--- id: data-sources/mapillary about: label: Mapillary description: >- Meta's street-level photo platform: pictures people take with phones and action cameras, joined into street views, with detected traffic signs and street features as map data. tags: - street-level imagery - photos - traffic signs - computer vision - OpenStreetMap - global datasource: coverage: >- global, wherever contributors have photographed; the about page gives 190 countries resolution: >- individual geolocated photos and sequences, with original and computed positions; map features located from several images cadence: continuous as contributors upload access: >- web map without code; API and vector tiles need a registered application's client token format: >- images as thumbnails up to 2048 px wide and the original; vector tiles; JSON entity API; points and traffic signs downloadable as GeoJSON homepage: 'https://www.mapillary.com/' open: source: unknown data: open api: 'yes' participation: open licence: >- imagery CC BY-SA 4.0 unless Mapillary indicates otherwise; API and services under Mapillary's terms of use note: >- The terms allow some content to be offered under other licences such as CC BY-NC-SA, limit commercial use to listed purposes, and require applications to show the Mapillary logo with a link back. domains: - places relations: - predicate: alternative_to target: data-sources/panoramax note: both hold street-level photos contributed by the public - predicate: alternative_to target: data-sources/kartaview note: both hold street-level photos contributed by the public - predicate: contributes_to target: data-sources/openstreetmap-osm note: >- any Mapillary image may be used to derive data for OpenStreetMap, and the main OSM editors show its imagery provenance: origin: agent sources: - title: About (Mapillary) url: 'https://www.mapillary.com/about' - title: 'Terms of Use (Mapillary, effective February 15, 2024)' url: 'https://www.mapillary.com/terms' - title: API Documentation (Mapillary API v4) url: 'https://www.mapillary.com/developer/api-documentation' - title: CC-BY-SA license for open data (Mapillary Help Center) url: >- https://help.mapillary.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001770409-CC-BY-SA-license-for-open-data - title: Images and Data for OpenStreetMap (Mapillary) url: 'https://www.mapillary.com/osm' created: '2026-10-30' reviewed: '2026-10-30' reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed' status: draft --- Anyone can photograph streets for Mapillary with a smartphone or action camera and upload the pictures.[^1] Computer vision connects the images across time and space into street-level views and extracts map data from them.[^1] It started in 2013 and joined Facebook, now Meta, in 2020; its about page says members have contributed more than two billion images.[^1] The service is provided by Meta Platforms Ireland Limited.[^2] Each image carries its capture time, compass angle and position, both as the camera recorded it and as computed after image processing.[^3] Each image belongs to a sequence, and images can be fetched as thumbnails up to 2,048 pixels wide or at original size.[^3] From the images Mapillary detects objects such as traffic signs and other street features; a map feature is an object located from detections in several images, and the detections in a single image, with their outlines in the picture, can also be read.[^3] The full lists of point features and traffic signs are published with the API documentation.[^3] The API has two parts: vector tiles for drawing coverage and map features on a map, and entity endpoints for the details of each image, sequence, map feature or detection.[^3] Every request needs an access token, and a developer must register each application to get one.[^2,3] The entity endpoints search only small areas: since January 2026 a bounding box must be smaller than 0.01 degrees square, and the documentation points to the Mapillary Python SDK for larger areas.[^3] A radius search added in April 2026 finds images within 50 metres of a point.[^3] Without code, points and traffic signs visible on the web map can be downloaded as GeoJSON.[^3] Images are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless Mapillary indicates otherwise, and the terms say some content may be offered under other licences such as CC BY-NC-SA.[^2] The help centre gives the attribution it expects: the image title linked to the image, the contributor's username linked to their profile, and the licence.[^4] An application that serves Mapillary images from its own servers, or shows data extracted from them, must display the Mapillary logo and link back.[^2] Applications must add something of their own; redistributing the content alone is not allowed.[^2] Commercial use is allowed only for the purposes the terms list, such as building products, maps, studies and datasets or doing work for clients, and needs safeguards against re-identifying people or unblurring images.[^2] Mapillary blurs faces and vehicle licence plates, and the terms forbid unblurring or re-identifying anyone.[^2] Anyone may use any Mapillary image to derive data for OpenStreetMap, and its imagery and detections appear in the Rapid, iD and JOSM editors.[^5] For someone modelling a street, neighbourhood or road network, Mapillary is a way to see what is on the ground and when it was photographed: kerbs, signs, shopfronts, crossings, street furniture, the state of a road. The detected traffic signs and points can seed a layer of street assets, and the photos let a modeller check a map or an [OpenStreetMap](/data-sources/openstreetmap-osm/) edit against the street itself. The photos come from whoever has contributed them, so their dates and gaps vary from street to street.