A Gateway to all Your Geospatial Datasets of Kerala, an initiative by Open Data Kerala
A year back (in 2020 November 1), on the last anniversary of the birth of the state of Kerala (KeralaPiravi), OpenDataKerala (ODK) community (or movement, if that sounds more apt) was also formed. Open Data Kerala was a collective formed to curate the datasets related to Kerala and Malayalam to make this data available to the general public under Open license and also to promote the open data culture. We celebrated our formation with the release of our first dataset, the Local Self Government Institution’s (LSGI) boundary of the entire state of Kerala. We retrieved the boundaries of over 1200 local bodies of Kerala from OpenStreetMap and packaged it in all standard for data formats and made it available to the public. We are proud to revel that these same layers were used by many institutions during the elections happened in 2020 for data visualisations and for various COVID19 operations including the government agencies and media houses.
Today as we at ODK turns one, we proudly present before you Map Kerala (alpha release), a gateway to all geospatial datasets of Kerala (map.opendatakerala.org). MapKerala is a geoportal where you can query and download the geospatial datasets district-wise or even drill down to local body level. Various categorized filters are available to easily find the datasets you needed. The data is directly sourced from the OpenStreetMap (huge thanks to the OSM volunteer mappers for their exhaustive work and attentions to detail) which ensures you receive the latest updated data. You also have the option to add or correct any erroneous or missing details in OpenStreetMap as you work and download updated datasets from Map Kerala portal.
Datasets are linked directly to Wikidata. Wikidata integration enables continous data updation and cataloguing. This reduces the redundancy in data by maintaining a single data point and updation will reflects in all connected areas.
We would like to extend sincere thanks to all the people and organizations who provideed unwavering support and important critiques towards the development of Open Data Kerala. Kudos and hearty thanks Manoj Karingamadathil and Akshay S Dinesh for leading the Map Kerala project, along with Naveen Francis, Kelvin, Heniz V, Jaisen Nedumpala, Jinoy and arkArjun from OpenStreetMap Kerala. Efforts of various organizations and communities such as OpenStreetMap Kerala, wikidata commuity, Swathanthra Malayalam Computing, CODD-Keralam, Geominds cannot be ignored.
“Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves”
— Aaron Swartz
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