Cartographers of North Korea (2019)

To know more about their motivations and mapping strategies, we sent a letter to all of the contributors; here are the responses from 211 contributors.

Hello Wonyoung,I live in Germany.I also do a lot of mapping here-partly with a GPS-device.I use OSM-maps in my navigation system (OSMand) when i travel.Mapping is just a private hobby for me.Like others doing Sodoku or Mandala i draw rivers and roads from a satellite image.It just gives a good feeling to relax and contribute at the same time.Sometimes when i hear the news i wonder if the mentioned places are already mapped and take a look into OSM.Somehow i got stuck in North Korea.There was a blank map.So i could draw big roads and rivers.Here in Germany you only can do details, like junction restrictions or housenumbers.North Korea is really an interesting country.The political situation beween North- and South-Korea ist also very fascinating and has a lot of similarities to former East- and West-Germany.I live not far away from the former border (Iron Curtain) - on the east side.I have old maps here from cold war time with missing, wrong and falsified data.We dont need wrong maps if we want to live together in peace.Finally militaries always do have their own much more detailed maps.In North Korea i only use the OSM-aerial images (Bing, DigitalGlobe, etc).Of course i also watch documentaries about North Korea more interested now and i took a look into the Armistice Agreement-maps from 1953.OSM is a great Project.Like Wikipedia it creates free data from all countries, free for everyone!Im sure one day the maps will also find their way into North Korea.But for now it will help everyone else who is interested in this area anyhow.One example: I found reports from ornithologists researching migrating bird-routes and North Korea is one stop for the birds.As far as i can see North Korea is mostly mapped by people like me just travelling on the map with their fingers and contribute on interesting things.Nobody is really working systematic or regularly like professional mappers would do.I hope this text helps you.It would be great to get some feedback about the results of your studies.Best regards

Hello Mr.Won!I live in Nikolaev, in Ukraine.In OSM, I edit for fun.I myself have never been to Pyongyang.I generally continue to Odessa (in infancy) and the resort of Zhelezny Port, which in the Kherson region, did not go anywhere.I draw the outlines of buildings mainly from satellite images.In the JOSM editor it is possible to select the background for editing the map based on such images.If some buildings need to be rendered in three-dimensional format so that they are displayed in F4MAP in this way, I check with the photos available on the Internet or published in the magazines Korea Today, Korea and Kumsugansan.I took most of the internal toponymy and POIs from Wikimapia, which was most likely made by tourists from China and Russia, and perhaps even by foreign students from Kim Il Sung University.If you're interested, here's an old LiveJournal student from Russia who studied there in 2010-2011.This blog is now frozen.Happy New Year!Здравствуйте, г-н Вонъён!Не обессудьте, что пишу по-русски, так как английским языком я владею на начальном уровне, а коверкаться автопереводчиком не хочу.Я живу в Николаеве, на Украине.В OSM я редактирую ради интереса.Сам я в Пхеньяне никогда не был.Я вообще дальше Одессы (в младенчестве) и курорта Железный порт, что в Херсонской области, никуда не ездил.Контуры зданий я отрисовываю в основном по спутниковым снимкам.В редакторе JOSM есть возможность выбрать подложку для редактировании карты на основе таких снимков.Если какие-то здания нужно отрисовать в трёхмерном формате, чтобы они таким образом отображались в F4MAP, я сверяюсь с фотографиями, доступным в Интернете или опубликованным в журналах «Корея сегодня», «Корея» и «Кымсугансан».Большая часть внутренней топонимики и POI я брал из «Викимапии», которую скорее всего туда вносили бывавшие там туристы из Китая и России, а возможно даже иностранные студенты Университета имени Ким Ир Сена.Если Вам интересно, вот Вам старый ЖЖ студента из России, учившегося там в 2010-2011 годах.Сейчас этот блог заморожен.С Новым годом!

Wonyoung, I live in California, and have edited North Korea as a small act of expressing my desire for a better future for the people of North Korea.When I edit in North Korea it is because the people there can not.When editing North Korea I’m using the orthophotos and tracing.I have no on the ground knowledge of names or other data.What I can do is identify and trace what I see.I find that I often have to take a break and edit across the DMZ because it is depressing to edit in North Korea.My father brought back North Korea mortar fragments in his body and lived with the health impacts from them until the fragments ultimately killed him.I edit because when Korea is reunited there will be need for maps to help in building infrastructure for North Korea.Along the way I’ve identified various sites including naval weapons storage, palaces, farms, miles of unpaved roads traversed mostly by foot.I’ve gained an appreciation for Korean architecture as expressed by the roof lines.I’ve seen rail lines that end in mountains, I’ve seen potential, I’ve seen beauty… and while my level of activity comes and goes it remains a project that I’ll likely contribute to until people on the ground have access to edit the map for themselves.

However, the problem is that the residents in North Korea are not allowed to use this beautiful map and valuable data, since they don’t have access to the internet.Thus, it is hard to answer the questions like how you have access to the internet - if you’re in North Korea, or where you live, and most importantly, I am a resident of Germany.Shape mapping for the DPRK happens mostly from free-to-trace aerial imagery like Bing/DigitalGlobe.This is called “armchair mapping”.Anything beyond that like actual POI information (e.g. tourist attractions) I can only add after a visit to the country.Visitors report in youtube videos that unrestricted Internet is available to foreigners at select locations (e.g. Sunan Airport and Yanggakdo) if you have “the right amount of money”.why you contributed the data.I wonder the reason you have contributed to the OpenStreetMap data because of the research purpose, or just for fun.For every blank section in the map, there is nothing that could be done wrong by tracing off Bing – it does not make the map worse.I suspect that this OSM map is a result of state-led effort.I need something like 2 days to fully map 50 hectares of German residential area (=buildings) from nothing.This includes an initial Bing trace, then a GPS-assisted ground survey (things like house numbers, speed limits, …), and subsequent data entry into JOSM – 6000 nodes and 1400 ways.A worker that exclusively maps for OSM should – work pauses included – do these 6000 per week, or 48000 per 2 months.My personal average (over 4 years) as an unpaid contributor is about 25000 per 2 months.The current top 10 contributors to OSM/DPRK have only achieved ~66% of the 48k nodecount metric I expect from one worker.[ https://osmstats.neis-one.org/?item=countries&country=North%20Korea&date=8-1-2019 ].My conclusion is that the DPRK government is currently not employing any OSM editors, but if they do, it is in no significant capacity.(… I would really love to do government-assisted DPRK city ground surveys, but I suppose it remains wishful thinking for the time being…)

Hi Wonyoung, I visited North Korea in the summer of 2016 and later lived in South Korea for two years.After visiting I felt the need to map what I saw there.Especially since Google and Microsoft barely have any map data from that region.I mostly mapped using satellite imagery in North Korea.In South Korea I mapped from both satellite imagery and from what I saw walking on the streets.Other people that I know whom have visited North Korea have mapped using MAPS.ME (offline OpenStreetMap).MAPS.ME allows you to add points of interests (like restaurants, shops, monuments etc) to OpenStreetMap while offline.Then when you have an internet connection again it uploads these to OpenStreetMap.So part of the reason I contributed to OpenStreetMap is that they allowed me to map North Korea, but I also did it because I like that OpenStreetMap is uncensored.Google, Naver, Daum etc all censor certain South Korean areas that the government deems a risk to their nation if visible on the map.These areas include Government agencies, military areas, power plants and more.OpenStreetMap shows the world as it actually is.Contrary to popular belief North Korea does have internet.However, it’s only available in the North Korean Universities.Surprisingly enough it’s not filtered, just monitored.

Dear Wonyoung, I have just recently seen your mail; I was not expecting to receive feedback concerning Open Street Maps and was really surprised!Anyway, I am glad someone who shares one of my hobbies is interested in my contributions.Concerning your questions, mapping is just one of my spare time activities.I love maps, of any kind and country.One of my other passions is East Asia and their culture, especially China and North Korea.I have drawn maps of several other countries but what attracted me to North Korea was the fact that as people there do not usually have access to Open Street Maps, few maps have been drawn and a lot of work is still to be done.I find this and the fact that it is a very hermetic country fascinating.I also read books about North Korea and am interested in getting to know more about it for personal interest.In order to draw the maps, I used the satellite images already present in Open Street Maps, often comparing them to images provided by Google Earth.If the images were clear enough, I put the information down on the map - that’s all.Oh, and by the way I live in Europe.What about you?I wish you good luck and success with your studies.Best regards

안녕하세요.쪽지 잘 받았습니다.저는 남한(South Korea)에 살고 있고OSM에(OpenStreetMap)을 취미로 지도를 만들고(Mapping) 있습니다.OSM은 저작권에서 해방된 위성사진과 기여자들이 서버에 올린 gps 데이터를 기본적으로 이용합니다.저는 평양시내의 지도를 작성한적은 없고 북한지역의 철도를 매핑한 적은 있습니다.OSM의 기여자들은 자국의 지도뿐만 아니라 다른 나라의 지도도 매핑합니다.다만 현지 언어를 이해하기 어렵기때문에 자국의 지도를 더 많이 매핑합니다.궁금한 점 있으시면 언제라도 문의 바랍니다.

I don’t live in North Korea.I’ve mapped some military objects there just to tease their oppressive regime, and some surrounding civil areas for fun.

Hello Wonyoung!I’d be glad to provide you with what information I can on the reasons I’ve mapped the areas in North Korea that I have.I’m a hobbyist when it comes to cartography and mapping, and got involved with the OSM project a few years ago.I’m not from North Korea, but Ireland, though I have traveled extensively throughout my life, both for business and personal reasons.I’ve always been fascinated by North Korea and the politics that surround it.When I was exploring OSM not long after I got involved in it, I noticed how sparsely mapped the country is.Which makes sense given, as you pointed out, how its residents have no access to the wider internet.I decided that I would pick a region, in this case centering around the town of Sin-ni, and map what I could, starting first with the town and then spreading out from there.There’s no particular reason I chose to start there, it just seemed like a smaller town away from Pyongyang that had hardly any data for it.Looking at Pyongyang, and other North Korean cities, I would guess that any other foreigners mapping it might be doing so for the same reason as myself, curiosity and an interest in the region, or it may be as part of an almost humanitarian reason, to have accurate maps in case of a time when North Korea needs aid from the outside world.If you’ve any other questions do get in touch!All the best!

Hello, my mapping was just for fun.First: in early 2010s there was allways been rumours for future US-North Korea war, so may be exavt geodata may be useful for someone, or may be for spy stories.Second: in Russia we known that city planning of Phyonayg and other big cities looks like USSR city planning, so it’s fun to look it more details, while tracing aerial imagery.Also, i found that some map features in urban residential areas in North Korea was tagged incorrectly (many highway=residential beetwen apartments, but it should be highway=service) Third: i was a webmaster of popular russian-language website for tramway and trolleybus entusiasts, and photos from North Korea always were popular and begin funny discussions due to simlarity of trolleybus service to Donbass region.I use OSM as basemap to photo locations, and draw landuses to more clear map view of trolleybus and tramway systems.(http://transphoto.ru/photo/857132/)

I am not Korean, I live in North Dakota, United States.I just map occasionally in North Korea by tracing satellite imagery.

Hi Wonyoung, nice to hear about a study.I am a european citizen and I am living in europe and the US.So I am not a local.I am mapping mostly just for fun at places I find in the news, or about places I have been or I would like to go.Often its also about the missing data in the map what seems to motivate me to put data on a free map so everyone can use it (for example with maps.me)I didnt know that north korean citizen can not use the internet.But even if they cant use it, there could be the option to give devices with offline map data ;) but surely they would be arrested if they use it.but maybe international people living there could even use it because GPS is probably working there?could be interesting to know how this works there.How about you?Did you study at a university?Do you improve OSM database too?Did you go for an OpenStreetMap Conference or a Mapping Party?

