What does the overpass API do for OSM?

The Overpass API (formerly known as OSM Server Side Scripting, or OSM3S before 2011) is a read-only API that serves up custom selected parts of the OSM map data. It acts as a database over the web: the client sends a query to the API and gets back the data set that corresponds to the query.

How to create a query for the overpass API?

Queries to the Overpass API are in XML or Overpass QL form. See the semantics explained below. You can use the Overpass turbo frontend to create and display queries for the above-mentioned Overpass API instances. Overpass API also provides permanent links .

Is there an overpass API endpoint for OpenStreetMap?

An Overpass API endpoint is also available for Open Historical Map . Queries to the Overpass API are in XML or Overpass QL form. See the semantics explained below. You can use the Overpass turbo frontend to create and display queries for the above-mentioned Overpass API instances. Overpass API also provides permanent links .

Where can I find the overpass QL guide?

Please see the full user’s manual for a detailed introduction. There exists in addition a Overpass QL guide/language reference. It is highly recommended to get familiar with various features via overpass turbo, an interactive Web-based frontend. For legacy applications, there’s also a compatibility layer to allow a smooth transition from XAPI .

How to know the size of an overpass API query?

As the size of an Overpass API query result is only known when the download is complete, it is impossible to give an ETA while downloading. And the dynamically generated files from Overpass API typically take longer to generate and download than downloading existing static extracts of the same region.

How to use the overpass API in Overpass Turbo?

This means that all queries can be inserted in the code editor of Overpass turbo. From there the query can be executed and the result will be shown on a map. Simply click on the Icon next to each query to try it in overpass turbo!

What can I use to extract data from OpenStreetMap?

If you just need to work with a certain region you can use extracts in various formats such as the native .OSM (stored as XML), .PBF (A compressed version of .OSM ), Shapefile or GeoJSON. There are also different API possible such as the native OSM API or the Nominatim API.

What does an overpass QL set contain in OpenStreetMap?

An Overpass QL set can contain any combination of (and any number of) OpenStreetMap nodes, ways, relations, and area elements. Unless you specify a named set as an input or result, all input is implicitly read from (and all results are written to) the default set named _ (a single underscore).

Is there a way to load data from OSM?

Now we’ll take a look how to load data from OSM. The Overpass API uses a custom query language to define the queries. It takes some time getting used to, but luckily there is Overpass Turbo by Martin Raifer which comes in handy to interactively evaluate our queries directly in the browser.

How to run overpass query on OpenStreetMap?

To run this query, you can feed it into this query form, or you can use Overpass Turbo to see the results on a map. The order of values in the bounding box (51.249,7.148,51.251,7.152) is minimum latitude, minimum longitude, maximum latitude, maximum longitude (or South-West-North-East).

How much memory is needed for overpass API?

1 GB of RAM and sufficient swap space for a small extract or a development system. By contrast, overpass-api.de (the main Overpass API instance) has 32 GB main memory. Actual memory requirements also highly depend on the expected maximum number of concurrent users.

Is it safe to start overpass API as root?

Never start any component of Overpass API as root. The whole system is designed to work without root, and you can run into really weird bugs if some parts of the system run as root. Do not automatically remove any of the lock files, socket files or shared memory files.

Are there any resource limits for overpass API?

These resource limits cannot be set to arbitrary high values: each Overpass API instance may refuse to extend them above some threshold (depending on server capabilities or current server load), or the query may just fail with an error message (and non-OK HTTP server error status).

How does Overpass Turbo work for OpenStreetMap?

This is overpass turbo, a web-based data filtering tool for OpenStreetMap. With overpass turbo you can run Overpass API queries and analyse the resulting OSM data interactively on a map. There is an integrated Wizard which makes creating queries super easy.

How much memory does an OSM planet server need?

It is highly recommended that you have at least the following hardware resources available for an OSM planet server: 1 GB of RAM and sufficient swap space for a small extract or a development system. By contrast, overpass-api.de (the main Overpass API instance) has 32 GB main memory.

Can you run overpass API queries with Overpass Turbo?

With overpass turbo you can run Overpass API queries and analyse the resulting OSM data interactively on a map. There is an integrated Wizard which makes creating queries super easy. More information about overpass turbo and how to write Overpass queries can be found in the OSM wiki.

How long does it take to install overpass on OpenStreetMap?

NOTE: This step can take a very long time to complete. In the case of a smaller OSM extract files, less than 1 hour, but in the case of a full planet file this step could take on the order of 24 hours or more, depending on available memory and processor resources.

What kind of OSM file do I Need?

An OSM file in XML format compressed in bzip format ( Geofabrik is an excellent resource for this. Another good resource is located on the Planet.osm page.) NOTE: You do not need a database engine (e.g. MySQL or PostgreSQL); the database back-end is included in the OSM3S package. You will need to identify or create:

Can you use the overpass API without turbo?

Without using the Overpass Turbo extension (which is more limited and may not return the area you expect), you can still use the Overpass API construct to get the same thing (but without being limited to only one area in the result set, and with more possibilities to filter the selected union area by explicit tags):

Why does the overpass API work based on timestamps?

This is why Overpass API works instead based on timestamps: for a given second in time, it is clear enough what the geometry and topology looked like in the OSM database. Overpass API is designed to work as a public available resource.

How many requests does overpass make per day?

Any of the three servers has a total capacity of about 1,000,000 requests per day. You can safely assume that you don’t disturb other users when you do less than 10,000 queries per day and download less than 5 GB data per day.

Is the overpass API run as a third party?

To support small and well scaling OSM main services, Overpass API is run as a third party service. You can use the public visible instances: yes Any of the three servers has a total capacity of about 1,000,000 requests per day.

When was the first overpass database made available?

For the main Overpass API instance, the database was initially built using the first available ODbL compliant planet dump file (September 2012). If you don’t require all the history back to 2012, it is also possible to start with any later planet dump and apply any subsequent update via the daily/hourly/minutely update process.

What does the overpass API do for OSM?