1001 Smart Cities
🇨🇺 Havana

Old Havana OpenStreetMap Mapping Sprint

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 9 sourced claims · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

9 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

✎ Corrected 22 Aug 2026 2 claims added. What changed →

A dozen volunteers on bikes and motorcycles mapped 80-90% of Old Havana's UNESCO-listed core in a six-day 2016 sprint — phones, action cameras and Mapillary rigs, no government agency involved.

Outcome🎯 Succeeded
Evidence🏛️ Official
what does this mean?The strongest source is the operator's or the city's own reporting — an official report, dataset or press release. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byOpenStreetMap Cuba (volunteer community), with Mapillary
Scale🏘️ District

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ Havana city profile · 🗺️ GIS & cadastre guide · 👥 Society projects

In September 2016, a dozen OpenStreetMap Cuba volunteers mapped Old Havana's streets on foot, bike and motorcycle with phones, action cameras and 360-degree cameras, covering an estimated 80-90% of the UNESCO-listed historic core and adding the imagery to the open Mapillary database.

Completed 📅 2016

📊 Impact

Volunteers covered an estimated 80-90% of Old Havana's streets during the September 2016 sprint (Mapillary).

👥 SocietyGIS & cadastreOpen data

Sources

↗ OpenStreetMap Cuba (community)Collaborative dynamic open geodata repository mapping regional assets.
↗ Mapillary Blog (press)News coverage of the project.
↗ OpenStreetMap WikiFurther information on the project.
Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 9 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 9 addressable claims, 3 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 9

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-f466eb83897248c4 quantitative
In September 2016
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Mapillary blog post, published 06 Oct 2016, dates the mapping camp: the author writes that he 'landed on September 21st to kick start the mapping'.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Mapillary Blog (press)
Claim 2 clm-48e99425eadad479 descriptive
a dozen OpenStreetMap Cuba volunteers
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The blog states 'A team of 12 people set out to map Cuba's capital city' and describes how Mapillary 'got in touch with the community of OpenStreetMap Cuba' to run the project with them.
Caveat
The source counts twelve people in the team but does not describe all twelve as OpenStreetMap Cuba volunteers; the author himself writes as a Mapillary employee who travelled in, and the piece names 'the local group' separately.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Mapillary Blog (press)
Claim 3 clm-84ab0430b005a97a descriptive
mapped Old Havana's streets on foot, bike and motorcycle
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The blog names all three modes: 'the local group provided two motorcycles plus two bicycles', 'Volunteers on foot mapped the streets of Old Havana where no bicycle or motorcycle is allowed', and 'The people on bicycles mapped the Center of La Havana with their phones'.
Caveat
The six-day duration appears only in Bloomberg's coverage, which is not among the listed sources and could not be read; the Mapillary blog names the arrival day but no end date.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Mapillary Blog (press)
Claim 4 clm-a9d63a7506402292 quantitative
with phones, action cameras and 360-degree cameras
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The blog lists the equipment for the on-foot mapping: 'Using phones, action cameras and 360 cameras in combination with chest mounts and selfie sticks, they provided some great shots of what is happening in the center of the city.'
Caveat
The source says '360 cameras' without naming a manufacturer.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Mapillary Blog (press)
Claim 5 clm-bc24a3b5b1c71a6e quantitative
covering an estimated 80-90%
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The blog gives the coverage figure as a range in the operator's own words: 'We rented a car and the local group provided two motorcycles plus two bicycles, with which we ended up mapping 80‒90% of Old Havana.'
Caveat
This is the organiser's own estimate, published in Mapillary's company blog; the post gives no method, no measured street kilometres and no independent check behind the range.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Mapillary Blog (press)
Claim 6 clm-60517648fe49258d descriptive
of the UNESCO-listed historic core
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
An image caption in the blog post describes the mapped area as 'A magnificent walk around Old Havana - a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and the text repeatedly names Old Havana as the area covered.
Caveat
The source asserts the World Heritage status in a photo caption; it cites no inscription date and no UNESCO document. The listed OpenStreetMap Wiki page (a 2011 conference bid) describes Old Havana as the historic core but does not mention UNESCO.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Mapillary Blog (press)
Claim 7 clm-5cd53d94f8ca272a descriptive
adding the imagery to the open Mapillary
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The blog invites readers to 'explore the streets and locations of La Havana' on Mapillary and states the upload volume: 'we will be uploading more than 140 GB of image data.'
Caveat
The post is written in the future tense about the upload ('we will be uploading'); it does not confirm that all of the imagery had been published at the time of writing.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Mapillary Blog (press)
Claim 8 clm-eb0efa2766a64614 quantitative
Volunteers covered an estimated 80-90% of Old Havana's streets
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The coverage range is the operator's own summary of the sprint: 'with which we ended up mapping 80‒90% of Old Havana'. The blog attributes the work to the twelve-person team plus the local OpenStreetMap Cuba group.
Caveat
The source says '80‒90% of Old Havana', not explicitly '80-90% of its streets'; and the figure is a self-reported estimate by the organiser, with no method stated and no independent measurement.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Mapillary Blog (press)
Claim 9 clm-0506969cfb9494b3 quantitative
during the September 2016 sprint
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The blog dates the mapping camp to September 2016 - 'I landed on September 21st to kick start the mapping' - and was itself published on 06 Oct 2016, shortly after.
Caveat
The source names only the start date. It gives no end date and no duration, so the length of the sprint cannot be checked against this source.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Mapillary Blog (press)
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-21-unsourced-text-correction effective 2026-08-02 · created 2026-08-22

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:3029206216e19e6e0791e583feeb04391dd45af24a12916e908210fe04e86723
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
9
of 9 claims mapped
3
source dossiers
0
publication dates recorded
0
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
OpenStreetMap Cuba (volunteer community), with Mapillary
Actor types
civil-society, private
Funding model
Not recorded
Funding description
Not recorded
Cost
Not recorded
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

3 source dossiers

OpenStreetMap Cuba (community) openstreetmap.org · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-8ca8987a667ea519
Publisher
Name not classified · openstreetmap.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-02
Dossier created
2026-08-22
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Collaborative dynamic open geodata repository mapping regional assets.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Mapillary Blog (press) blog.mapillary.com · 9 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-9aeac5ca1986a966
Publisher
Name not classified · blog.mapillary.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-02
Dossier created
2026-08-22
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

News coverage of the project.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
OpenStreetMap Wiki wiki.openstreetmap.org · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-84b0d630dee79ee4
Publisher
Name not classified · wiki.openstreetmap.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-02
Dossier created
2026-08-22
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Further information on the project.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇰🇪 Map Kibera — Residents Surveying an Informal Settlement into OpenStreetMap · Nairobi Volunteer sprints putting an unmapped area on OpenStreetMap — Nairobi's informal settlement in 2009, Havana's UNESCO core in 2016. 🇹🇿 Ramani Huria Community Flood Mapping · Dar es Salaam Same donor playbook as Ramani Huria: volunteers on foot with phones and cameras, mapping streets no official survey had covered. 🇬🇧 Open Data Bristol: one licence stated, forty-four in the metadata · Bristol Havana's map exists because volunteers made it; Bristol's catalogue exists and often says nothing about re-use.

Explore the wider context

🏙️ Urban digital twins compared📖 Building performance standard (BPS)📖 Digital twin📖 GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification)
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Old Havana OpenStreetMap Mapping Sprint” — Havana, Cuba. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/havana-digital-mapping/ (last verified 2026-08-02). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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