Malawi transport data

Railway lines and stations tagged `railway=*`: rail lines, tram tracks, and stations. Useful for transport accessibility analysis and basemap context. Coverage reflects where volunteer mappers have been active. Urban areas are usually well represented, remote areas may be sparse. Cross-check critical decisions with local field knowledge. - Source: OpenStreetMap, a free, collaborative world map - Tags: railway - Part of the country exports on HDX by HOT

Sea ports, harbours and ferry terminals. Useful for maritime logistics, supply-chain analysis, and coastal access planning. Coverage reflects where volunteer mappers have been active. Urban areas are usually well represented, remote areas may be sparse. Cross-check critical decisions with local field knowledge. - Source: OpenStreetMap, a free, collaborative world map - Tags: industrial=port, harbour, port, amenity=ferry_terminal, building=ferry_terminal - Part of the country exports on HDX by HOT

Road network across the area tagged `highway=*`: motorways, residential streets, service roads, footways, and trails. Useful for routing, accessibility analysis, and evacuation planning. Coverage reflects where volunteer mappers have been active. Urban areas are usually well represented, remote areas may be sparse. Cross-check critical decisions with local field knowledge. - Source: OpenStreetMap, a free, collaborative world map - Tags: highway - Part of the country exports on HDX by HOT

Accessibility to major cities dataset is modeled as raster-based travel time/cost analysis, computed for the largest cities (>50k habitants) in the country. This 500m resolution raster dataset is part of FAO's Hand-in-Hand Initiative, Geographical Information Systems - Multicriteria Decision Analysis (GIS-MCDA) aimed at the identification of value chain infrastructure sites (or optimal location). **Data publication:** 2021-10-18 **Contact points:** Metadata Contact: [FAO-Data](mailto:fao-data@fao.org) Resource Contact: [Justeen De Ocampo](mailto:justeen.deocampo@fao.org) **Data lineage:** lineage statement Produced using OpenStreetMap data for roads, railways, rivers; UN Map country border; The HydroSHEDS 15' resolution GRID for the DEM, GHSL - Global Human Settlement Layer. **Resource constraints:** This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY 4.0) **Online resources:** Zipped raster TIF file for accessibility to major cities (Malawi ~ 500m)

Accessibility to regional cities dataset is modeled as raster-based travel time/cost analysis, computed for the largest cities surrounding the country. The following cities are included: City - Population Kasama - 520 459 Chipata - 305 396 Tete - 615 231 Mbeya - 445 544 This 500m resolution raster dataset is part of FAO's Hand-in-Hand Initiative, Geographical Information Systems - Multicriteria Decision Analysis (GIS-MCDA) aimed at the identification of value chain infrastructure sites (or optimal location). **Data publication:** 2021-10-18 **Contact points:** Metadata Contact: [FAO-Data](mailto:fao-data@fao.org) Resource Contact: [Justeen De Ocampo](mailto:justeen.deocampo@fao.org) **Data lineage:** lineage statement Produced using OpenStreetMap data for roads, railways, rivers; UN Map country border; The HydroSHEDS 15' resolution GRID for the DEM, GHSL - Global Human Settlement Layer. **Resource constraints:** This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY 4.0) **Online resources:** Zipped raster TIF file for accessibility to regional cities (Malawi ~ 500m)

Railway and rail transport network of Malawi showing the extent and classification of rail infrastructure. Includes passenger and freight lines. Use this layer for rail transport planning, freight logistics analysis, infrastructure assessment, and multimodal transport mapping.

Point locations of airports, airstrips and airfields in Malawi. Each feature includes the facility name, type, elevation and runway information where available. Use this layer for aviation planning, accessibility analysis, emergency response logistics, and transport network mapping.

Locations of seaports, harbours and maritime infrastructure in Malawi. Includes commercial ports, fishing harbours and ferry terminals. Use this layer for maritime transport planning, trade logistics analysis, coastal zone management, and shipping route mapping.

This dataset provides detailed information on road surfaces from OpenStreetMap (OSM), distinguishing between **paved** and **unpaved** roads across the region. Surface classification is derived using a hybrid deep learning approach. For methodological details, see: http://arxiv.org/abs/2410.19874 Recently, we also published a new country-level dataset based on PlanetScope satellite imagery with near-complete coverage of all arterial roads. It is available on HDX under the name Malawi **Planet** Road Surface. The corresponding paper is available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.04092 Road Surface Statistics Approximately 0.2216 million km of roads are mapped in OSM in this region. Based on AI-derived estimates: - Paved roads: 0.0069 million km (3.1158%) - Unpaved roads: 0.0435 million km (19.613%) About 0.1712 million km (77.2712%) of road surface information is missing in OSM. To reduce this gap, the Mapillary-derived road surface dataset provides an additional 0.0003 million km (0.1706%) of the missing surface information. Intended Use This dataset supports transportation planning, infrastructure analysis, climate emissions assessment, and GIS applications. AI Features - **pred_class**: Model-predicted surface class ("paved" or "unpaved") - **pred_label**: Binary label (0 = paved, 1 = unpaved) - **osm_surface_class**: Surface classification derived from OSM tags - **combined_surface_osm_priority**: Combined classification prioritizing OSM - **combined_surface_DL_priority**: Combined classification prioritizing DL prediction - **n_of_predictions_used**: Number of predictions used for estimation - **predicted_length**: Predicted length based on DL estimation (meters) - **DL_mean_timestamp**: Mean timestamp of predictions used OSM Attributes - **name** - **name:en** - **name:* (local language)** - **highway** - **surface** - **smoothness** - **width** - **lanes** - **oneway** - **bridge** - **layer** - **source** Urban Classification Attributes - **continent** - **country_iso_a2** - **urban** (0 = rural, 1 = urban) - **urban_area** - **osm_id** - **osm_type** Data Sources The dataset originates from OpenStreetMap (OSM) and is augmented with deep learning predictions based on Mapillary street-level imagery, combined with the GHSU Global Human Settlement Urban Layer 2019 and AFRICAPOLIS 2020 urban layer. More HeiGIT datasets: https://data.humdata.org/organization/heidelberg-institute-for-geoinformation-technology More information: https://heigit.org/ Contact: communications@heigit.org

Airports and aviation infrastructure: airports, heliports, helipads, runways, terminals, and emergency landing sites tagged via `aeroway`, `building`, or `emergency`. Useful for logistics, evacuation routing, and aerial-response planning. Coverage reflects where volunteer mappers have been active. Urban areas are usually well represented, remote areas may be sparse. Cross-check critical decisions with local field knowledge. - Source: OpenStreetMap, a free, collaborative world map - Tags: aeroway, building, emergency - Part of the country exports on HDX by HOT