I recently prepared and uploaded some more satellite images of the Antarctic for mapping in OpenStreetMap. They mostly cover the mountain areas of Queen Maud Land, that is the section of the East Antarctic coast facing the Atlantic Ocean. This has historically been a major focus area of European exploration of the Antarctic and features some of the most spectacular landscapes of the continent. Also included are some more images of the Antarctic peninsula.

In addition to the 10m resolution Sentinel-2 images i also included a number of evening Landsat images because having two images with different illuminations available can be of high value for mapping peaks and ridges in mountainous terrain. Here an example:

Also otherwise i specifically keep the individual images in separate layers so mappers can consult several different images where available for better assessment of the local situation.

If you have read my previous discussion of the state of mapping of the Antarctic you might be wondering why i put effort into this despite the clear lack of interest in the OSM community at large in mapping the Antarctic. The reason is that in light of the poor situation in most image sources commonly used by mappers in this area i want to make sure mapping is at least not hampered by the lack of suitable imagery.

The imagery i have prepared for the Antarctic now covers more than half of those parts of the continent containing ice free areas. That means if you are interested in mapping a particular part of the continent you might still be out of luck with finding decent imagery. If you, however, are interested in mapping the continent in general you have plenty of places to do that all over the continent.

As before the new images are likely going to be available in the editors soon – if you can’t wait you can also add them manually based on the links provided on my preview map.