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Mapping my hometown: Jorhat

[Jorhat] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorhat) is a small town in Upper Assam and is known as the cultural capital of Assam. A small town at it’s heart but one of the major centers of education and commerce in the state of Assam. Jorhat also has historical significance in that it was one of the erst-while capitals of the Ahom dynasty, which ruled Assam for close to six centuries before the colonial rule. Surrounded by lush and verdant tea gardens and numerous wetlands and rivers, it is the only place which tells me I am home. Logically this was the place from which I would like to start my mapping.

Here is what the city looked like before I started mapping:

Though some initial mapping had been done in the city, the city was still missing a majority of the roads, streets and the numerous institutions that make Jorhat such an integral part of Assamese culture. The major streets in the town were still to be mapped, the iconic institutions in the town were not yet mapped and also the most of the road network were still missing.

screen shot 2015-10-05 at 6 01 17 pm

I was intended on making the most detailed map available of Jorhat. I did this by paying extra attention to details like:

  1. Tracing and tagging missing streets and roads which were familiar to me, I did this by referring the Indian Roads Classification Tags.

  2. Mapping features like bus stops, schools, colleges, playgrounds,universities, airports and railway stations in my town were made easy by using the map features guide.

  3. Mapping the major shops, buildings, man made structures, railway lines, railway crossings, golf courses, airports and runways, railway yards, water bodies using the predefined presets in JOSM. The JOSM presets feature is a fun way to start mapping, as it makes things really interesting and easy. All the educational institutions, major public institutions, major commercial places and major transport hubs in your town can be tagged using the Preset tool. If required we can even generate our very own Presets according to our necessity.

  4. Aligning and correcting any roads previously traced which were not correctly aligned. Tracing details like various suburbs and localities in and around the city using place=tags and assigning landuse categories to these localities/ neighbourhoods using the Landuse tags from the OSM wiki. These helped me make the map more informative.

Outcomes of me mapping my Hometown:

  1. Majority of the minor streets and roads were tagged and mapped.
  2. Most of the localities and neighborhoods were mapped along with intricate information.
  3. Airports, hospitals, shops, railway stations, schools and man made structures were also mapped.

I contributed to the most detailed map of my city!

  • The screenshot of overall changes made to Jorhat: screen shot 2015-10-14 at 4 37 17 pm

What I intend to do next

  • Map the suburbs/localities/neighbourhoods in more detail. Though I have tried mapping the larger areas using place=tag there is a need to subdivide those areas and make the map more detailed.

  • Map all the rural roads and minor streets in Jorhat, many of which are still missing.

  • Adding names to most of the roads, advantage of being a local.

Location: Chowk Bazar, Macharhat/ Sobaibondha/Roza Maidam, Jorhat, Jorhat East, Jorhat, Assam, 785001, India

Discussion

Comment from jinalfoflia on 15 October 2015 at 11:13

Glad to know the excitement one has to make the most detailed map of the place where they have been bought up! Nice diary @saikabhi!

Comment from pratikyadav on 15 October 2015 at 11:22

Nice work @saikabhi !!!! Keeps adding details. Be the Batman (mapper ) of this Gotham (Jorhat).

Comment from Chetan_Gowda on 15 October 2015 at 11:48

Happy mapping!! 😃

Comment from PlaneMad on 15 October 2015 at 11:51

Great work!Looks like there was someone else from Jorhat mapping too, you can try to check the history of objects and getting in touch.

Also interesting is to make a map with Assamese labels and pass it on to the local authorities. As a region which is constantly flood prone, these are very valuable resources for those on the ground.

Comment from unsungNovelty on 15 October 2015 at 11:55

Nice dairy @saikabhi !!

Comment from jonwit on 16 October 2015 at 00:08

I used a simple gif maker to animate it to see the difference The link

Comment from Alan Bragg on 16 October 2015 at 11:39

Excellent work. You’ve contributed a lot of valuable data. I hope you feel the sense of accomplishment.

Comment from stephan75 on 16 October 2015 at 17:59

Hello saikabhi, nice work!!!

When having finished the main work in your home town, do you already know the 1000 possibilities of Quality Assurance for OSM data?

If you want, write about your experiences … maybe not all services are available for the whole planet … if we get enough user voices, why not extending those to more countries?

Comment from saikabhi on 19 October 2015 at 05:58

@all Thank you all for your encouragement and suggestions. Will try to work on the suggestions and incorporate them ASAP. Just the start of my mapping journey. Thank you all again!

Comment from Janjko on 26 October 2015 at 20:58

Great job! Keep it up, and create some competition with the surrounding towns.

Is there a rule about languages in India? It would be great if you used the name:as and name:en tags. There are probably people who know only Assamese, and if you use name:en, applications know what label to show the tourists.

Comment from saikabhi on 27 October 2015 at 11:17

@Janjko Thank you! Using Assamese tags is one thing that I have in mind which @planemad has also suggested. Have not got around to doing it though. Will start working on it.

Comment from bdiscoe on 27 November 2015 at 07:18

I saw the Mapbox blog post and was inspired to spend some time armchair mapping Jorhat this evening, added hundreds of more details, mostly in the area around the town. I can only add geometry tho, so someone local needs to fill in the names!

Comment from saikabhi on 27 November 2015 at 07:30

@bdiscoe Thank you for your contributions. Will look into the local names. There is still a huge amount of information to be added. I am presently based outside so even I don’t have the necessary know how about all the local names right now. Maybe I can contact someone who is based in and around the area who is presently mapping the area.

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