<p>Google Maps and MapQuest have gathered data and information through subcontractors and their own internal efforts. Their information is proprietary and is very hard to gain access to (and most methods of scraping this data would violate their Terms of Service). It's generally not considered a reliable source for getting anything beyond geocoded addresses. </p>

<p>An alternative method for getting more specific geographic data (e.g. building footprints, forest extents, roads/highways, POIs, etc.) is through the <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/about">OpenStreetMap Project</a>. This information is Open and crowd-sourced with very few limitations. Specific information can be grabbed through their <a href="http://www.overpass-api.de/">Overpass API</a> or can be <a href="http://download.geofabrik.de/">downloaded as a whole</a> in their pbf format which can then be converted to shapefile/GML.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-21T18:16:34.277Z
2016-10-21T20:13:04.530Z
2016-10-21T20:13:04.530Z
Zeitsperre
<p>Where do companies like Google and Yahoo and Mapquest get their street and road data? Is this a data source that the public has access to?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-21T13:45:30.917Z
Have you read https://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html#streetview?
arkaia
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-26T11:47:28.643Z
It considerably depends on the country (and partly city) whether there is publicly available data. E.g. the German city of Rostock has a public data portal, where street data are available (http://www.opendata-hro.de/dataset/strassen). A former colleague needs street data for vehicle emission calculations and uses OpenStreetmap data for this purpose.
daniel.heydebreck
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-11-08T22:02:02.590Z
You should know--there's a [SE](http://opendata.stackexchange.com/) site for that.
mkennedy
<geography><open-data><mapping>
Street and road data
Tyler Durden
# Street and road data

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-10-21)

Where do companies like Google and Yahoo and Mapquest get their street and road data? Is this a data source that the public has access to?

**Tags:** geography, open-data, mapping

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Have you read https://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html#streetview?  
> **username_2**: It considerably depends on the country (and partly city) whether there is publicly available data. E.g. the German city of Rostock has a public data portal, where street data are available (http://www.opendata-hro.de/dataset/strassen). A former colleague needs street data for vehicle emission calculations and uses OpenStreetmap data for this purpose.  
> **username_3**: You should know--there's a [SE](http://opendata.stackexchange.com/) site for that.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2016-10-21. Score: 7 | Accepted answer

Google Maps and MapQuest have gathered data and information through subcontractors and their own internal efforts. Their information is proprietary and is very hard to gain access to (and most methods of scraping this data would violate their Terms of Service). It's generally not considered a reliable source for getting anything beyond geocoded addresses.

An alternative method for getting more specific geographic data (e.g. building footprints, forest extents, roads/highways, POIs, etc.) is through the [OpenStreetMap Project](https://www.openstreetmap.org/about). This information is Open and crowd-sourced with very few limitations. Specific information can be grabbed through their [Overpass API](http://www.overpass-api.de/) or can be [downloaded as a whole](http://download.geofabrik.de/) in their pbf format which can then be converted to shapefile/GML.


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