Hello Wonyoung, because I am living in Germany (somewhere in Bavaria), access to the internet is not a problem for me at all.The only problem with my internet is speed, therefore downloading high resolution satellite imagery like landsat or operating systems can be relatively slowly in some locations.The main motivation for contributing to the data in Pyongyang has been fun, but there are also some idealistic reasonings and personal interests: 1. Living in Germany, the history of my country has something to do with split states, dictatorships and concentration camps.But I did not experience that personally.What I learned in school though, is, that we should do something against this.Mapping OSM data is the only thing I could think of personally to help Korea.Also, because of that history Korea is the Asian country I am most interested in.And it is very interesting to have a close look at the satellite imagery provided by bing for OSM.Additionally, I like the OSM data.Did you already find the nuke tests and concentration camps in the OSM data?They are all there (I did not upload that kind of data)!2. With my background as Geographer and Geoinformatician, I suffered often from unaccessible data.For example, if I want to have digital elevation models of my country in a resolution higher than 50x50 meters, I have to ask my professor that hates to talk to students to get them, or alternatively, pay money I do not have to my government.I hate that, and I hate my government for that.I know, that Estonia, Austria, Korea, and maybe many other countries are more progressive when it comes to open data.But open government data has also one problem: if I do not live in that country, normally I do not know where I can download that data.Did you know that you can get open data of Austria from basemap.at?Therefore, I just take OSM.Additionally, I believe many students globally have the same problem, and this is why we need OSM.3. I guess, most of the data of Pyongyang is from me.It took me about 2-4 days, and is some years old now.Your presumption, this might be a state-led effort, is wrong, at least for the data I published.There is a reason why I chose Pyongyang though: I believe, one of the main problems of North Korea is being isolated from the rest of the world.As far, as I know, Pyongyang is a free market zone between China and North Korea.Contact to China is better than no contact at all, and the border to South Korea is… difficult, I guess?Therefore, Pyongyang can be a hotspot against isolation.Therefore, it would be nice to have a map?At the point I created the data I did not know, that OSM is illegal and blocked in China.But the Chinese can use the tor network, I guess?Some further notes: Bing Satellite imagery is from microsoft, yes.But the OSM project can use them for free to create a free map of the world.Meaning, if an individual uses that image they are not generally connected to microsoft or any state, at least financially or ideologically.What is true about the OSM project is, that most contributors (yes, they are male) have a professional background in Geo Sciences or IT, and mainly come from the west (there are papers that showed that).This implicates statistically, they are often ideologically near to western values, but most often more left wing, because they do not like patents ore closed data or high finance (I don’t know whether there are papers on that, but I have lots of anecdotical evidence on that).Because of that background, they often also work for the state, because one of the main applications to Geo Science is stuff in public authority.But most of them do OSM in their free-time.There are some exceptions though: for example, most of the data in USA is data from the state.Have a look at Netherlands (40000km²), it’s size is 1GB, and Germany is 3GB (area: 350000 km²).The first is state data, the second crowdsourced data from nerds like me.And there are many companies earning money with OSM, also data creation.As far as I know, they sit in India.Some further questions: could you please tell me whether my thoughts on Pyongyang were right?Or did I overlook something major?What is your perspective on the Korea conflict in regard of OSM?And what is your perspective on OSM?Is this just something for idealistic Western male professionals or could this also be something for Koreans or people of other countries in the world?Why?Can you share your research on the information technology environment of North Korea with me?

답변드립니다.북한 지역의 데이터는 우리나라에서는 사용하기 힘듭니다.특히 gis로 이용할 수 있는 것은 더욱 그렇죠.저는 건물에 대한 정보는 조금 편집했고, 영어로 편집된 자료를 번역했습니다.행정구역을 편집한 적도 있는데, 광복 당시의 옛날 지도나 저작권에서 자유로운 외국 지도를 보고(저작권법, 공간정보관리법 때문입니다.) 역으로 위키백과 등에서 행정구역 변천을 확인해서 위성 사진을 참조하여 현재와 맞게 편집한 것입니다.나라에서 제공하는 정보도 정밀한 자료는 저작권이 있거나 찾기 힘들더라고요.이 데이터로 언론사나, 국내의 gis 사용자들이 데이터를 자유롭게 쓸 수 있도록 하는 마음에서 데이터를 편집한 것입니다.저는 대학생인데, 앞으로 고시 공부를 할 계획이라서 좀 바빠질 것 같습니다.하지만 이 답변으로 궁금증이 해소되셨으면 합니다.

Good morning!My name is Andreas, I’m a german software developer and fan of OpenStreetMap for over 10 years.These days, almost all of Europe is basically complete - you can just correct a few things or update after a shop closes.When I started, OSM had just a few roads in the area where I lived.It was fun to add new roads, to draw on a blank canvas.It’s something that I missed.So, one evening, I decided to find a new blank canvas and North Korea is basically just that.I traced a few roads from Bing(?) images.Quality was bad and it was hard to see what was what in the grey on grey images.I did similar edits in Africa.Basically, my reason for the edit was Nostalgia :-)

I just did some road and building maping every one in a while when Bing satellite images of the north became available,while at the same time trying to get a somewhat better understanding of the country for myself by looking at images of various areas.Otherwise I have no idea about other contributors, or their motivation.I only know of one other mapper here in Germany with a similar motivation.

Hello Wonyoung, you asked how and why I contributed to OSM in North Korea.I am from Germany and did it just for fun using Bing images and similar sources.Regards

Hello Wonyoung, I received your letter and appreciate a lot.Great to hear from you and your studies.A couple of years ago I did an openstreetmap task in which I try to map every day data in a different country until every country was check on a list.During this I spent some time mapping in North Korea.More than 90 percent of my OSM contributions are basic mapping like highways, roads rivers or tracks.Things that are essential for a general map and useful for the people.I was not focussed on a special area or city.My task always started on manual chosen areas with high resolution images and less OSM data.No other special criteria.Because of I’m living in Germany, there are no restrictions to use the internet. ;-)I use maps based on OSM and therefore it is just a simple task to get a small thing back.My preferred way is mapping and do some little corrections.In former times more regular than now.This because of different interests and a good OSM data base which is really helpful and easy to use.What are your study case and background?Regards

Hi, Wonyoung, I map North Korea to help North Koreans.I select areas that look like they might be good points to escape.In particular, the detailed mapping around Phungso-ri (풍서리) is almost entirely my work.I mostly map along the Tumen River, both on the North Korean and Chinese sides.It is important to map the fences, roads, and towns on the Chinese side.I do not expect that many North Koreans have access to OpenStreetMap yet.However, technology such as DVD players and mobile phones is being imported from China.Smartphones will be imported, and OpenStreetMap can be hidden in a smartphone.There is probably no or almost no OpenStreetMap mapping by North Koreans within North Korea.Internet access is extremely restricted, and communists are always paranoid about maps.The penalty would be re-education at least.(You may know that citizen mapping is also illegal in China.This is probably the main reason why the quality of OpenStreetMap coverage in most Chinese cities is so poor.Their stupid GCJ-02 system only makes this worse.I would be interested in a copy, even if it is in Korean.)This is a manual, time-consuming process.I am most interested in roads and paths.When mapping other parts of the world, I do not usually trace buildings or fences, but near the Korean border I do, because these features are dangerous for people who are trying to cross the border.In some places, the imagery has low contrast, which makes it difficult to see fine details.This is especially the case with the border fence on the Chinese side: the fence itself is mostly invisible but sometimes its shadow can be seen.In other places, only 30m resolution imagery is available, which is useless for mapping.Over the past few years, more companies have donated imagery to OpenStreetMap, so now the imagery coverage of much of North Korea is much better than when I was most active in mapping the border.I cannot label any of the features that I map, because this requires local knowledge.When I map buildings, I don’t even know what kind of buildings they are.Houses are obvious, but there are larger buildings, sometimes built around courtyards, that could be farms or could be government or military buildings.These are the most important buildings to map, because they are potentially the most dangerous.I hope that North Koreans will know, based on the outlines of these buildings, what kinds of buildings they are.I selected places to map based on a balance of three things:1. How easily North Koreans can reach the area How populated the surrounding countryside is (on both sides of the border) 3.How easy the border is to cross Based on these three guiding principles, I chose places on the Tumen River (the Yalu seems more difficult to cross) which are several km from small towns.Although mapping such a different country from only satellite imagery is difficult and slow, this is not the biggest problem.The greatest challenge is motivation, because I don’t know if my work will be useful.If we knew that OpenStreetMap was helping North Koreans, the community would unite to quickly map the country.The situation for ordinary people in North Korea fills me with despair, especially because it seems like we can’t do anything to help.So I mapped because there was a chance (yes, a very small chance) that the work could be useful for helping people to escape North Korea.

Hi Wonyoung, I am mapping from Germany.I have never been in NK but I am highly interested in Korea and have read a lot about it.My sources are reports, sat images, pictures, videos and so on.I learned a lot from my research on Korea.I check hardly ever my osm messages.You can contact me via mail, if you have questions.I am highly interested in the outcome of your survey.Please leave a message if you get responses from NK, or if you find out where the detailed data comes from.

Hi bizarre07, if i remember weel, i have ideed do a bit of maping in North Korea a few years ago.Mainly the islands, near the border just north to Seoul.Like the island of On-dong (with seem like completly a military base to me).I am not sure but i have also probably do a bit of maping inside of Pyongyang too at the time.My motivation, was two fold : 1) at the time i have help a bit to the HOT project (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team), mainty for African and Indian places.This have influenced me on the idea “where can i map to help people” ?North-Korea was one of the response, because by looking the Korean peninsula it’s easy to see the lack of datas (even if there is far less roads).In the same way, i have also maped in Ethiopia… 2) Korean dramas like Spy MyeongWol (and maybe also stranger doctor) !The first episodes have a few scenes in a actual Pyongyang.This reconstituation is probably far from reality (of course is was done at the real place).But this give me the idea : Why not a bit of maping here ?Thats all.Feel free to ask me more regards

Hi Wonyoung, I’m just an OpenStreetMap editor from the Netherlands and I edited in North Korea just for fun.I always had an enormous intrest in North Korea, so I wanted to do some editing from home, to see how the country looks from the sky.Kind Regards

Just fun.:) not korean

Hi, yes, I mapped some rural parts of North Korea a few years ago.I am from Germany and only participate in the OSM project for fun and because I believe in the values behind open data.From time to time I map areas which are massively underdeveloped in OpenStreetMap - thus also North Korea.North Korea is also a very interesting subject as the data of commercial data providers such as Microsoft/Google is very sparsely here.If Korea reunites one day the OSM data might be very useful.Regards

Hi Wonyoung, I am based in Germany.For me it was at the time more a kind of just for fun mapping.(to explore a mysterious country Grüße Ralf by mapping and sat imagery) Grüße Ralf

Hello Wonyoung, the answer is easy: fun.If you like to know more about the other contributors please use http://neis-one.org.

Hi, don’t know what the other 888 contributers are doing, but i can tell you, what i do: i’m running a QA-Webservice for OSM internal usage Missing Boundaries for details read web page intro.Sometimes i’ll FIX BOUNDARIES ERRORS even in PRK.That’s all.

Hi Wonyoung, It’s nice to see that open data gets more and more important for research.The reason why I contributed data in North Korea is very simple: it was just for fun.As far as I can remember, I read something about a new hydro-power dam in the news and tried to find it within the OSM editor using Bing satellite images.There are also edits from me in Russia or southern Africa where I simply tracked some roads in the wilderness from satellite images because I had some spare time and I like the concept of creating a free map of the world.I hope this helps you with your research.Best regards

Hi Wonyoung, to answer your questions: I’m from Czechia, I didn’t contribute much, but I have been mapping some North Korean internment camps,, using broadly available satellite imagery.My primary motivation are human rights: getting proper information about these camps is hard and mapping is one of the few possibilities.I’m not connected to any organization.Secondary motivation is to learn something myself and also have some fun.I’m curious about your findings - I was also quite surprised about Pyongyang - so if you publish something about this topic I would be very interested :-) Cheers, Jan

Hi, I’ve been to North Korea and I contributed on return from what I remembered and from the pictures I took.The OSM mapping community is very diverse and there are many different motivations on why people might contribute.North Korea is a country which is a lot in the news and due to the secrecy around it it attracts mappers from all over the world.Traditionally the more secret something is, the more motivation is there to put it on the map.You might want to look for South Korean military or NIS installations on Naver or Daum maps and you will see that they have been covered with fake patches of mountains or rice fields.Obviously OSM is impossible to censor, so those places will be mapped eventually.In North Korea, you will find internment camps and nuclear test sites mapped.Certainly some NGO workers like in the Red Cross are mappers, because they rely on good maps for their work, so this is where I’d look for in North Korea, I don’t think there is any state actor at play, and certainly not from the North Korean administration.

Hi, North Korea is simply a blind spot on osm where you can contribute easily far more than in other areas.That’s simply it.

