On April 16, 2024, the Overture Maps Foundation released the beta of its first open map dataset, presenting it as substantially stable for developers to test ahead of production releases anticipated later that year. The beta combined five map-data themes, including nearly 54 million places and 2.3 billion building footprints, according to Overture. Those are figures for the April 2024 release, not current totals.
What was the Overture Maps beta?
Overture Maps Foundation is a collaborative effort to build open map data for mapping and location-based applications. Its April 2024 beta was a milestone in preparing a shared dataset and schema that developers could test and integrate. Overture said it expected incremental changes during beta while the data and schema remained substantially stable. Its announcement anticipated production releases in summer 2024; that was a forecast at the time, not a current schedule.
The release combined data from community-built sources such as OpenStreetMap, AI-derived information from satellite or aerial imagery, authoritative government data, and newly open commercial sources. Overture said the material had undergone validation and quality checks. Those statements describe the foundation’s process; they are not an independent accuracy audit. Overture’s April 2024 beta announcement quoted executive director Marc Prioleau describing the release as combining open data sources, validation tests, a new schema, and a system for referencing entities.
What data did the April 2024 beta contain?
Overture listed five base themes. The counts below are the foundation’s figures for the April 2024 beta.
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| Theme | What it covered in the beta |
|---|---|
| Places of Interest | Nearly 54 million places worldwide, with associated confidence scores, according to Overture in April 2024. |
| Buildings | 2.3 billion unique building footprints, according to Overture in April 2024. |
| Transportation | A normalized worldwide network of roads, footpaths, and other travel infrastructure. |
| Administrative Boundaries | Administrative areas with regional names translated into more than 40 languages. |
| Base | Land and water context for display maps. |
The place, building, and language figures describe that beta announcement. They should not be treated as current dataset totals or compared directly with figures from other releases unless coverage and counting methods are also checked.
What are GERS IDs, and why do they matter?
The beta assigned Global Entity Reference System (GERS) identifiers to entities. GERS is designed to give map features stable references, making it easier to join Overture data with a user’s own spatial datasets and follow features over time. In practice, an identifier can help connect a place or other mapped entity across data sources without relying only on a name or location that may change. See the current GERS documentation for how the system is described today.
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How did the beta differ from Overture’s 2023 alpha?
The beta followed Overture’s July 26, 2023 initial alpha, which had four themes: Places, Buildings, Transportation, and Administrative Boundaries. The beta added Base to its list of five. Overture’s alpha engineering notes reported approximately 59 million places and approximately 785 million building outlines. Those are figures for the 2023 release; they are not directly comparable with the 2024 beta totals without aligned definitions and coverage.
The 2023 alpha’s transportation layer was explicitly a demonstration of Overture’s road-network model. Its release notes identified omissions including turn and access restrictions and lane information. Those limitations refer to the alpha and should not be assumed to describe the beta’s complete feature set.
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In a later update on July 24, 2024, Overture announced that several themes had reached general availability, while Transportation remained in beta as work continued on network segmentation and schema changes. The update also described an alpha for a new address theme. That later status is distinct from the scope of the April beta. Read Overture’s July 2024 announcement.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How can you access or download Overture Maps data?
Current documentation lists several ways to discover, query, or work with Overture data. The current release catalog has evolved since the April 2024 beta, so today’s theme paths should not be mistaken for the beta’s five-theme list.
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- Explore or find releases: Use the Overture Explorer or the Overture Python CLI guidance to locate and access data.
- Query with SQL: Use DuckDB, which is among the access options in Overture’s getting-data documentation.
- Work in desktop GIS: Overture’s documentation also covers ArcGIS and QGIS workflows.
- Download from cloud storage: Direct releases are available through AWS S3 and Microsoft Azure, with partner-hosted mirrors also listed in the documentation.
The current data repository README says releases use cloud-native Parquet, partitioned by theme and type; there is no single file containing the entire planet. It lists current paths for addresses, base, buildings, divisions, places, and transportation, and points users to the STAC catalog as the authoritative way to discover releases. Check the current documentation and catalog for the release and access method that fit your workflow.
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- Africa-Centered Projection: A less-common projection that allows viewers to see every continent and country complete and intact — without the splits and edge-distortions of standard Pacific- or Atlantic-centered maps
- Laminated for Durability, Rolled for Shipping: Laminated to resist scuffs and fingerprints in classrooms, offices and homes; ships rolled in a white cardboard tube with cap to arrive crease-free and ready to hang
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