🧗 OpenClimbing
The climbing guide that belongs to everyone.
Open climbing maps and interactive photo topos built on OpenStreetMap and Wikimedia Commons.
Like Wikipedia, but for rock: climbing data lives in public databases that anyone can use, improve and build upon.
Free. Open source. No ads. No paywall.
🗺️ Explore OpenClimbing ·
💬 Community ·
❤️ Sponsor
[!IMPORTANT]
⭐ Like what we're building? Please star OpenClimbing.
Click the ⭐ Star button at the top of this GitHub page.
It takes a second, costs nothing, and genuinely helps the project. More stars make OpenClimbing easier to discover, attract contributors and show that there is real interest in open climbing data.
If you believe climbing knowledge should remain open, your star is one of the easiest ways to support us. ❤️
→ Open the climbing map
The climbing guide that belongs to everyone
Most online climbing guides work the same way:
You contribute a route, photo or correction — and the information ends up inside a database controlled by one company.
OpenClimbing is built differently.
We don't want to build another proprietary climbing database.
Instead:
OpenClimbing brings these open datasets together and turns them into a modern climbing guide.
The important part is that the data doesn't belong to us.
Anyone can use it.
Anyone can improve it.
Anyone can build another app on top of it.
Even if OpenClimbing disappeared tomorrow, the climbing data would remain public.
The data should outlive the app.
What can you do with OpenClimbing?
🗺️ Explore climbing areas
Find crags, sectors, climbing routes, boulders and other climbing features directly on an interactive map.
🧗 Browse interactive topos
See climbing routes drawn directly over real photographs instead of trying to match route names to a vague description.
✏️ Edit the guide
Add new climbing areas, sectors and routes or improve existing ones.
Your edits become part of OpenStreetMap rather than disappearing into a private database.
📷 Create photo topos
Upload climbing photos to Wikimedia Commons and draw exact route lines, bolts and anchors over them.
☀️ Check sun & shade
See how the sun moves around a crag during the day and choose where to climb before leaving home.
🏔️ Explore terrain in 3D
Tilt the map and understand the orientation, shape and surroundings of a climbing area.
🤖 Detect bolts with AI
OpenClimbing can automatically recognize bolts on climbing photographs to make creating a topo faster.
📱 Edit from your phone
The climbing editor works on mobile, so you can upload photos and improve climbing data directly at the crag.
📄 Export offline PDF guides
Generate a guidebook for a climbing area and take it somewhere without mobile signal.
✅ Log your ascents
Keep track of the routes you have climbed and see your climbing activity.
Open data, all the way down
OpenClimbing is primarily an interface to open data, not the owner of the climbing database.
| What is stored there? | Why? |
|---|
| 🗺️ OpenStreetMap | Crags, sectors, routes, grades, geometry and climbing metadata | Anyone can edit and reuse it |
| 📷 Wikimedia Commons | Climbing and topo photographs | Photos remain part of a public media archive |
| 💻 GitHub | The OpenClimbing application | Anyone can inspect, improve or fork it |
This also means OpenClimbing doesn't have to be the only climbing application using this information.
That's the point.
We want climbing data to become an open foundation that other developers, mappers, researchers, guidebook authors and climbers can build upon.
Interactive photo topos
One of the things that makes OpenClimbing different is the ability to connect an OpenStreetMap climbing route with its exact path on a photograph.
We developed the wikimedia_commons:path tagging scheme for this.
A route can reference a Wikimedia Commons image:
wikimedia_commons = File:Roviste - Monolit.jpg
and describe its path over the image:
wikimedia_commons:path = 0.682,0.823|0.642,0.453B|0.557,0.177A
The coordinates describe the route line while markers can describe features such as:
B — boltA — anchorP — pitonS — fixed sling
The result is an interactive, machine-readable climbing topo built entirely from open data.
And because the specification is open, other applications can render exactly the same topo.
Why open climbing data?
We think basic information about climbing routes should be open in much the same way as information about:
- streets,
- hiking trails,
- peaks,
- buildings,
- rivers,
- or geographical names.
A route's name, grade, location and line are part of our shared knowledge of the physical world.