Hi bizzare07, or should I say Wonyoung (So (i guess))?It takes a lot of thinking about what I should answer on your request.I even thought about not to answer at all.Back the days I mapped North Korea I do this with a good intention in mind.I hope my answer don’t look rude but I was a bit skeptical about my mappings in NK after I read your message.I never had in mind anyone could get in trouble, if i map a few villages.Today i sit here, on the other side of the planet, and think about those wo may be in trouble accused beeing a spy.Yes, I’am not from Korea, but from Germany, Europe.Why I mapped NK?There are huge white areas on the map.On rainy days, I map some white areas time to time, started in Sweden, someday I found some white places in NK and started to draw a few first lines, all with the help of Microsoft Bing maps.So you can say it’s “just for fun”, but for me it’s not only for the fun.I didn’t know if you have learned something about european, especcialy the german history in the past.From 1961 until 1989 there was two german countries, like North- and South Korea.We called them “Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (Federal Republic of Germany) and “Deutsche Demokratische Republik” (German Democratic Republic).You may guess, the state with democratic in it’s name was not that democratic as it sounds.Today, 30 years later and after 30 years of a united Germany it’s still in the head of the people.Unitil today it’s common language to say “I travelled to East-Germany”(slang for German Democratic Republic).So, I’am politically interessted in North- and South Korea but without an understanding of your culture.With this in mind, I thought about the day, when Korea is only Korea.A united Korea.What will happen on this day?Maybe it’s a good idea to study german history, especially in between of 1945 until today.Be asure the border, even if you can not see a fence, a wirefence or a guard-tower anymore, it will be in your heads.Also be sure it will be a “they” and “we” for a long time.And so we come to my desicion to map a few lines only from a bad Microsoft satellite-image: it’s beacause you will need it in the future!Think about the day you can travel to this part of the country for whatever reason, and you only have a blinking blue GPS-dot in the middle of nowhere on your smartphone.A map is essentially to plan new infrastructure.It’s important to see where you are, and where to go next, and wich way you choose.Or in OSM-Language: you can only see a huge road on the map, like “highway:primary” around a huge forrest for example.This is what you may also see on Google-Maps.But what you not see, that there is a “highway:track” in a good state right through the forrest, because Google algorithem can’t “see” them due to missing head-maps in that area or because the image-recognition can’t find a road between the trees.I hope this is answer helps you a lot and maybe it gives you a new way to read and see maps.Am I allowed to ask you to get a result of your researches?Or even a few updates time to time when another few of the 888 remaining contributors answered?I’am also very impressed to see how well Pyongyang is mapped, and I also asked the same questions as you, how in the world this is possible.

Hello, I contributed to the North Korea map for fun and by chance.I have mapped different places in the world through satellite images and, driven by curiosity, also a bit of northern Korea.driven by curiosity, also a bit of northern Korea.I am not North Korean but Italian so I can not answer your question about Internet access by the inhabitants of the North Korean.

Hi!I often map for humanitarian aid (HOTOSM), for my study or just for fun.I’m 99% sure I mapped some parts in North-Korea because it was lacking on OSM (so just for fun).Good luck with your research!

Hello Wonyoung, North Korea is really closed, so it was interesting for us to learn more about North Korea and discover it with some satellite images.Because of this we started mapping some areas mostly for fun.Best from Germany.

Dear Wonyoung, I am not a north korean citizen.However I like to contribute to the Open Street Map project in my free time.I believe it is important that there is good map material even of remote areas, such as north korea.So I added some roads I saw on satelite footage, as well as some buildings in the Yodok prison camp.As I do not have any inside knowledge about north korea, I used satelite imagery and some additional information I found in an article about north korean prison camps.If you have any questions or suggestions let me know.

Hello Wonyoung, I have been using aerial imagery to contribtute to the map.I’m from Europe and I’ve never been in North Korea.Regards,

Hello Wonyoung, Well - I’m a German living in Turkey and discovered OSM 11 years ago.So I started to map Siberia and later Turkey because Germany had a lot more busy users already mapping Germany but Turkey more or less was BLANK! ;)I have to say that I did not map very much in the Koreas ;) Years ago the OSM map of North Korea was still VERY empty and I was just curious which areas had imagery (at that time only Yahoo was available guess).I remember having stumbled upon a sat imagery of a big North Korean concentration camp/prison 화성 제16호 관리소, https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/7729427 which I wanted to add… I don’t like secrets.Therefore I love OSM which is open-source and crowd-sourced similar to wikipedia but less bureaucratic than WP and no big dinosaur behind like MS or Google.OSM is a bit similar to a game where you have to find solutions to riddles… ;) For some months now I’m busy in the PRC - their GPS has built-in offset, no info on town boundaries, naming of roads, no good sources etc.

Hello Wonyoung Thanks for reaching out.These messages come into a mailbox that I don’t read that often.Sorry for the delay in replying.I live in the Netherlands and I’m an early contributor to OSM.In the beginning of this century I’ve been on holiday in North Korea / DPRK (I know, not the usual holiday destination).At a mapping party one asked about the most interesting place people had mapped.One of the answers at that time was Bagdad.That triggered me to look at Pyongyang, one of the most interesting places I had visited.At that time it had remarkable good aerial imagery in Bing (only Pyongyang).With that I decided to start mapping the city (basically the streets) and added the POIs of places I knew from visiting (hotel, museum, that sort of thing).So basically, I started mapping this “for fun”.Not only to be able to tell a fun story, but also to show what OSM could do.At that time there was no map data available.It was completely blank on Google Maps, Bing, Yahoo, etc.Later, at an OSM conference (State of the Map), I’ve heard of someone else that the UN WFP were also using OSM because it was the only map available.Completely forgot who it was and which edition of the conference it was.Hope this gives the background you are looking for :-) Would be interested to know who the other users are, so if you could share your findings that would be great.No need for the actual names of the persons.But more the questions you also have: what motivated them and from where are they.Good luck!Regards

Hi Wonyoung, I am italian and living in Italy.I contributed in North Korea for fun (I read and watch documentaries a bit about NK since I find it a nice “anachronism”) and because it was mostly empty when I looked at it on OSM.If you need any help to add more information you could organise some remote mapping party with the tasking manager.(and if you could reach out to NK refugees it would be cool to have first hand information, I actually don’t believe that NK was mapped by locals…) Regards

Hi Wonyoung, I did it just for fun realizing they have greate satellite coverage and almost no OSM data.after watching a documentary on North Korea and realizing they have greate satellite coverage and almost no OSM data.I’ve did some tracing, someone else added metadata and voila - with the power of croudsourcing we now have a map even if the locals can’t access it.

Hi, Wonyoung!I’m so sad that Koreans haven’t internet access.I’m from Russia and we have very good home and mobile 4G internet access.It gives access to see and to mapping OpenStreetMap technologies on the street and by JOSM at home.I mapped some Korean places by bing and DigitalGlobe imagery in JOSM because I interested about people live in other countries -by digital satellite imagery I can imagine it.And I hope my mapping can give some help people in foreign cities and countries.I think you are right in the small part where you said about OSM as government project.In USA and in EU, some in Japan government give many free data to import and public in OSM but volunteers and simple mappers as i and you do greatest work and collect greatest actual data around the world by digitizing satellite imagery, collecting POI with smartphones (by MAPS.ME, Osmand, Streetcomplete and similar applications), GPX-traces by Garmin trackers.For example, in Russia many borders of nature reserves publicated in the law texts as coordinates (corner points) but not in the map - so we must shape these coordinates in the lines (borders) and public them in OSM.Many interesting objects (monuments, art-objects and sculptures) were mapped with tag “image=*” (see for example: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2712458863).I’m afraid about situation in the North Korea, but I don’t think about OSM as government project - it’s a human project, in the most - “hand-made”.And I will map all around the world, in Pyongyang too, because I mean this activity helpful for people around the world.And you can do Openstreetmap better too by many ways: mapping, programming, developing mobile application, collecting data and organizing the people.Best wishes

Hello, I was not there, I only repaired damadged boundaries with OSM data from the time before the damage.Cheers

Hi, I’m from Belarus.There is few reason why I was made a lot of contribution to OSM: 1.Google maps in Belarus are bad 2.Our post-soviet (ex USSR) goverment don’t let companys from Belarus easyly work with map data.So a lot of people start use OSM.And as a result in Belarus was created OSMAnd, Maps.me, Galileo.3.When I started cycling - I started maping OSM.Draw map in other countries - It’s good way to see how people live.

Hi, Just for fun!

Hi, for me the main motivation for editing OSM in North Korea is my interest on North Korea, its geography and matters related to the country.From an European point of view it's a wildly different country, and editing the map in NK allows me to form some kind of understanding on the geography, where people live, how densely it's settled etc.On the other hand a major motivation is to make sure there's some openly available data of the country available, since they're unlikely to publish that themselves.I'm doing the editing out of a personal interest, and am not in any way related to any state or organisation having an interest in the map data themselves.It's an interesting query you're doing; if you get some results or understanding on what kind of people are editing the NK map, it'd be very interesting to hear about it.Thanks in advance!

Hello, Thanks for contacting me.To let you know more a bit about me, I’m a French OSM contributor.As I’m aware of the particular context of North Korea, I wanted to check what the data on OSM looked like there, and the status of available data sources.I was surprised by the quality of aerial images available online, which let people add details remotely to the map.I did some mapping in order to test this and was able to add some roads in some cities.This was done only by myself, not demanded by any organization or institution.Hope this helps you in your studies, and would be interested to follow your work.Regards,

Hello from Germany All data I contributed to OSM years ago in North Korea were just extracted from satellite imagery without local knowledge.I can’t remember the exact reason these days but mostly this happened after reading any printed articles or watching television documentary.Years ago it was better to have a map only from satellite imagery then to have no roads at all in OSM.Kind regards

Hi Wonyoung, I’m not academically involved in OSM, but use it very regularly to navigate and find POIs, so I make it a good habit to add missing POIs myself and correct obvious errors in the map whenever I see them.I do recall making some edits to North Korea a while ago, adding missing roads and buildings to the map if I remember correctly.I haven’t visited the area myself yet, so this was purely based on satellite imagery.Good luck with your research, and best wishes from the United Kingdom!

Hello Wongyoung, I’m a Dutch OSM user and have indeed contributed to the North Korean map (mostly adding road in remote parts of the country).This mainly has two reasons: All roads and buildings in the Netherlands (my home country) have already been mapped.Therefore, I like to contribute to the maps of countries that are missing basic features like roads.These can be easily mapped using the aerial imagery.Thus, I have contributed to the maps of North Korea, China, South Korea, and Indonesia.I am kind of intrigued by North Korea.It is a truly isolated and mysterious country.Mapping North Korea teaches something about how the country looks like (or at least the layouts of road, villages, and building).I’m mapping just for fun and am certainly not part of a North Korean state-led effort to map North Korea.I hope I have answered your question right and good luck with studying North Korean OSM data.Kind regards

Hi Wonyoung, For me it was just because of curiosity, and I’m sure that was the motivation for other people as well, since “interesting” places attract mappers.A considerable amount of OSM mapping is done only using satellite imagery.

Hello!Sorry, I’m not from North Korea.I’ve been doing this for fun and for North Koreans to have map when they get access.Best regards

Hello Wonyoung, The reason why I started mapping North Korea is as follows.I think that all the people of the world, should be united.And should have acces to everything to have good and healty lifes.But the people who live in North Korea don’t even know what’s outside their country.They live in terrible conditions, and don’t even know if it’s better somewere else in the world.I also think that the regime is behaving terrible towards their own people.So I started mapping there for a reason.It might help in the future a little bit, if they gain legal acceas to the internet, to nevigate around their ow country.It’s all for the good of human kind.Thanks for your message by the way :).Kind Regards

Hi, Just for fun, looking for area with two criteria : good quality of satellite photo and no much contributors.I tried once, on north corean area.Best.

Hi.Sorry for the very long delay in replying, but I lost interest in OSM for a while and went on a mapping hiatus.Now I’m regaining interest in it because it’s somewhat novel to me again and because I have a little more free time.I contributed to the map in North Korea because when I first made my account, I looked up which parts of the world were least mapped and saw North Korea on the list.This also piqued my interest because I am mildly interested in their current political situation, but I don’t have any other connection with Korea.The edits I made were strictly in a personal capacity and not for any government or organization.I decided to work on North Korea because it was interesting to me.I felt proud of mapping areas that were mostly unmapped, as if I was leaving a greater mark by adding major roads in a faraway place than cleaning up side streets back home.My edits were strictly tracing roads etc. from satellite imagery.I also thought that even though North Koreans can’t access the Internet, detailed maps might still be useful to someone, like an organization trying to study North Korea.In the back of my head, I thought that if the country were liberated in the near future, the people would be surprised to learn that foreigners had already mapped their country!I hope I’ve provided you a useful explanation.If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me in the future.

Hi Wonyoung, I’m a mapper from Germany.Berlin, where I’m currently living, is well-mapped.Therefore I sometimes look for some blank area on the map, where I can start mapping from scretch (even if it’s only via satellite imagery).And, even it’s hard to imagine now, there might be a future where the North Koreans can access the internet.Then it would be nice to have open and noncommercial knowledge available.Since not everybody will answer your message, you might use the tools ‘OSM Heat Map’ (http://yosmhm.neis-one.org) and ‘How did you contribute to OpenStreetMap?’ (http://hdyc.neis-one.org/) to get a indication where the contacted mappers live.Best

Hi!I’m not from North Korea, but was (and still is) interested in that country (still think of visiting it one day).

