// the find
tyrasd/overpass-turbo
A web based data mining tool for OpenStreetMap using the Overpass API.
overpass-turbo is the standard web UI for writing and testing Overpass API queries against OpenStreetMap data. It renders query results on an interactive map and is the tool OSM contributors and geo-data researchers reach for first when they need to extract specific features from the map.
The wizard mode that generates OverpassQL from plain-language descriptions is genuinely useful for people who don't know the query language yet. The export options cover GeoJSON, GPX, KML, and raw OSM XML, which means results slot directly into most downstream tools without conversion. It's been the de facto standard for this use case for over a decade, so the community documentation and example queries are extensive. The Vite migration (TypeScript + pnpm) modernised a project that was long overdue for a build toolchain refresh.
The map renderer is Leaflet, which means large result sets — thousands of polygons or dense point clouds — will lock the browser. The README points to Ultra (MapLibre-based) as the answer, but that's a different project on GitLab with no clear maintenance story. There's a TODO.md in the repo that reads like a wish list nobody is getting to: this is a single-maintainer project with 171 forks and slow PR throughput, so anything not already in the tool probably won't arrive soon. Self-hosting is technically possible but almost completely undocumented beyond 'clone and run pnpm start', which is a problem if you need a private instance for sensitive internal data.