An Efficient RDF Converter and SPARQL Endpoint for the Complete OpenStreetMap Data

Abstract

We present osm2rdf, a tool for converting OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to RDF triples, along with an efficient SPARQL endpoint and a convenient user interface for formulating SPARQL queries on that data. Unlike previous tools, osm2rdf retains all data provided by OSM, including the complete object geometries. Optionally, the tool can output explicit triples realizing the spatial relations contains and intersects. We provide weekly updates of the data (for the whole planet and also per continent and per country) on https://osm2rdf.cs.uni-freiburg.de. The tool is publicly available on GitHub. The SPARQL endpoint is realized via the open-source SPARQL engine QLever. We extended QLever to enable the efficient geometric filtering of a result by a given axis-parallel rectangle. The QLever UI provides interactive context-sensitive autocompletion that helps constructing SPARQL queries without prior knowledge of the details of the data.