Unfortunately, I can’t help you much with your research.I live in Europe, and mostly contribute to the map in Europe (though as you can see from the edit history, I also did some minor contributions to the map in China, South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia when I was there).Mostly, my contributions are based on being there on the ground, but for inaccessible places, such as railway lines, I also used aerial images.However, I also contributed a little bit to the map in a few places without having been there: Gabon, North Korea and the Iran / Afghanistan border area.For those, my contributions were based on aerial images only.Considering the topic of your research, you might be interested in the situation in Belarus, where considerable data was donated to OSM by the government years ago, AFAIR mostly on waterways, lakes and forests.This resulted in the map of Belarus being substantially more detailed in some aspects than the map of the rest of Europe.There are multiple motivations for my contributions to OSM.* I want geographical data and maps to be free.This was an important motivation back when OSM was still a much smaller project and even many towns in Europe where essentially just blankspace on OSM, while non-free maps had more detailed data.* Practical purposes: I do use OSM, and make improvements that also benefit me.* Fun; sometimes I wonder what some kind of infrastructure in some place is like, and having it on the map helps with that.

Dear Wonyoung, I’m very glad to receive your email.I live in China, where is close to the North Korea border.When I travelled in China and drove on the highway along the border, I could see the roads, railways, and villages in North Korea.I only just made some minor adjustments to some roads based on the satellite map purely for fun.I didn’t really add anything new.Hope that answers your question.

Hi, Thank you for asking.It is a long time since I contribute in North Korea from France.First I want to “inform” about “working camps” so I start that way, looking for informations in the “open” world to locate thoses camps and add them to the map.So later I might have add some roads and other things using aerial maps (microsoft/ bing maps).I just do OSM for my pleasure, I have some other jobs IRL liked with computers.I hope I answer most of your questions.Regards, Marc Sibert marc@sibert.

Hi Wonyoung!I’m from Croatia, and mapping North Korea is just fun for me.North Korea is kind of a mystical please due to its regime, so that is what brought me there.I have a question for you.We in Croatia have lots of South Korean tourists here.Is it all because of the reality TV show about old actors visiting our cities?Or is it something else?Thanks!

Hi Wonyoung, I’m just a “normal mapper” who fixes mapping errors all over the world from time to time.Regards

Hello Wonyoung, I live in Germany and sometimes the news magazines tell something about North Corea (and other countries) and then I try to find the locations on the map.And in some cases I have added data in the OSM database.In North Corea I have added very few data.There is no state-led effort, it is a hobby.Regards

Hello.Thanks.I wish, Koreas will unite soon and stand in the forefront of humanity, in the forefront of the Biosphere.Our life and the world will become more difficult and interesting.In other matters, as always.Good luck.

Hey!I can’t speak for the rest of the OSM North Korea contributors, but i’m not part of any state-sponsored effort.I’m a Canadian computer science student with an interest in mapping.Outside of its capital, North Korea seemed largely unmapped.I was intrigued by the possibility (however unlikely) of mapping (publicly)?undocumented military facilities.

Dear Wonyoung, Thanks for your email!As a frequent OSMapper I sometimes like to zoom in to a random (empty) area in a fun/interesting/random country and start mapping. It is nice to see what the landscape is like and how social-geographic things are, and I always feel like helping the people who live there with a map. This way I ended up in North Korea as well.I was however wondering if people could use OSM there, and if I was not helping the regime in a way I would regret. So I’m happy to receive your message and hear a bit of the social background. Sorry for answering so late, I’m not often reading my OSM messages. Kind regards from The Netherlands!

Hi.First I like OSM.I use it in my hardware navigator.It is my map, i make it and then i use it in place.After survey i correct errors.Second.Some years ago OSM has become popular and quite detailed.So many big map operators in our country make their maps much better to don’t lose customers.Detailed maps are no longer state secrets.(the same will happen with the map for North Koreans in one day) If I encounter for other people’s knowledge in memoirs literature I use this information and Bing imagery for mapping.So I was interested and mapping in Korea after reading the book “Escape From Camp 14”.In USA I mapped while use some of error find engines (validator).Correct errors or map some interesting places using Bing satellite imagery.See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Quality_assurance For some motivation see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Category:Humanitarian_OpenStreetMap_Projects Register and find forum thread for your country on https://forum.openstreetmap.org If there is no such then write to administrators to create. See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Forum Try to learn and use Josm.https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/JOSM Wish you success.

Hi!I did this for fun.I wondered how well mapped North Korea would be, and when I saw it was well mapped, I thought I’d help a bit more.Exactly because it’s so isolated, it’s more interesting to map and more useful, too.

Hi, I contribute to OSM from the Netherlands, without any politic background.I’ve mapped some parts in North-Korea just like I’ve mapped some parts in Africa, where people even don’t have acces to the internet.Grtz

Hi Wonyoung, To quickly answer your question: I am living in Austria/Europe and did some mapping for some research about the country and for “fun”.I read some news about North Korea and then I did some research about the country, the border, prisons, … in the Internet.then I did some research about the country, the border, prisons, … in the Internet.I looked at the sat-images on Google Maps and OpenStreetMap and did some mapping.Wish you the best with your research, best,

Hi, actually I’m from Czech republic (in the middle of Europe).I edited Korean borders and North Korean data, just because it’s pretty interesting place on World (that separation of both states) and if in any future there will be any opening of DPRK to other visitors, I would like to have precise maps for visiting that country.That’s all.Sincirely

I updated the information about my motivation in my profile, which was long overdue.You can find it there.I may have contributed to osm in North Korea, but only very little and only if satellite image were provided in appropriate resolution.To me this is a nice way to learn something about other countries.But it’s just for fun in this case since I never travelled to North Korea nor do I have such plans.

Dear sir/madam North Korea has many nuclear bombs.I think they can afford to make their maps.I want to make a beautiful map of South Korea in my life.So I do not want to waste my time for it.Thank you.

Hi Mr.Wonyoung, I live in Austria (Europe) and mapped somwhere in North Korea just for fun.I know a bit about the situation in North Korea and i am very sorry for the people living there.I am in no connection to the government or and Person in North Korea.Regards

Hi there, I am was just “arm chair mapping” a bit.I know about the limitations and I prefer “craft mapping”, but in some areas, it can be a valuable activity.Cheers

Hello, I don’t live in North Korea.I have fix errors in North Korea (and some other places in the world) remotely with Osmose (http://osmose.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/).My motivation to contribute in general is to make an alternative to services like Google Maps.And I sometimes remotely fix some errors to help improving the quality of OSM, not only in my country (France).

Hi Wonyoung, Thanks for taking interest!The truth is probably far less spectacular than you might expect.I’m just a mapper based in Barcelona, Spain and although I do of course map in my surroundings or places I go to, I also love to randomly pick remote places of the earth and contribute there as well.North Korea was just one among many, actually it was some time ago and It wasn’t so much either if I remember correctly.You are asking for motivation.Well, the bottom line her is that I always have liked maps and what better than meaningfully contribute to this great project.Humanity is facing many challenges and Openstreetmap will definitely be part of the solution, not part of the problem, as simple as that - and being part of it, as small as it might be, fills me with great pride.The better we can make this map the better tool we have to make this a better place.If you have doubts or more questions just let me know.Cheers!

Hey Wonyoung.I’m from the United States.At that time (about a year or so ago, IIRC) I was just going around and mapping stuff all over the world for fun.I would guess that some of the other 889 contributors like me from around the world were curious about NK, with their secrecy and whatnot, and decided to go look through it on OSM.Just my thoughts, though.

My only edit in North Korea was to fix something that was incorrect. I have no interest in mapping in NK.

Hi, Wonyoung: I’ve mapped little in North Korea.My sole interest is for fun and improving the map of North Korea, as I do everywhere else.Cheers

Hi, Actually I’m not a North Korean, I’m from a more souther country Taiwan.I might leave some trace mapping some stuff in North Korea.I think most of OpenStreetMap mappers mapping in North Korea, are not from the peninsula.Compare to Google Map Maker with a more Korea particpate.As also a Wikipedian contributers, OpenStreetMap mappers some are willing to share knowledge, so they map area with total complete like North Korea.

Exactly speaking, I never contributed to OSM areas of North Korea.I did some GPS tracking on Chinese-Korean border.That was a unrestricted area few years ago and I could move freely on Chinese side of Yalu river, with my bicycle.It’s much easier than traveling in border zone in Xinjiang.OSM mapping and GIS in generally speaking is my side hobby.I’m doing that as a part of bicycle traveling.

Wonyoung, My contributions to Openstreetmap’s data for North Korea are limited to a few unnamed streets and paths near a single town.I had already added a lot of detail to my hometown near Atlanta, Georgia, and was a little bored, so I picked a random village in North Korea and filled in the streets visible from the satellite image.I knew data from the area was sparse, and that it volunteers where systematically mapping North Korea in the same way and thought it might make their work a little easier.I later did the same thing in South Sudan, picked a random town and filled in the visible streets.I have noticed that unmapped parts of North Korea seem to be easier to fill in than those in the poorer parts of Africa.There roads in wetter areas are often obscured by trees, and in dryer areas towns are often linked by meandering braided paths instead of defined roads, since it is easy to just drive in a straight line through the Sahel, while North Korea is temperate and filled with defined farm fields, which makes adding in roads easier.North Korea might get more attention from Americans than other under-mapped places, since it is frequently in the news and people are more familiar with how poor, authoritarian, and isolated it is compared to other unlucky countries.I hope this helps your study.

Hi Wonyoung, Thanks for reaching out.I’m as “OpenStreetMap armchair mapper” which means I rely on satellite imagery and streetside imagery like Mapillary.com to map far away places.I mainly perform Quality Assurance tasks, e.g. fixing typos in tags or geometry errors.In Pyongyang I was mostly active to fix the metro route relations and add missing subway segments and stations.I never was actually in North Korea on the ground.OSM is just my hobby.I use mapping for relaxation after my day job which is unrelated to geography :) Let me know if you have any additional question. Greetings from Leipzig, Germany.

Hi I contribute just for fun.I live in the United Kingdom Regards

Hi Wonyoung, What exactly in py profile makes you think I am korea-based?I am not.Best wishes

Hi Wonyoung Actually I live in Switzerland and did not contribute to North Korea on purpus.From time to time I do some error corrections of coastlines and geometry on OSM regardless of the location.That was the reason of my contribution to the North Korea area.Regards

You can get answers to your questions by looking at the edit history of mappers in the area.My edits in Korea were mostly as part of the area fixing project: http://area.jochentopf.com/ Like many QA projects, it has a global scope.Kind Regards

Hi Wonyoung, My edits in North Korea are very limited (116 changes in 2 changesets), so I may not be the right person to ask.But I’ll still try to answer your questions.From memory I watched a documentary on North Korea and curiosity brought probably brought me to take a look at Pyongyang.My edits would most like be correcting a few mistakes based on the aerial imagery of the area.I have never been to North Korea myself, and it is not a priority for me.

Hey Wonyoung, I’ve been an OSM mapper for many years now, OSM is incredibly popular in Germany, we have local groups and larger associations that keep the maps up to date and extend wherever we can.I mainly do OSM mapping, for two main reasons: I use the maps all the time myself, so I might as well contribute where I can.It fits in nicely with other hobbies of mine, like Geocaching and amateur radio operation.So I use OSM to help my other hobbies, and I use my other hobbies to do OSM mapping, it all just fits in nicely.My main focus when mapping, is construction sites.So I check on mapped construction sites and see if they’ve progressed, and how temporary street routing is changed, while construction takes place on roads, etc.Another one is amenities, like recycling sites, benches, waste baskets, vending machines, etc.As well as land-mark structures, like statues, sculptures, etc.And also infrastructural devices, substations, hydrants, access to pipelines, etc.And a relatively recent focus of mine, is old bunkers, and structures that are either partially or completely under ground.Now why did I contribute to North Korean (DPRK) mapping?Well, because I simply found an error, and decided to fix it.Whether or how much of the mapping in DPRK is done by state individuals, I have no answer, but whichever it is, it is at least some sort of contribution.If they should ever decide to falsify the data as some sort of state-agenda, I believe that’d be a fool’s errand on their end, as people would find mistakes quickly, and correct them.Furthermore, OSM, like any Wiki-Software, has a changelog history.So even trying to destroy map data by simply deleting it, would do nothing, you’d simply revert the changes.Now, OSM maps are (mostly) done by amateurs.But that’s fine, it works quite well like that, quite obviously.Even though the maps might not be correct or detailed as some commercial maps like Google Maps, it is a damn lot more data.As someone that has been working with OSM for years, I consider OSM more like a map data repository, out of which maps can be generated from.I’d like if we had more insiders mapping subterranean water pipelines, etc.most of that data is pretty lacking.The most complete data right now, is streets and road networks, and things like coastlines and shorelines, things that are relatively easy to create from satellite imagery.But when I’m mapping recycling stations for glass, paper or clothes, I can’t see them on satellite imagery, instead I have to be there and check it out myself.I know of now other way.And with that, I believe it’ll be quite some time, until we have OSM data for North Korean shops, opening hours, and things like parking spaces, and whatnot.Pretty much everything in DPRK that is mapped is mapped on the basis of inspecting imagery from satellites, rarely people are on site, checking correctness, etc.Anyway, great people like you are interested in OSM mapping culture, and I wish you all the best to your studies and fun making maps!Regards

Hello, satellite imagery is sometimes quite nice for mapping unreachable regions in forbidden countries, ;-) my motivation for mapping even so far away from home?Collecting a flag for my user profile.;-) and for mapping for OSM?Let’s make it even better ;-)

Hello, > if you’re in North Korea, or where you live Sweden why you contributed the data.North Korea was undermapped at the time I mapped there.Especially after the data purge to make way for the new OSM licens (odbl).Just for fun.> I suspect that this OSM map is a result of state-led effort.At least not from me.

