MapSwipe

British Red Cross

About this app

MapSwipe is part of the Missing Maps project. It is a free, open-source app that lets anyone contribute to humanitarian and development projects in just minutes a day. No mapping experience needed: review satellite imagery, identify features like buildings, roads, and waterways, and help validate map data used by organizations around the world.

The data you generate supports humanitarian organizations, researchers, and local communities, making OpenStreetMap data more accessible for disaster response, public health, climate resilience, and sustainable development.

How you can contribute:

Find Features: Swipe through satellite imagery to spot buildings, roadways, waterways, and more
Compare Dates: Review before-and-after imagery to detect environmental changes and assess damage
Validate Footprints: Check building footprints and flag areas that need remapping
Check Completeness: Compare mapped data against aerial imagery to find gaps
Assess Images: Review photographs to confirm features and improve machine learning tools
Locate Objects: Mark rooftops, solar panels, trees, and other features to help train machine learning models

Your swipes have real impact. MapSwipe is managed by a volunteer-led team with support from the American Red Cross, British Red Cross, Canadian Red Cross, HeiGIT, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Togglecorp.

Download MapSwipe and join a global community putting the world's most vulnerable places on the map.

Ratings and reviews

I'm not sure if how helpful it is. From a user perspective I miss the option to zoom in or out to properly identify a feature. On desktop, I can zoom in all the way to discern a house from a tree, but more importantly zoom out far enough to discern a man-made path from other linear terrain features. As it is now, I do not leave a task with the feeling that I have identified the features well, which creates frustration immediately and discourages to continue in the long run.

It is used for mapping purpose. So there will be less data available for this app

Signing up does not work on my Fairphone 3. The app starts, I enter my username, email and password, then the app takes forever loading and it ends with a message that something went wrong with signing up. Can I create my account via a browser (could not find that option on your website).

What’s new

Fix tutorial rendering