It's strange to me that osm wants to be a global player and doesn't provide at least an English map

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[–] 16 points 11 months ago

OSM provides multiple languages including English. Are you using a VPN connected to another country perhaps?

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    OSM is a database. It doesn't have a a "language", as it's just a collection of tags and coordinates.

    It sounds like you want to see a map where the name of features are displayed in English. Some notable renderers where you can set the display language:

    Note that it should fall back to the "default" name when no English name is given, so don't expect every text will be automatically translated or even romanized

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    I mean the interface definitely has a language...?

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago*

    That interface is the "osm website" or usually called "osm.org", a related project, but it has a different license and maintainers, and it's just only one way to see the OSM databse. Source code is here: https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website

    If you click on the Edit button by default you will be redirected to another project called iD editor, again with different license and maintainers: https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD

    I usually use JOSM, Overpass Turbo and OsmCha to see the live database, and they are all semi-independent projects.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago

    what's an "English map"?

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    @illusionist there are several OSM based maps that will try to provide you with whatever language you like.

    I think the Maptiler layer on osm.org will try to match your browser preference, the cycle and transport layers also display levels in English where possible.

    @openstreetmap

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    The default raster layer displays the value of the name tag, which usually is in the most common or official language of the given region. Just zoom in to Europe, you will see Deutschland, not Germany.

    However vector layers can display different language tags, you have to switch to them in the layer selector on the top right.

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