Hi Wonyoung, I was not aware that I mapped much in Korea.From time to time I check the taginfo results for rarely used tags and try to fix those.All my contributions to OSM are just for fun.

Hello I decided to add to the map because North Korea is such an interesting place.It is so mysterious what goes on inside North Korea and by mapping it it is sort of like researching what life is like there.

Hello Wonyoung, Thank you for your message.My name is [redacted], I live in England, not the US - and I have never been to North Korea or South Korea.Occasionally I map areas of North Korea mainly for fun - but I hope that some day, people will be able to use them freely.Google Maps and Bing Maps (Microsoft) are commercial products designed to generate money; there is no commercial reason for them to map North Korea.OSM is not designed to make money, this is probably why it is bigger.

Hi, no, I’m just mapping for fun, life in Germany, but like travelling a lot.I usually plan my travel journeys with support of OSM.In areas where there is not detail I sometimes add additional stuff, so that I have it in the map when I get there.For North Korea I consider it highly unlikely to get there in the near future.Although I’d love to go there one day, maybe when Korea is united again.I studied in West-Berlin in the times of the wall and cold war and experienced first hand that borders do not make sense in a global world today.It was such a gift for everyone when Germany got united, no matter what people might say today.Before the wall fell I had to serve the army because of the cold war, today my kids do not have to worry about war anymore (hope that will stay the same in the future).Based on my experience I really hope that Korea will peacefully re-unite in the near future.Updating the map could help make people understand the other side.Just my 2ct about it.Hope that helps.Another reason for looking into the OSM map and updating it is: when I hear or read something in the News and sometimes check the map to see how it looks like where these stories happend. In case of North Korea I think I came across the Website https://www.38north.org/ and tried to locate some points from which some photos were taken.

Howdy!Sorry for the late reply.This is my own experience as a volunteer mapper and not that of any current or previous employer (Not that any of them were interested in having me work on North Korean map data anyway) About Me I’m an American undergraduate university student.In High School/Secondary School I studied in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a few months as an exchange student.I currently work in my University Library.My personal involvement with Korea.I have never been to North Korea, and probably will never go to North Korea as long as it is not friendly to Americans.I’m sure that average North Koreans are good people, but Otto Warmbier did not live far from me, and I don’t want to risk the same fate, however unlikely.South Korea is a different story!I’ve wanted to visit South Korea for a while now, particularly Jeju Island, Pusan (Busan now I think?), and Seoul.I’m ashamed to hear that parts of North Korea are better mapped then South Korea, so you can bet I’ll improve the map in South Korea if I go!Why I sometimes edit in North Korea I’d like to say I edited North Korea as part of some noble goal to help the people there or to help researchers study it, but If I’m being honest, the few times I’ve edited there were for fun, and kind of as a challenge.I like to think I’m good at picking out features from bad quality satellite imagery, and North Korea is a prime place to practice, because mistakes are understandable as armchair mapping in this fashion is one of the only real ways to improve the map in the area.As strange as it may be, if locals in North Korea were allowed to use OSM, I’d probably stop mapping areas handled by local mappers so I wouldn’t accidentally mess anything up for them.The second reason is that I dislike some aspects of Google and Microsoft (They’ve both caused me trouble in the past, but I do like some teams within both companies), and seeing OSM beat them both in a country makes me feel smug.I know some open source advocates who despise Google and Microsoft, and refuse to use their products.Individuals like these may also edit OSM to spite Google and Microsoft, particularly in areas where Google and Microsoft won’t allocate resources to mapping (North Korea), thus creating a superior open source alternative by default.North Korea is not the only area where I do this.I edit many of the uninhabited islands of Lake Erie, as well as Plymouth Montserrat and other inaccessible places.Other resources You are probably well aware of this, but just in case, I thought you might find these handy.You can use a tool like HDYC to see a list of countries where a mapper has focused on.There are other data tools for OSM, but this is one of the easiest.

Hi, thank you for your interest.I’m a OSM mapper from Germany.The Mapping of North Korea is mostly done by satellite imaging.However, the main focus of my mapping is Germany, and several smaller areas around the world.I hope this answers your questions.Best

Hello!Yes, I did some work on North Korea’s OpenStreetMap data… I’m from Poland, living in Germany, never been to Korea.I’m very interested in North Korea, sometimes wondering when the regime will finally collapse and what problems will the society face when reunifying.Whatever happens, some OpenStreetMap data will already be there for country’s citizen to start using and improving :) I think I added information about Poland’s and Germany’s embassies located in Pyongyang.When editing those places, I might have fixed some other elements or maybe even traced some building outlines or a side street.That’s everything, all based on embassies’ publicly available data and aerial pictures.Thanks for asking, if you have any more questions or want to chat, I’m here.Best regards, Jędrzej Pełka

Greetings.I made buildings in Pyongyang for fun, but I didn't know that it could be used by South Korean research programs.I'll continue to make more building when I have the time.Sincerely

Hi, just for fun :)

I am not a mapper on North Korea, just a translator from Korean to Japanese.I with many japanese have larger interest in South/North Korean culture, land, and any others.

안녕하세요?저는 북한 지역에 대해 매핑을 많이 하지는 않아 궁금증에 도움이 될지는 모르겠지만 일단 답변 드립니다.일단 심각한 오해를 한가지 하고 계신 것으로 보이는데 북한 지역의 편집을 한국어로 했다고 하여 북한 사람들이 편집한다고 생각하시는 것 같습니다.하지만 제가 아는 선에서는 대부분 대한민국(남한) 사람들이 위성사진을 보면서 하는 것으로 알고 있습니다.위성사진을 통해 보면 북한 지역이 안보이는 것도 아니고 해외 서비스(Bing 위성, ESRI 위성 등)를 이용한다면 국가보안법 위반이라 보기도 힘들고 저도 이렇게 편집한 것이고요.“나무위키”라는 한국어 위키에 등재된 북한 철도 관련 정보도 “구글 어스”라는 위성사진을 볼 수 있는 프로그램에 대부분 기반하여 만들어진 것이고요.다만 평양 지역의 경우 현지 주재 대사관들도 몇 있고 외국인 관광객들이 꽤나 찾아가기 때문에 북한의 다른 지역보다는 촘촘할 수도 있다고 생각합니다.그리고 애초에 한국에서 OSM이 활발한 것도 아니고요.포켓몬고라는 게임이 OSM데이터를 활용하기 전까지는 이보다도 더 열악했죠.그리고 마지막 문단에서 북한이 친 오픈소스적 입장이라고 하셨는데 이는 동의하기 어려운 것이 마이크로소프트의 제품을 이용하지 못하는 것은 미국의 대북 재재 때문이고, 이와는 별개로 어둠의 경로로 들여온 것으로 추정되는 다수의 마이크로소프트사의 소프트웨어가 있는 것으로 알려져 있습니다.안드로이드OS를 개조해서 쓰는 부분에 대해서는 그것이 북한 주민을 통제하기 위해 개조한 것이라고 보는게 합당한 것 같고, 암호화폐의 경우에는 긍정적으로 평가할만 하지만 조금 더 지켜봐야 할 부분이라고 생각합니다.다만 북한이 친오픈소스적 환경이 아니라고 하더라도, OSM을 활용한다는 부분에 대해서는 가능할 만한 시나리오라고 생각하는 것이 북한이 개혁개방을 시도하고 외부와의 교류가 시작된다면 분명 지도 서비스도 필요한 것인데, 아예 처음부터 GIS를 구축하는 것보다는 OSM를 활용하는 것이 비용적으로나 시간적으로나 유리할 것이기 때문입니다.마지막으로 아침부터 흥미로운 주제를 들고 와주신 소원영님께 감사드리며, 여기 적힌 모든 내용은 저의 개인적 의견에 불과하다는 점을 다시한 번 말씀드립니다.감사합니다.:)

Hello Wonyoung, thank you for the note.I am based in the USA and have been mapping in OpenStreetMap for 7 years.I have mapped literally all over the world, it’s both a hobby and I work in the mapping industry so I have a work interest as well.I have traveled to Seoul Korea so I did some mapping in both Seoul and Pyongyang.Again, this was not researched based, rather, just something I found interesting.I agree with your position regarding this nice map of North Korea not being able to be used by the citizens of North Korea.I hope to see a day when this will change.It is very nice to meet you.Best Regards

Hi Wonyoung, I’m not living in North Korea. Just found poorly mapped region & tried to fix issues which can be found using Satellite imaginary (mostly roads)I’m living in Uzbekistan and mostly mapping this country. Regards

Hello, I just looked for fun in that state.greeting

Hello Wonyoung, I’m contributing to OSM because I use the map very often and like to improve it.I don’t live in Korea.I once did a one day trip from S[e]oul to the DMZ and after added what I saw on this trip to the map.Probably that where the commits you fond from me.If I find the time, I now may try to improve the map in North Korea using the satellite images.Have a good time and research!

Hi Wonyoung, I frequently travel to North Korea, I use OSM offline while I am in the country, and I think it’s important to have a good map of the DPRK – that’s why I contribute to it as much as I can.I don’t think the OSM of North Korea is a state-led effort because I don’t think the government has an interest in having this information publicly available.I have never seen anyone with a detailed map in the country that seemed to be based on OSM, and when I showed my offline map with GPS to locals, they were totally amazed that the app was able to show my movement on the map and even do turn-by-turen navigation when driving around.It seemed like they had never seen anything like this, and also had no knowledge of GPS technology and that it works without the Internet.Can you share more information about your research?I’d be interested.

Hello Wonyoung, As answer on your question, I do not have done any of work on a map of North Korea.To be honest, I have not even looked at a map of North Korea at OpenStreetMap.So I am sorry, but I can not help you with this.Have a nice day.

Hello Wonyoung, thank you for your message!To be honest, I am a bit surprised about your question.Given the fact that you contributed to OSM yourself (according to the statistics), you could already know how OSM works.Therefore I am not sure about your identity but suspect that you may be working either for North Korea or for the secret service of South Korea or of the USA.Anyway, your question is easy to answer.I am neither mapping for the North Korean state nor for any other state, and I am also neither mapping against North Korea nor against any other nation.Like thousands of volunteers I just contribute a little bit to a reliable map of the whole world, and we do not want North Korea to be a white = empty area on our map, because it is not an empty area, but a part of the world like any other country.OSM is intended to be a map of the real world for all people, and therefore we include North Korea just like other country or region in our data.Please note that we even map the Antarctic and other uninhabited areas of the world.The only limits are the availability of useful sources, like aerial imagery, and our limited power.As far as I am concerned, I have never been in North Korea and have no other relation to North or South Korea besides some historic and general geographic interest.The little changes I have contributed to the map data for North Korea (you can easily check this) are mostly fixes or updates of the landuse data.Some time ago, people have used the tagging landuse=farm to tag areas of farmland; but this was ambiguous, other people did use the same tagging for farmyards instead.Therefore we updated all areas over the world tagged with landuse=farm to the modern tagging, i.e. either to landuse=farmland or to landuse=farmyard.I did this task for North Korea just because somebody got to do that.Besides that, I have only done some minor technical fixes by the way.Why Pyongyang is mapped (according to you) better than Seoul, I can’t answer.The only thing I can infer from that is that if Seoul is mapped worse than Pyongyang, South Korean mappers should increase their afforts in improving and refining the map of Seoul.So IMHO you should go out and map (again).Map South Korea, especially improve the map of Seoul; map North Korea; map whatever you want.Just do it reliably and for the best of all people.With best regards

2019년 1월 17일 06:34 Hi, There is no special reason why I mapped there.Sometimes I just look at the map somewhere in the world, look how it is drawn and think “maybe I can improve that if there are good aerial images”.Regards, Maarten

Just a OSM contributor trying to map in all 200+ countries.be best Jonathan

Greetings Comrade!I edited the map in Pyongyang as part of a research project documenting urban railways throughout the world.The result is a series of maps showing urban rapid transit systems throughout the world.I doubt that the North Korean state is editing OSM.Totalitarian regimes tend to produce maps obsessively, but privately.I think it’s safe to assume that the other 888 contributors are all outsiders.Anyway, do you like barley tea?

