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Using the Organic Maps app on your mobile phone to navigate paths in the countryside
Organic Maps is a great mapping app
When you're out in the countryside it's useful to have a map of where you are! Traditionally, this has been a paper map like the wonderful 1:25000 Explorer series produced by the Ordnance Survey (OS). However, with the advent of mobile phones many people use an app on their phone to show a map. One advantage of using an app is that they usually show you where you are.
There are a number of apps available and some are free. I used to recommend OSMAnd but recently PWB recommended Organic Maps to me and I'm now using that as importing public rights of way data into it is easier to do. If you are using OSMAnd then my notes about using it are still available on this web page. But I'm now recommending Organic Maps!
The Organic Maps app is available for both Android and iOS. The cool thing about it is that it shows a map that has already been stored on the phone - so you don't need any 3G/4G signal to show the map. And by accessing a GPS signal (which is different from a 3G/4G signal) Organic Maps also shows where you are on that map.
For its data about things on the map, Organic Maps is using OpenStreetMap (OSM). OSM relies on amateurs who contribute the data. As far as paths are concerned, they are providing the routes of the paths that they find on the ground. So some of these may not be public rights of ways (PROWs). If they are PROWs then, for various reasons, their mapping of what's on the ground may take a different route to what's on an OS map.
Users of OSM (like me using Organic Maps) are dependent on these contributors. Of course there may be errors in what they record or there may have been changes since they visited the area. It also means that there will be areas where paths are missing because no-one has done any mapping. If you want to get involved with adding stuff to OSM, go to this wiki page.
Downloading Organic Maps
If you wish to use the Organic Maps app, you'll need to download it from either the Google Play Store (if you have an Android phone) or the Apple App Store (if you have an iOS phone).
Loading maps into Organic Maps
Note: the instructions given below are those for an Android phone. Hopefully, the instructions for a phone running iOS will be similar.
When you start the app for the first time, it will ask you to allow the app to access the phone's location. Agree to this.
A map of the world will appear. There are two blue arrows on the screen. Click the blue arrow that's on the right hand side of the screen and towards the bottom of the screen. That will zoom the map into the current location.
It will then offer to download a map for the current area. For me it offered South East England. Allow it to do this.
You should now get a map showing the area where you currently are.
Organic Maps is now ready to be used
You can now go out and use Organic Maps in the countryside! The map you get will display information about your current area including the paths that have been mapped by OSM contributors. The notation that is used by the map is explained on this web page.
Getting public rights of ways (PROWs) displayed in Organic Maps
Public rights of ways (PROWs) are paths that you can legally use when out in the countryside. Their mapping is done by the local authority. This might be the County Council (e.g., Oxfordshire); a smaller unit such as West Berkshire or a town such as Warrington. If you have used OS paper maps, then they are shown using dashed green lines on an OS 1:25000 Explorer map and dashed red lines on an OS 1:50000 Landranger map.
I maintain a website www.rowmaps.com that has information about the PROWs of 127 local authorities. These are the local authorities that have released their PROWs data with an Open licence. A list of these authorities is provided on this web page.
www.rowmaps.com has KML files for these PROWs that you can download and use in Organic Maps. This means that the map being shown in Organic Maps can be overlayed with lines showing the routes of these PROWs.
So if you get the KML file for a local authority into Organic Maps, it's able to show not only the routes of paths mapped by OSM contributors but also the routes of PROWs.
There are two stages to getting this done. First you have to download a KML file to your phone and then you have to configure Organic Maps to use it.
Getting Organic Maps to use a KML file that has PROWs
To get the KML file for a local authority, use a web browser on your mobile phone (e.g, Chrome/Firefox) to visit the web page www.rowmaps.com/kmls and then click on the link for one of the local authorities.
For example, if you choose Oxfordshire, you'll get to www.rowmaps.com/kmls/ON. Whatever authority you choose, towards the bottom of the rowmaps KML web page for the local authority there is a link labelled something like converted KML file for Oxfordshire. Click on this link. It will access a URL like www.rowmaps.com/kmls/ON/converted.kml.
Hopefully clicking that link will get your web browser to download the KML file. When it's finished downloading: either on an Android phone click on Open and choose Organic Maps or on an iOS phone click on Share and choose Organic Maps.
If you now pan the map to a part of the area of the local authority you chose (e.g., Oxfordshire), you should find the PROWs displayed on the map.
There are four kinds of PROWs. PROWs that are Footpaths are shown using solid red lines; those that are Bridleways are shown using solid fuchsia lines; Restricted Byways are shown using solid green lines and Byways Open to All Traffic are shown using solid blue lines.
The lines provided by the KML files may be wrong or a bit out
Although the routing provided by a local authority's data that's in the KML files is often reasonably accurate the data should not be used for legally determining the route of a PROW. By law a local authority has to provide a Definitive Map and this is the legal document. Changes may have been made to the Definitive Map that are not included in their data. And of course the data will be missing changes that have been made since the data was obtained from the local authority.
On the ground, there are often waymarks that the local authority provide to indicate the route of a PROW and these should be used. And when crossing diagonally across a field the landowner may have used some mechanism to indicate where the PROW goes. Or it may be obvious because there are footprints/horseshoe prints indicating where people have been before - hopefully they are going the right way!
And OSM contributors may have mapped the area and Organic Maps will show where they found paths.
So although the routing provided by the KML file is a good first start be aware of these other possibilities when using the PROW.
Occasionally the KML files on rowmaps get updated
Occasionally the KML files on rowmaps get updated. Some local authorities do this regularly (e.g., quarterly, annually) and I update www.rowmaps.com whenever I spot that this has happened. However, for most local authorities I have to request an update. Although I try to do this annually, with some local authorities I haven't done this.
The X feed @rowmaps gets updated whenever the data for a local authority has been changed on www.rowmaps.com. When this happens, you may want to download the KML file again and load the new KML file into Organic Maps. The X updates can also be seen on this web page or this web page.