Yet climbing information is often scattered across paper guidebooks, abandoned websites and proprietary databases.
That creates a few problems.
Closed databases can disappear
A company shuts down.
An app stops being maintained.
A website disappears.
Years of community contributions can disappear with it.
Contributors often don't own their contributions
A climber may spend hours documenting routes but cannot easily export or reuse that information elsewhere.
Every new climbing app starts again
Instead of improving one shared source of information, developers repeatedly rebuild similar databases.
OpenClimbing tries a different approach:
Build the data together. Build as many apps as you want on top of it.
OpenStreetMap and Wikimedia have shown that shared public knowledge can survive individual projects, companies and developers.
We want climbing data to work the same way.
⭐ Help OpenClimbing grow
OpenClimbing is still a relatively small open-source project.
That means something as simple as a GitHub star can make a surprisingly big difference.
If you like the project:
→ Click ⭐ Star at the top of this repository.
Stars help us:
- 📈 become more visible on GitHub,
- 🧑💻 attract new developers and contributors,
- 🧗 reach climbers who haven't heard about OpenClimbing,
- 🌍 show that people care about open climbing data,
- ❤️ stay motivated to keep building.
You don't need to contribute code.
A star, a share or telling another climber about OpenClimbing already helps.
Get involved
OpenClimbing is a community project and there are many ways to contribute.
🧗 I'm a climber
Use OpenClimbing, report missing or incorrect information and tell us what would make the app more useful at the crag.
🗺️ I'm a mapper
Add climbing areas and routes to OpenStreetMap, improve existing data and create photo topos.
Start here:
📷 I'm a photographer
Upload useful climbing photographs to Wikimedia Commons and help turn them into open photo topos.
💻 I'm a developer
Bug fixes, UI improvements, refactoring and new features are welcome.
You can:
📣 I just like the idea
That's useful too.
Star the repository and share OpenClimbing with someone who climbs.
❤️ Support OpenClimbing
OpenClimbing is built in our spare time and given to everyone for free.
There are:
no ads, no paywalls and no paid premium climbing data.
We want to keep it that way.
Financial contributions help cover infrastructure, development tools and equipment and allow us to spend more time improving OpenClimbing and creating better open climbing data.
Sponsor the project
❤️ GitHub Sponsors ·
☕ Buy Me a Coffee ·
More ways to contribute
You can also support us without spending anything:
⭐ Star OpenClimbing
📣 Share the project
🗺️ Improve the data
📷 Add climbing photos
💻 Send a pull request
Every contribution helps.
OpenClimbing will remain open whether you sponsor us or not.
Run OpenClimbing locally
Requirements
Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/jvaclavik/openclimbing.git
cd openclimbing
Enable Corepack and install dependencies:
corepack enable
yarn
Start the development server:
yarn dev
Then open:
http://localhost:3000
Useful commands
yarn dev
yarn test
yarn lint
yarn build
Tech stack
OpenClimbing is mainly built with:
- TypeScript
- React
- Next.js
- MapLibre GL
- Material UI
- OpenStreetMap
- Wikimedia Commons
See ARCHITECTURE.md for more information about the application architecture.
Project roots
OpenClimbing originally grew out of OsmAPP, an open-source universal OpenStreetMap application.
The project was separated to allow OpenClimbing to evolve faster around the specific needs of climbers while keeping the same open-data philosophy.
Huge thanks to everyone who has contributed to OsmAPP, OpenStreetMap, Wikimedia Commons and the wider open-source ecosystem that makes this project possible.
Useful links
License
OpenClimbing is open-source software licensed under the GNU GPL-3.0.
Climbing data and photographs remain subject to the licenses of their respective sources, including OpenStreetMap and Wikimedia Commons.
Climbing knowledge should be open. 🧗🌍
If you agree, help us make OpenClimbing easier to discover.
⭐ Star this repository
Just click the Star button at the top of the page.
It really helps. ❤️
🗺️ Explore OpenClimbing ·
❤️ Become a sponsor ·
💬 Join the community
Made by climbers, for climbers — and for everyone who believes shared knowledge should stay open.