Hi Wong-young, I was mapping just for fun to be honest.thanks, Dombo

Hi to you too!I cannot remember what I was editing in the area in question.My guess I was correcting geometrical shapes (crossing ways etc.) and not adding any useful data to the data base.Sorry I can’t help you!Have fun dcp

Hi Wonyoung sorry for the late reply.I saw you massage but forgot to answer.As for myself, I am not from North Korea but being interested in the country for a long while and have mapped alot in the east asian region.I contribute data, because I use openstreetmaps frequently on my travels and enjoy to work with satellite and map data in general.(to me it is a form of art and it is very important) As to why North Korea is better mapped than South Korea I can only give my own guess: It is a mysterious country.Thus it is fun to contribute.Additionally: There are no or only few official maps of North Korea.A lot of travelers contributing to openstreetmaps as part of their travel preparations.I would guess that this is the reason why Pyongyang is so well mapped.It is also much easier to map than for example Seoul with its many small buildings that are hard to distinguish from satellite imagery.There are certain nations that are very active contributors (Russians, Germans, USA).Why that’s the case I don’t know.Maybe local mentality.Let me know if you have any other questions.Best regards

Hi, many development countries are mapped by US-led aid organisations or by companies like Facebook who have a business interest in the country.I think only very few businesses believe in any short-term business use of maps in North Korea.Not even Facebook thinks they will soon have any customers there!Therefore, I think it is mainly hobbyists who want to “prove” that OpenStreetMap can bring maps even to a reclusive and secretive place like North Korea.Many mappers in western countries have exhausted their “untouched territory”, but in North Korea they can still map on virgin land, be the first to “discover” a new highway… Bye Frederik

Hello Wonyoung, this is Peter, aka Krawujewatz, one of the contributors to North Korean OSM.I live in Germany near Berlin and have a good access to the internet.From time to time I look into OSM at different points of the world, sometimes inspired by the news sometimes by holiday plans.That time then it was Kaesong industry zone which was on the news as it was closed down.In general North Korea is still a white spot what information is concerned.Kim is holding the lid on the pot.So there was no message about reopening the zone again.Maybe you know about it?Whenever I see things obviously missing in the map I have the JOSM program to contribute to it.I think this is according to the idea of the project to give the opportunity to everybody not only to use this map (e.g.for geocaching with Garmin GPS) but to contribute as well.Hope to hear from you again.Best regards

Hi Wonyoung, I add this data just when browsed a map over all world.I am from exUSSR republic so I am intrested in good for North Korea.I am not related to state-led company :)

Hello there.My contributions a long time ago were based on satellite imagery, and I believe the majority are of the same kind.I never been to Korea ever in my life.I did it out of my will to volunteer some time in order to help open-source projects like OpenStreetMap.I hope this helps.I don’t believe there is state-led effort into mapping the DPRK on OpenStreetMap.My understanding is that the government there tries to be as secretive as possible, and mapping too much in detail might lead to important information about military/government sites to get leaked out.I also don’t think that a lot of the mapping is done by people on the ground.The few foreigners with Internet access that get posted to the country (like diplomats) probably don’t have the technical skills required to contribute to OSM, nor the time.I am an undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia, and I would be really interested in seeing the results of your study.If you ever get this stuff published on an academic journal, I would love to read it one day.

Hello Wonyoung, Thank you for your kind message.A little background, I do not live in North Korea but intend on visiting.I regularly contribute to OSM, as a hobby, and correct mistakes if I have visited somewhere or I am interested in it.During my research on North Korea I spotted mistakes on OSM I thought could do with correcting.Whilst you are right that OSM is effectively useless in North Korea as neither Internet nor your own phone will be able to use it, it is important to map the world.In fact, part of the map could even be printed, thus rendering it useful. So..I do it, along with other contributors, for fun.It is fun, isn’t it?Best regards

I’ve never added any data in North Korea; I just made a few mechanical edits to fix some language tags that happened to include some objects in the country.Although I am not North Korean and I am sure that others have told you this already: North Korean internet is only available to the elite and can only access websites on a whitelist, if I remember correctly, so only the members of the military junta would be able to access this website (I doubt anyone in the DPRK is aware of it).OSM is not a state-run effort although we have received data imports from several national and local governments (see the OSM wiki, wiki.osm.org, for more info).Most users are generally bored and/or believe that it’s good to help others by contributing data.In North Korea specifically the only contributions would be from tourists who have returned to their home countries and from users tracing objects from satellite imagery.

Hello Wonyoung.The development of the mapping day took place within the framework of a global initiative that this group carried out, it is very common to activate around the world in humanitarian actions of mapping.

Dear Wonyoung, I did contribute to the OSM around North Korea using satellite images available from various sources, Bing, google earth and the like.I did not use my personal knowlege of the local geography, because I have never been to NK, and this is not in my plans in a near future.I saw that the map quality was obviously very bad at there.I thought I could add my 2 cents so that maye, in the future, it may be helpful to someone.This is I think a key driving force if not the basic philosophy of the open-source / free licence communities.My edits were absolutely not politically motivated nor supported by a state agency or private interests.As a matter of fact I do not live in the U.S.(I currently live in Belgium) and actually, OSM is not a US project.It is far more european than american by the number of contributors and the origin of the project (the UK) !I hope this answers your questions, feel free to ask me if you need additional clarifications.In return, I would be very interested in your findings, so feel free to keep me updated as well.

I am not a resident of North Korea.

Hi From France I like mapping , and thinking it could be useful for someone , especailly in land under natural threat , earthquake , or flood like in Iran , Peru .It s useful and there many to do , like hydrographic ,road maps and hamlet place .Ciao

I like to map in different countries, so I made a few edits in North Korea just to have a few edits there.Best wishes.

Hello Wonyoung, I am from Germany and were never in that region in person.My assumption is that I fixed minor errors in the data without the need of a information from personal survey.Have a good time and good luck with your studie.

Hi! First of all, I would like to apologize for taking so long to answer this as I did take a small break from OSM for personal reasons. I hope that this it’s still helpful to you.I’m from Spain, and I mostly map around my area, however sometimes I have mapped in foreign countries for OSM humanitarian help. That was not the case for North Korea: i was curious about looking into the “forbidden land” that it is, and how mapped it was. If i remember correctly, I mapped a few roads that could be seen from the air in an unmapped area.I’m nor affiliated, related or a part of the North Korean, South Korean or US governments, I’m just a curious guy that likes to map :)If I forgot to answer any question, or if you want to ask anything else, I plan to be back into OSM so this time you will not have to wait several months for an answer (for which I do apologize again).

Hi Wonyoung, I’m Patrick from Germany.I’m not a regular contributor of OSM, but sometimes I map for fun.You learn about foreign places in a different way.How geography influences how we live, build and farm.North Korea of course ist interesting in it’s own way.Also, I have been a volunteer firefighter for about 10 years, so out of the Viewpoint of emergency response, disaster relief, the OSM Project can be very helpful (Point to the response to the Haiti earthquake).Good maps are essential, especially when you have emergency personel, who is not familiar with the area, and for logistics and planing.Knowing, If there is a road, stream.How many houses are there.For many places in the world it seems like OSM can provide the first public accurate maps.Of course there are still huge basically unchartered areas around the world.Are you doing your study for a university or out of private interest?You may want to post to the Forum.If you have further questions, just send a message.

I map all over the world, wherever I see stuff that can be added.If that happens to be somewhere in North Korea, that is just a coincident.I’m glad to contribute anywhere :)

Hello Wonyoung, I am not from Korea.I was just updating parts of the Masikryong Ski Resort based on the avaliable satellite images due to personal interrest.due to personal interrest.greetings from Dresden, Germany

Hello Wonyoung I am not a resident of North Korea nor was I ever there.My contribution was based on aerial imagery and was just for fun and to have this isolated country in my statistics. Regards

Hello, bizarre07.Thank you for the message!However, I sometimes “travel” around the world on OpenStreetMap, including humanitarian mapping(HOT)I’m in Japan and I usually map around Okayama city.or fixing errors.Some time ago, I found some errors in North Korea using OSM Inspector.I fixed some of them, but I had no political or commercial intention.I wanted to leave a footprint just for fun, as it is almost impossible to travel DPRK freely.

Thank you for your good message.But what I want to know is the message.I’d like to know the exact meaning.I’m sorry.좋은 메시지 잘 받았습니다.하지만 제가 알고 싶은것은 이 메시지의 의도입니다.정확한 뜻을 알고 싶습니다.죄송합니다.

Hi Wonyoung, As far as I understand you want to know why am I draw map of North Korea.Short answer, just for fun.I create OSM maps in order to have correct, full and free map of the whole world.I personally don’t trust big corporations such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc.And I think that having free open-source map is very important.I also take part in HOT project (https://www.hotosm.org/) and create maps of African countries.Talking about North Korea, I understand that residens of North Korea can’t use OSM.But I hope that some day iron curtain will fall and our map could help locals to navigate the country.

Hi, I mapped in North Korea just for fun.I like to explore other parts of the world.

Good afternoon.I’m a scientist from Russia.I like to mapping new territories outside the cities: Madagascar, Siberia, North Korea, Islands in the ocean that nobody is interested in, villages in the USA, etc.Some of the edits on North Korea were made during the master class about OpenStreetMap, which I conducted a few years ago.We have old people who suffer from the “paranoia of the cold war” (there are few of them, most understand that they are wrong, but can not change because of age).I drew a North Korean military unit in OpenStreetMap before their eyes to demonstrate that an open world is cool and inevitable.

Olá Amigo Minha motivação aqui no OSM é o mapeamento colaborativo da maior parte das feições mapeáveis do planeta Terra.Ou seja, só diversão, hobbie e colaboração.Atenciosamente.That is, just fun, hobbie and collaboration.Kind regards.

안녕하세요.한국어 화자인 것으로 보이므로 본 글은 한국어로만 쓰도록 하겠습니다.개인적으로는 휴전선 이북 지역의 기여는 반드시 소위 한국어권에서는 ‘북한’이라 불리우는 ‘조선민주주의인민공화국’ 공민들을 위한 것이 아니라 그 지역을 여행하고자 하는 사람들에게도 도움이 되기 때문에 다른 지역의 기여들과 마찬가지로 자유 저작물 운동의 일환으로 이루어지는 것으로 생각됩니다.그리고 해당 국가의 경우에는 이집트의 오라스콤 등을 통하여 차세대 이동통신 기술을 일부 수용하고 있는 것으로 보이는데, 다만 오라스콤에서 OSM이나 기타 오픈소스를 이용하고 있는지는 확인해보지 않아서 모르겠군요.이 답변이 도움이 되었기를 바랍니다.감사합니다.

Здравствуйте, Wonyoung спасибо, что поинтересовались.Действительно OPS отличная карта, и иногда хочется нарисовать интересные места по всему миру которых вообще нет на карте, даже если там не бывал.Благодаря спутниковым снимкам можно просто рисовать простые вещи: дороги, леса, здания.Чем иногда и занимаюсь в свободное время.Hello, Wonyoung, thanks for asking.Indeed, OSM is a great map, and sometimes you want to draw interesting places around the world that are not even on the map, even if you haven’t been there.Thanks to satellite imagery, you can simply draw simple things: roads, forests, buildings.What I sometimes do in my spare time.

Hello Wonyoung, I am from Germany and I have never been to North oder South Korea.I can’t remember why I edited in North Korea, maybe I just looked at the data and corrected a mistake or made some mapping via aerial image or something like that.But what i can say is that i am fascinated that OSM also exists in North Korea and that I sometimes looked at the North Korean data to get a better overview about this isolated country by maps and aerial images and to look at the infrastructure.I can only tell you why I contributed some data sets to Seoul: I was inspired by the Song “Gangnam Style” and looked at Seoul and was a bit worried that there was mainly only basic mapping and nothing that is very detailed.So I opened the Seoul and Gangnam Area and did some heavily detailed mapping like it is common in many places in Germany so that other residents could take this as a good example and furthermore work on the Seoul Area.Greetings

Hello!Thank you for your message :) If I recall correctly I made some changes to the Pyongyang metro, out of boredom probably :)

Hello from Iceland Wonyoung.My edits in North Korea are a part of my “country collection” habit, where I try to get edits into random spots all over the world .I’m sorry I can’t contribute to the North Korea question, but would be happy to answer for Iceland and Botswana (where I started up some groups that are gradually growing).

