OpenStreetMap

Departing Turkmenistan in June

Posted by apm-wa on 24 May 2019 in English.

After almost four and a half years in Turkmenistan, Ann and I will depart in June upon completion of my tour of duty as U.S. ambassador here. My successor was confirmed by the U.S. Senate this week and so I must depart to make room for him. Since we started mapping Turkmenistan, we have posted over half a million ground-level images on Mapillary, over 280,000 edits, created these wiki articles:

Ahal Province Ashgabat Anew Balkan Province Balkanabat Dashoguz Dashoguz Province Districts in Turkmenistan
Gazetteer of Ashgabat Street Names Lebap Province Mary (Turkmenistan) Mary Province Turkmenabat
Turkmenbashy Turkmenistan Geoname Changes Tag:office=diplomatic,

and expanded the Turkmenistan wiki article to approximately 10,000 words. We have dug up authoritative lists of all municipalities in Turkmenistan, created from scratch a gazetteer of street names in Ashgabat, and added over 11 thousand roads and streets.

Alas, our contributions will mostly come to an end with our departure, but I hope that people I have trained over the past four years will continue to contribute to the Turkmenistan map in OSM.

Discussion

Comment from Yury Yatsynovich on 24 May 2019 at 17:45

Wow, you’re awesome!

Comment from philippec on 24 May 2019 at 18:38

You are not the typical Hollywood ambassador.

Comment from Glassman on 24 May 2019 at 20:13

Thank you very much for all your contributions and level headed comments you’ve made.

I wish you good luck on your next endeavor. And remember, you can still edit in OSM when you get resettled.

Clifford

Comment from Omnific on 25 May 2019 at 02:32

Thank you for everything you’ve done to improve the map in one of the least mapped countries in OSM. I’ll miss the interesting diaries about your adventures around Turkmenistan, especially as someone who travels regularly to less developed countries for work. You and Ann are superstar OSM contributors.

Best of luck on your next assignment or wherever your work takes you.

Comment from freebeer on 25 May 2019 at 02:41

thanks from me too, your contributions have become inseparable in my mind from your (i write this from my own perspective of adopting several countries as ‘mine’) country, and i appreciate all you have added to osm.

best wishes.

Comment from Zverik on 25 May 2019 at 12:36

You did a great job, and I’m sure you’ll do awesome on the next one. Thank you!

Comment from amapanda ᚛ᚐᚋᚐᚅᚇᚐ᚜ 🏳️‍🌈 on 25 May 2019 at 12:43

Thanks for your contribution to OSM in a place where such detail is surely needed.

Comment from saintam1 on 26 May 2019 at 21:03

Thanks for your outstanding contribution Allan! Hats off to you.

Comment from Marych_ on 27 May 2019 at 09:31

Thank you! You make Turkmenistan closer to us.

Comment from sejohnson on 27 May 2019 at 16:52

You’ve set a great example for collaboration between OpenStreetMap and a government agency. Thanks for all your contributions and good luck in your future mapping endeavors.

Comment from michalfabik on 28 May 2019 at 07:33

Thank you so much for your brilliant work. Wherever you go next, I hope your diary will be as interesting and enjoyable as the one from Turkmenistan.

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