osm-tag-csv-history

Use CSV tools to see who's mapping what in OpenStreetMap.

Given a OSM history file, it produces a CSV file, where each row refers to a change (addition, removal or modification) to a tag all OSM objects in an OSM data file with history.

Getting data

Planet.OpenStreetMap.org provides a “full history” file, updated every week, where you can download the latest full history file (⚠ 80+ GB! ⚠), although it's quite large.

Geofabrik provides an download service which includes full history files for lots of regions & countries. You must log into that with your OpenStreetMap account.

Usage

osm-tag-csv-history -i mydata.osm.pbf -o mydata.csv

Example

Many programmes can use CSV files. It's also possible to use hacky unix command line programmes to calculate who's adding fuel stations (amenity=fuel in OSM) in Ireland:

osm-tag-csv-history -i ~/osm/data/ireland-and-northern-ireland-internal.osh.pbf -o - --no-header | grep '^amenity,,fuel,' | cut -d, -f9 | sort | uniq -c | sort -n | tail -n 20

Output file format

Records are separated by a \n. A header line is included by default, but it can be turned off with --no-header (or forcibly included with --header).

Columns

key The tag key
old_value The previous value. "" (empty string) if the previous version didn't have this key
new_value The current/new version. "" (empty string) if the current version doesn't have this key (i.e. it has been removed from the object)
object_type The object type. n for node, w way, r relation
id The current/new object id
old_version The previous version number. "" (empty string) for the first version of an object
new_version The current/new version number
datetime Date time (RFC3339 UTC format) the object was created
username The username of the user who changes it (remember: in OSM, users can change their username, UIDs remain constant)
uid The user id of the user.
changeset_id Changeset id where this change was made

Possible useful tools

The following other tools might be useful:

xsv. a command line tool for slicing & filtering CSV data.
osmium a programme to process OSM data. You can use this to filter an OSM history file to a certain area, or time range.
datamash, command line CSV statistical tool.