Good day I map for fun.I live in Canada.

Hi bizarre07, just FYI: I fix obvious flaws and typos for fun remotely from Germany.I’m not an state actor.Best regards.

Korean text is searched.No safe.English ok.This not safe for me.Big risk.Send money to know you serious and I can trust you.Bitcoin.Ok?

Hi Wonyoung, sorry, but I’m from Germany.The most edits I do are macro-mappings.So I change data all over the world, while fixing data issues or add big objects (national borders, or something else).So there is nothing I could tell you about North Korea or the culture in this land.Best regards

Hi, I don’t live North Korea but the Netherlands.When looking at my mapping statistics a while ago i noticed that i managed to cover quite a number of countries in the world.So thought it would be nice to see if I could map something in every country.And hence I also mapped a small part in a random place in North Korea.Thanks

Hello Wonyoung, thank you for contacting me.I am not completely sure about your questions, would you mind to rephrase them?Please do not be worried about being too direct, it can help the understanding if things are called out clearly.Did I understand you correctly, is this about a research study?Can you tell which research institution is involved?Thank you

Hi, I am not in North Korea, I live in Central Europe.I am contributing all over the world, mostly because in my country almost everything is mapped.So why not map also in North Korea.I hope that some day people in North Korea will have full access to the internet and also to OSM.Regards

Hello Responding to your question, mapping in OSM is for me a hobby.One year ago I tried to contribute some data in each country in the world, including North Korea.

I think for me and many other people who have made edits on OSM for North Korea, it has just been a matter of curiosity since most people don’t get to learn much about the place and will probably never visit it in person.I think the same is true for many of the people who edited North Korea data in Google Maps as well.Certainly, the number of edits I made in N Korea is very few.I think a state-led effort would result in contributors with a large number of edits.

Hey Wonyoung I don’t think the North Korean state is involved or very happy with that map.You can actually get punished for mapping in North Korea as far as I know.And I think that’s exactly the main reason it is mapped so well.Tell people they are not allowed to do something and they wanna do it even more.That was my motivation at least.I read something about North Korea and their restorations on mapping and wanted to do something against it.I just added a few tiny things visible front the satelite images.Just because I can and I can not prosecuted for it.

Hello Wonyoung!Thank you for you contribution to OSM!I am from Russia - Primorsky kray (near of North Korea).So some my edits was on territory of North Korea.I think it is good, that people use OSM in North and South Korean.Have fun and thank you!

안녕하세요!I live in the United States.I love Korea, and I love maps.I made a few contributions to the North Korea and South Korea maps just for fun and to satisfy my own curiosity.Since I don’t live in Korea, I only contributed where there were obvious deficiencies in the OpenStreetMap data that I could fix using Bing aerial imagery. :)

Hi!I’m from Russia, so I don’t have serious problems with internet access.I don’t remember I contributed in North Korea, so it it quite surprisigly for me.I contributed in South Korea only 1 changeset.I remember that, I tried to fix wrong simple3d usage for big wheel attraction.So if you show me my changesets in North Korea, I could remember that and explain my motivation.

Hello, my OSM efforts are by no means governmental but purely private.I try to keep the data usable by identifying potential errors and correcting them if possible.Regards

Hi Wonyoung, I'm surprised to get your message.I have been to North Korea 8 times since April 2012.I have made very few contributions to Open Maps, but look for things to add.Two of the 3 times I have been teaching English in Pyongyang the topic has been on the Internet.The people there are getting more exposure to the world slowly.I do what I can to help.The other topics I was asked to teach were "The Mind and Creativity", "Friendship" and "The Environment".I have found that North Korean officials appreciate having friendly visitors and I enjoy having the opportunities and hospitality they give me without any need for political considerations.I only hold the belief that all people are part of the human family and we should develop peaceful and friendly relations.I spend a lot of time on Internet development and international travel.Let me know if there is anything you would like me to consider.

Hello Wonyoung, A few years ago, I was part of a travel group that went to Pyongyang.I did the trip just for fun because I find the DPRK interesting and wanted to see it for myself.After I went home to Europe, I made a few edits to the map from memory; mapping used to be a big hobby of mine.Have a good day, and I’d be happy to answer more questions if you have some.Cheers

Hi, I’ve read your email and find it pretty interesting.In fact I’m not from North Korea, I’ve contributed to the data because I think there should be no borders to the knowledge, including geography.I’m from France, but sometimes I just want to travel virtually, so I just try to map some other countries, to learn more about their culture of infrastructures and networks.North Korea is some sort of “secret” place for us europeans, so it’s kinda iteresting to see it from above without any sort of propaganda.By the way, I’m not a professional, mapping is just a hobby for me, I’m studing electronics in college, but I’ve always been interested by highways and roads.Thank you for your interest.Best Regards

Hi Wonyoung, It is really happy to communicate via virtually by fellow OSM mapper.Hope your mapping activities go well.Actually, I am very passionate about OpenStreetMap because of its open data.Contributors can have entire data set whenever you need it.We do not need to pay.These kinds of open data are really helpful when it comes to Disaster situations.I largely contributed on HOT OSM disaster mapping via HOT Tasking manager.I would love to contribute as much as I can and that direct me to be a heavy OSM contributor on last few years.Sometimes this is a hobby, sometimes its work.Unfortunately last few months I was not contributed.I couldn’t remember that I have mapped the North Korean area.Anyway, I would love to share my knowledge let me know if you need any support on further mapping activities.Regards

Hi, I live in the Netherlands.I only made one changeset in NK.The main reason was that I got a bit tired with mapping close to home and spend a few months mapping all around the world.I hope this answers your questions.Kind regards

Hello Wonyoung Thank you for your message.Most contributions I make outside of where I live are done using images from satellites.It is really convenient for most parts of the world, even though some places are badly covered: Western and Central Africa, Central Asia and, for the case we discuss about, North Korea.This is how I contribute (for the fun); I’ve never been to North Korea.Some data may also be available publicly through the US State Department, since the US government tends to open a lot of data.You know that it is very difficult to visit North Korea.Difficult, but not impossible.And there are cases that are open to foreigners, like Pyongyang where a lot of NGOs stay.NGO have their own accesses to Internet and some of the humanitarian workers there contribute to OSM.I don’t think that contributions to OSM are made by North-Korea government.Otherwise, you may not see thinks mapped like military facilities but who knows?Beyond buying and using Microsoft and Google products, they have other ways to work on computers or go online.They have their own Linux distribution, their own private high-speed internet network and other than US and Japanese tech companies are allowed to sell computers and smartphones in the country.Hope this helps

Hello Wonyoung, thanks for your letter.I draw the map just for fun.I draw the places where I was - if I think it is worth drawing it.Unfotunately I will never have the chance to travel to North Korea.However I appreciate your engagement in this topic.Regards

Hi Wonyoung, Thank you for your message.To your disappointment I am not from North Korea nor South Korea but from Germany.Greetings

Hello, I am French.And if I contribute to mapping in North Korea, it’s just a selfless hobby.I do not bother geopolitical consideration.My contribution is simply guided by a topographic interest for certain areas based on the lack of vector data compared to satellite photographs.These data will be useful one day as they are today in our “rich” countries for every citizen, business and government.So, for summary, contribution for pleasure.Good continuation.Bonjour,

Hello bizarre07, Glad to meet you and thank you for this email, seems like I feel happy to know that what I did through OpenStreetMap can be used by anyone around the world.My spologize for tha late of my response, since I still have any stuff in the field during humanitarian response in Palu, so I missed your email in my inbox.About my mapping activities in Pyongyang, actually I didn't have any specific interest for that area.I just like to map a particular area in the whole, especially for humanitariaan response of just for fun.I just think what I do with this can help each other around the world.Let me know if you need another thing to ask.Thank you.Best regards,

Hi!Wonyoung!I’m from Poland living in Germany, I’m using maps and imaginary photos as a background for OSM mapping, so probably i was using one of this sources to create some changes in part of North Korea.Best regards

Hello - Thanks for your mail.I am a mapper based in Bangalore, India.My edits in North Korea must have been through fixing data issues via to-fix tool.

네 소원영님 안녕하세요.저는 한국 서울에 거주하고 있는 평범한 고등학생입니다.처음에 이런 메일을 받았을 때 약간 당황하기도 했습니다."이게 왜 나한테 오지?".다시 찾아보니까 제가 매큔-라이샤워 표기로 된 평양 영문 지역명을 제가 한글로 바꿨더군요.저는 연구 목적으로 지도를 수정한 것이 아니라 지도나 지리학 쪽에 큰 관심을 갖고 있어서 취미로 수정한 것입니다.그리고 수정 자료 및 데이터는 영문 위키백과나 일본어 위키백과에서 참고하였습니다.소원영님이 진행하고 계신 연구에 대해서는 제가 잘 알지는 못하지만, 연구가 순조롭게 진행되기를 빌면서 답장을 끝맺겠습니다.혹시 더 궁금한 점이 있으시다면 좀 더 질문하셔도 됩니다.평안한 하루 되세요.

Hi, i am sorry but i only visited North Korea on the the DMZ tour.Anything i added to north Korea map would of been in the UN compound and the buildings which may be visited there by tourists.Luck with your research.

Hello Wonyoung, the reason why I mapped 3 changesets in North Korea is simple.In MapRoulette there is the challenge “Embassies missing representing country” among many other challenges.And in this challange there were also tasks in North Korea.I am mapping for fun in my free time because I consider it is very important that there is a non-commercial free card for all people for all countries of the world.The opportunity to map as a foreigner in North Korea is extremely rare.So I took this rare opportunity immediately.In the name of the changeset the MapRoulette task is automatically documented.Friendly greetings from Germany

Hi B., I live in germany and did only some corrections (like fixing typos or format issues with tags).

Hi Wonyoung from Korea, Nice to meet you :) The thing is I’m not from Korea or even Asia (although I really really hope to come and visit this beautiful part of the world some day).Last year I had an operation, and after that had to stay home for a month.In order not to die from being bored I did some experiments with Open Street Map on Linux using PHP (which I described in this blog: https://realpandablog.wordpress.com), basically I was trying to collect and analyze the OSM data in bulk, and then I found a lot of mistakes in various data all around the world which I tried to correct (at least some of them).That’s it :) If you have any questions feel free to contact me :)

Wonyoung, I make edits in a variety of places.Some are places I have been.Some are places I have work interests in.But others, including N Korea, are places that are in the news.When something happens, good or bad, in the news I often try to find the places involved in OSM and improve them.This is a strategy I used to find serendipity, contributing to places in the map that I would not otherwise work on.Hopefully that is clear enough for you?

Wonyoung, I don’t recall doing any mapping in North Korea.Maybe it is only to correct a spelling mistake.I suspect some of those contributors work for the government, or are overseas tracing the satellite photos.Hoylen

Hi!I’m from Buenos Aires, Argentina.I contribute to OpenStreetMap since 2008 and I have mapped many places outside the city where I live and my country too.My main reasons to do that is complete the empty map areas in OpenStreetMap (North Korea and other places have a lot of them), learning about other places, OpenStreetMap’s consensus about mapping methods and tags, fun (I love maps and spatial data), etc.For example, I mapped Troy archeological site using satellite imagery and Wikipedia as sources without never be there, the same as I did with other places where I did’t have any other source than satellite imagery and a good sight for recognize some elements, structures or natural features ;-) I think you maybe misunderstood the origin and nature of OpenStreetMap, It’s not controlled or promoted by any country or government, is an open and collaborative project maintained by people from many countries in different continents as happens with Wikimedia projects.I think you maybe misunderstood the origin and nature of OpenStreetMap, It’s not controlled or promoted by any country or government, is an open and collaborative project maintained by people from many countries in different continents as happens with Wikimedia projects.It’s supported (the operation of it’s resources) by the OpenStreetMap Foundation, which I am a member, without any commercial or private interest.That’s because the license of data is free and open (ODbL).We also use OpenStreetMap data in my work, the National Geographic Institute of Argentina including some data as reference in our map, data we haven’t and can’t create because our limited resources, so I can say that also my interest is cientific reserarch and divulgation.I recommend you to read this short About in OSM’s Wiki for further description about the project, but please don’t hesitate to ask me any question too.I hope you find my answer clear and useful, as the same data we map in OSM.Sorry for my basic use of enlgish, maybe some parts of this letter would be unclear or badly written. Best Regards

Hi Wonyoung, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap -> Private Volunteer Cards Editor Bye

Hi, I am French, I stay near Paris.I have never been in Korea, or even to Asia.I have never traveled outside the European continent and Canada.And mapping for me is a way to relax, travel through my screen, and participate in helping the great human community.I worked for seven years at the french Red Cross, and I saw during the great earthquake of Haiti the power of such a tool.Crowdsourcing in mapping has literally saved lives.A lot of people in the slums were found rescue to these maps that even the local authorities had never been able to establish before.The rescue teams could know the locations of each barracks.And electrical installations of the affected areas.To a lesser extent, this also facilitated the work of the authorities during the unrest and repatriation to N’Djamena and the Fukushima major nuclear accident.So I started in a few small areas of the planets, including Pyongyang.But there were more contributors than I thought.So I did not do much.But another area fascinated me, I have been mapping for 3-4 years, it is Tinkaré in Mali.The area was almost totally pristine, now the city is about to be complete.And I start looking for another area recently to continue this contribution.If you have a suggestion of a blank zone in North Korea I would be interested.Cordially.

