Notable Memorial Map

Notable Memorials

This morning, I created a map of memorials in central London.

My Notable Memorials map displays the names of individuals with memorials in central London, many of which are blue plaque memorials.

While there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about the map itself (although seeing the names of individuals rather than just markers is quite engaging), what stands out is how quickly I was able to create it. In under five minutes, I gathered the data and built the map thanks largely to the Download Data from OpenStreetMap tool.

Download Data from OpenStreetMap

Download Data from OpenSteetMap is a new tool that makes it remarkably easy to view and extract geographical data from OpenStreetMap in GeoJSON format.

Anyone familiar with Overpass Turbo knows it is a powerful querying tool for OpenStreetMap data. However, mastering the Overpass Query Language (OQL) can be quite challenging (though tools like ChatGPT have made writing Overpass QL queries much easier). That’s why I believe there’s a significant demand for simple, user-friendly tools like Download Data from OpenStreetMap.

The tool uses OpenStreetMap categories to populate a drop-down menu. To view and download data, you simply select one of these categories. Any subcategories are conveniently displayed in the map’s sidebar. Then, with just a click of the green 'download' button, you can export the selected data as a GeoJSON file.

Notable People Map

If I wanted to make my Notable Memorials map into something people might actually use when traveling around London I could use the Wikipedia API to add a brief biographical paragraph for each of the notable individuals displayed on the map. 

For now you might prefer Topi Tjukanov's Notable People Map, which shows the most notable people born in locations around the globe. If you want to find memorial markers then the Historical Marker Database records the locations of permanent outdoor historical markers and commemorative plaques across the world. Read the Plaque has also mapped the location of thousands of historical plaques.