license, no attribution, no legal carry over, etc

Québec

City Name	License	Link to portal	Notes
City of Gatineau	CC-BY 4.0	[54]	Import ongoing (for address nodes) and with explicit permission: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Gatineau/Import
City of Montréal	CC-BY 4.0	[55]	Import ongoing with explicit permission: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Montr%C3%A9al/Imports/Ville_de_Montr%C3%A9al
City of Québec	CC-BY 4.0	[56]	Would need explicit permission from the city.
City of Sherbrooke	CC-BY 4.0	[57]	Would need explicit permission from the city

Saskatchewan

City Name	License	Link to portal	Notes
City of Regina	Custom	[58]	Requires attribution. Would have to ask if attribution on the https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors page would fulfil the attribution requirement
City of Saskatoon	Custom	[59]	Very open license, no attribution, no legal carry over, etc

Yukon

City Name	License	Link to portal	Notes
City of Whitehorse	Custom	[60]	Requires written permission for commercial uses and seeing as ODbL doesn't have a clause against it, we would need explicit permission