I suggest you ask Pascal Neis if he can share his data about the contributors you are interested in: How did you contribute to OpenStreetMap http://hdyc.neis-one.org Your OSM Heat Map http://yosmhm.neis-one.org/ It seems that I touched 4 objects in North Korea and I don't remember why. I have done many edits around the world to fix errors shown by OSM Inspector http://tools.geofabrik.de/osmi/ and https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/

Hello.My personal reason was just a fun as I liked to have virtual travelling.No other reasons.Thanks.

Hello, To be honest; I don’t remember having mapped in North Korea at all.What is the number of the changeset?I usually map just for fun ;) I’ve never been to any of the Koreas

Hi Wonyoung, Thank you for your message.Personally I have not contributed much to the North Korean map on OSM, actually.Most of my edits in the North Korean area are done via translation.I am a mapper for Vietnam, and my goal is to develop and make OSM more accessible for Vietnamese people like me.Thus I have found that many places should have their name in Vietnamese.and I did that by translating many buildings or landmarks in North Korea into Vietnamese language.I did that by adding the key “name:vi” to some facilities that already are existant in Pyongyang.Regarding the motivation on developing North Korean map, I believe it’s part of the main purpose of OSM to develop map for everyone.Some mappers may have been to NK, or collected data from visitors who have been to NK before.

Hello bizarre07, As far as it concerns North Korea, I have only made a few changes in data worldwide and may have incidentally hit North Korea.Normally I edit exclusively in my own neighbourhood and this is completely voluntarily, as are all my activites for the OSM community, and unrelated to any government, organisation or institution.Cheers, and hopefully I have answered your questions, goedegazelle

Hello Wonyang, I’m from germany and I had only fixed some misspelling tags in north korea.

I didn't understand anything about your household.maybe you should go to the osm page and find out there is a free map for everyone to use there are no hidden motives in its use, it is free and also fun to collaborate in its growth It's like wikipedia, but for maps.No one asks why you collaborate on wikipedia, that's irrelevant.the important thing is to share information I encourage you to also collaborate with osm and stop doing useless things.

Hello,I can’t remember exactly what I added i North Korea, but when I add stuff in other countries far away from my home country I do it just for fun.I would definitely not add data, unpaid, for a state.Hopefully someone can have good use of the data I add.Only for fun.Regards

Hello Wonyong!I used to work as a cartographer before I retired.Now I work on Open Street Map as a hobby, because I enjoy it.Sometimes I use MapRoulette and fix errors around the world, just to do something different.That is how I happened to be working in Korea.It is amusing to note that in many countries, the OSM data is much more detailed than in parts of the U.S.I live in the state of New Mexico, and my county (Sierra County) had very poor data when I moved here 8 years ago.I seem to be the only person working on the data for an area of just under 11,000 square km!I also enjoy watching Korean programs on Netflix.My favorites so far are City Hunter and Bad Guys.But there are many others that I enjoy.Best wishes to you and your family. Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

I created several new objects with the help of geonames.org of the Soviet Atlas of the World, Wikipedia I worked this way I find on the detailed Soviet map the Russian name, then in the geonames org and Wikipedia I searched for a record of this name in European letters

Who knows who will need the data in this map one day.As for me, I like exploring the world this way, and in a way, improving the perception of the world around us.Something more interesting would be that whole of N.Korea has high resolution photos, and some places in Serbia do not.Cheers!

Hello.Just found your email in a spam folder.This was added for fun.Just to contribute something for Maps.me

Oh, I am just a minor contributor from Singapore; just correcting a few errors here and there, as I happen to look at the map of North Korea for inspiration to map in a fictional country of Antigo (in OGF), a country which is similar in nature to North Korea.Still, I doubt any of the 800+ mappers here are North Koreans; I think they are not North Koreans, but mapped using satellite images.I don’t know, you can check the OSM wiki on the Korea project and ask others.Anyway, thanks for the message.

Hi, Wonyoung!I’m not Korea resident, I live in Khabarovsk, Russia.I have visited North Korea more than 10 years ago as tourist, and mapping some objects was interested for me as fun.Good luck in your survey!

Hi and sorry for the very late answer. My contribution in North Korea was realted only to a skateboarding study and reaserach I am doing. No state involved on my side as far as I know.

Hi Wonyoung, I'm not in North Korea, but in Europe.I don't remember why I contributed the data in North Korea.Probably I did some kind of systematic tag correction all over the world.

Hey Wonyoung, i just drawed some buildings from the arial view to refresh my knowledge of OSM to get back into it.So it was for practise purpose because my hometown was fully drawn so I just went there because I thought that it’s not that dense there.I hope I could help you with my answer even though it’s not that deep.Greetings from Germany.

Good afternoon.Please provide us a screenshot of these OSM map.Only know "Google Maps".Thank you.

I’m very glad to hear a little from you,I’m from Tanzania here in Africa.I’m a Youthmapper what we are doing is to help community mapper in their project.So if you are a community officer or you have Organization we can help you.But also we work with students from university or colleges.We’re using this technology not for fun excuse me!!, but we’re using it for help community entirely.The reason is because: It’s open source that every interested person can do.It is easy to use but difficulty to master because daily it expand.Also it have more supporters e.g Youthmapper, HOT, World Bank e.t.c Most of people use openstreetmap so as to help community as whole.For example I have been doing project with Ramani Huria to know vulnerable area for flooding.Which area will be affected mostly, so it help us to take another step ahead in order to help that community which is going to be affected.Also I have been doing a project with Crowd2map and Tanzania Development Trust to stop Female Genital Mutilation for those areas with that problems.Thanks,

안녕하세요.우연히 메일로 알림이 와서 OSM에 들어와 메세지 답장을 남깁니다.사실 저는 많이 맵데이터를 남기지는 않았습니다.제가 접속해 남겼을 때도 꽤 많이 남겨져있었고, 지금도 제가 남긴 맵데이터가 당시 변두리였음에도 지금은 찾기 어려울 정도로 주변이 많이 구축되어가고 있지요.저는 한국에서 도시공학을 공부하는 박사과정학생입니다.주로 도시설계가 주전공이고 물리적인 환경이 사람들의 인식과 행동패턴이 어떻게 영향을 미치는지가 주 연구주제이지요.제가 마지막으로 맵데이터를 남긴 것은 아마 2015년이었던 걸로 기억합니다.2015~2016 박근혜 정부 시기 북한에 대해 다시 주목했던 시기였고 저희 연구실에서도 북한에 대한 연구 주제를 면밀히 고찰하고 있던 시기였지요.북한은 내부에서도 자료가 제한적이지만 외부에서도 자료를 접하기 매우 어려운 대상지입니다.따라서 직접 구축해야함에도 OSM은 여러명이 협업하여 그 자료를 구축할 수 있는 효과적인 툴입니다.상대방이 누구던 구축시간도 구애받지 않고 익명의 기여자들과 함께 자료를 구축할수 있지요.그러나 2016년이 지나가면서 급격하게 다시 남북관계가 얼어붙고 저희의 관심도 멀어져 갔습니다.북한의 도시에 대한 연구는 남북관계가 개선되지 않으면 정책적으로 이어지기 어렵고 그러다보니 그 주제로 연구의 펀딩을 받지 못하면 우선순위로 검토하기 어렵기 때문이죠.현실적인 이유로 많이 진행시키기 어려웠습니다.그러나 여전히 많은 기여자들이 기여를 해주고 있고 최근 경협등의 이유로 명분이 생기기 시작하면서 꽤 주목할만한 이유는 생기고 있습니다.기여자 중 연구자로서의 기여 목적이라고 한다면 구득하기 어려운 북한 지도를 나 혼자가 아닌 다른 기여자들과 구축한다는 점이 이점이었던 것 같습니다.추억에 젖어 이 이야기 저 이야기 횡설수설을 이야기한 것 같네요.긴 메세지를 읽어주셔서 감사합니다.

Hello, Openstreetmap is a hobby just like any other hobby.I contribute because I enjoy doing it and there is something to show for the work I put in.Some additional motivations include the fact that if there is a blank area on the map, I know there should be something there, so I add something if possible.Seeing the map develop is satisfying.I also feel that informational data should be in the hands of the public, not locked behind the walls of some corporation.Openstreetmap is open.People can use the data as they see fit.As for the map of North Korea being a “state-run effort”, no, that is not a very logical assumption.Seeing as South Korea does not like their map data to go beyond their own borders and does not want individuals to have access to most of it, I HIGHLY doubt that the North Korean government would be actively contributing their own geographic data to an organization that makes it available to everyone in the world.I am pretty sure North Korea is so developed on Openstreetmap for some of the reasons I stated above.Individuals saw a blank spot in the map, had time on their hands, contributed, liked the fact that they have helped create something, so they continued.The fact that they (non-North Koreans) could contribute to a map of the most secretive country in the world was probably bonus motivation.Pyongyang and other areas of North Korea may be better mapped because there is good, open, satellite imagery.The imagery is even better than imagery for some parts of South Korea.Good satellite imagery of South Korea may exist, but it usually belongs to corporations or governments that horde their data and don’t wish to share for the benefit of all.Cheers

Hello Wonyoung!This is a very interesting research project you are doing!I am from the US, and I just did the mapping for fun.I like to map random places around the world and I was just doing pyongyang that day.I am not hired by any government or organization at the moment as it would be illegal, because I am not old enough.Good luck with the rest of your project!

Hi bizarre07.I have a few edits on the North Korean territory, but it’s only to link some places to their correspondent article in Wikipedia and Wikidata, it’s what I mostly do in OSM, as you can see on my history.One edit was linking the Sohae Satellite Launching Station and the other one, was probably some antennas of the short wave broadcaster.My edits are just for fun, I usually link these types of places, you can check out a lot of spaceports of my edits.I don’t have any relation with North Korea.Hopefully this helps to your research.I wish you the best of lucks.

Hi Wonyoung, I’m not a North Korea citizen but as a fan of space matters I have maped some facilities in North Korea based on aerial imagery and Wikidata/Wikipédia.I’ve no insight of how North Korean people have access to Internet.Nor do I have any knowledge of North Korea or any involvment with their government.I just believe in the OSM project.Yours

Hi Wonyoung, I’m neither from Korea nor from the US but rather from Germany.I have never been to North Korea.So, I’m not entirely sure which data I edited in North Korea.I suppose that all I did was to fix some obvious spelling mistake in a tag that I probably found by searching for common misspellings in the data base.I do this for fun, without any government involved.Regards

Hello Wonyoung, I am just mapping for OSM to support free data.Sincerly.

Hi, I actually live in California.I’m probably considered in your data set because on several occasions I have been curious on what the data inside a communist country looks like and have poked around.If look on [url] you can see approximately where I live.

Hi, sometimes I will just randomly open the map to look at the satellite image and find something I can add to the map.

Hello Mr.Wonyoung,Oh, I remember, it was long ago, that I wanted to try out mapping with satelit data (which was a new feature at that time).I just selected a small island somewhere in the blank map (which by chance happend to be in korea) and mapped the outline of that island.That's all.

Hi Wonyoung, Thanks for reaching out!My primary motivation for mapping in N.Korea was just out of curiosity.I wanted to know what NK looked like and therefore would attribute this mapping as “just for fun”.Thanks and good luck with your research!

First, although the contributors' motivation is mostly for fun and pure curiosity—such as searching for empty space in OSM—, they were motivated by diverse reasons; in particular, with the respect of advocating open mapping, they wanted North Koreans to use the map in the near future, such as for escaping their territory.

Contributors mostly use satellite imagery to contribute data to North Korea, as OpenStreetMap provides Microsoft Bing satellite images. However, some contributors have first-hand knowledge as they have been to Pyeongyang. Moreover, they often combine resources on the internet to contribute street-level information to the OSM.

Some contributors have been interested in North Korea because of similar national history (e.g., German citizens) or they have personal history (e.g., their father was deployed to the Korean War), thus they have followed the news about North Korea. They have some thought about the reunification of the Korean peninsula. To explore more, please toggle and click to see individual responses.