Wikimapia
Wikimapia is a free, multilingual, open-content collaborative mapping platform launched in 2006 where internet volunteers create place tags and share geographic knowledge across 200+ countries. It is operated by two co-founders, supported by a small team, and discloses no monetization model.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2006
- HeadquartersFlagstaff, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2C
- OfferingSoftware
What Wikimapia does
Wikimapia is a multilingual, open-content collaborative mapping platform launched on May 24, 2006 by Russian internet entrepreneurs Alexandre Koriakine (CFO) and Evgeniy Saveliev (CEO). The platform allows any internet user to create place tags, add descriptions with proof links, categorize objects, and upload photos for geographic features worldwide, with a web-GIS interface that supports translations and multilingual descriptions. The product surface has expanded over time to include linear features for roads, rivers, railroads and ferry routes, the Cityguides consolidated-location pages, the Status Grid data-quality tool, an embeddable map for third-party sites, and a non-commercial API (launched December 2009). All map content is contributed by unpaid internet volunteers, with the platform operated by a small team of co-founders, software engineers, a frontend engineer/designer, and a content writer.
Underlying technology consists of a web-GIS mapping engine (a new engine was launched in parallel mode in May 2012) with multilingual interface translation and a CC BY-SA-licensed open data layer. By July 2012 the platform had accumulated 19 million tags across 200+ countries and 1 million+ registered users, with about 1 million daily visitors, supported by 100+ language forums.
Wikimapia's business model is non-commercial: the platform is free to use, the API is restricted to non-commercial use, no pricing tiers are disclosed, no advertising or subscription revenue is reported, and no external funding rounds appear in the source material. The company is privately held by its two co-founders, with no disclosed institutional investors, partnerships, or M&A activity. Customer base is a horizontal long tail of individual global users rather than enterprise accounts.
Wikimapia firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Wikimapia
- Legal name
- Wikimapia
- Website
- https://wikimapia.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2006
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Wikimapia is a free, multilingual, open-content collaborative mapping platform launched in 2006 where internet volunteers create place tags and share geographic knowledge across 200+ countries. It is operated by two co-founders, supported by a small team, and discloses no monetization model.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where Wikimapia is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Flagstaff
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Wikimapia business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations
Revenue model
- Free Public Access: Wikimapia operates as a non-commercial platform providing free access to geographic data for the public domain. Data is released under Creative Commons License (CC BY-SA). No revenue model is disclosed in the source material; the platform appears to operate without direct monetization.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Others | Free access for all users |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels1 record
Marketing channels5 records
Wikimapia product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Wikimapia is a multilingual, open-content collaborative map where any Internet volunteer can create place tags for static geographic objects and areas, add descriptions with proof links, upload photos, assign categories, and leave comments. The platform is maintained as a free public resource and released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license, with supporting tools such as a non-commercial API, Linear Features, Status Grid, Cityguides, and Road Interactivity.
Product overview
Wikimapia is a single, unified open-source collaborative mapping platform that allows users to create place tags and share geographical knowledge about locations worldwide. The core product consists of the main map platform, supported by complementary tools including an API for non-commercial data access, Cityguides for consolidated location information, a Status Grid tool for data quality improvement, a community Forum, Documentation wiki, and a Blog for news and updates.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Wikimapia collaborative map A multilingual open-content collaborative mapping platform where any Internet volunteer can create place tags for static geographic objects and areas, write descriptions with proof links, upload photos, assign categories, and leave comments. Data is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license and is free for public use.
- Wikimapia API A non-commercial API that exposes Wikimapia's collaborative geographic content in several formats for developers, researchers, and integrators building non-commercial applications or embeds.
Companies that use Wikimapia
Customer profileSegments1 record
Ideal customer profiles2 records
Wikimapia technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature6 records
Wikimapia partnerships and signals
Strategic signalScale indicators5 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights4 records
Wikimapia competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- GeoNames: GeoNames is a global geographical database available under a Creative Commons license, aggregating place names and coordinates from public sources. It shares Wikimapia's open-data geographic database ethos and serves similar developer/research use cases.
- Waze: Waze is a community-driven GPS navigation app owned by Google where users edit roads, report incidents, and share real-time information. Its model of user-contributed geographic and navigational data directly parallels Wikimapia's volunteer mapping approach.
- OpenStreetMap: OpenStreetMap is the leading open-content collaborative mapping project, with a global volunteer contributor base building an open map dataset under the ODbL license. It is the closest direct peer to Wikimapia in both model (community-driven open geographic data) and audience (volunteer mappers and consumers).
Emerging players
- Foursquare: Foursquare operates a location-based discovery platform built on user-contributed check-ins, tips, and place information. It overlaps with Wikimapia in serving locally-described geographic information to consumers, though it focuses on urban discovery rather than wiki-style encyclopedic mapping.
Broad incumbents
- TomTom: TomTom is a well-established location-technology company providing maps, navigation, and traffic data, primarily to automotive and enterprise customers. It is comparable to Wikimapia as a broad mapping incumbent but operates as a commercial, data-driven business rather than a community wiki.
- Mapbox: Mapbox provides developer-focused mapping APIs and custom map tiles, drawing heavily from OpenStreetMap data. It represents the commercial-platform parallel to Wikimapia's API, competing for the same developer and data-licensing use cases.
- HERE Technologies: HERE Technologies is a major commercial mapping and location platform serving automotive, logistics, and enterprise customers. It is comparable to Wikimapia in the broader mapping/location-services space but as a well-capitalized incumbent with proprietary data.
- MapQuest: MapQuest was a pioneering consumer mapping service and remains an established player offering maps, directions, and local search. It competes with Wikimapia for casual users seeking place-based information, though with a much narrower community contribution layer.
- Google Maps: Google Maps is the dominant consumer mapping platform with deep data, AI-powered features, and integration across Google's ecosystem. It competes with Wikimapia for end-user attention and offers Local Guides as a community-contributed layer, making it a broad incumbent in the same space.
Others
- Yelp: Yelp is a crowd-sourced local business review and discovery platform. While not a mapping product, it is adjacent to Wikimapia in providing user-generated descriptive information about specific places and competes for users seeking local knowledge.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Wikimapia social profiles
Digital presenceWikimapia financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Wikimapia leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles6 records
Wikimapia funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Wikimapia M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Wikimapia
What does Wikimapia do?
Wikimapia is a multilingual, open-content collaborative map where any Internet volunteer can create place tags for static geographic objects and areas, add descriptions with proof links, upload photos, assign categories, and leave comments. The platform is maintained as a free public resource and released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license, with supporting tools such as a non-commercial API, Linear Features, Status Grid, Cityguides, and Road Interactivity.
Is Wikimapia a public or private company?
Wikimapia is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Wikimapia founded?
Wikimapia was founded in 2006. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Wikimapia based?
Wikimapia is headquartered in Flagstaff, United States, in the North America region.
How does Wikimapia make money?
One revenue line is on record: free Public Access.
Who are Wikimapia's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are GeoNames, Waze and OpenStreetMap. Foursquare is listed as an emerging player. Broad incumbents are TomTom, Mapbox, HERE Technologies, MapQuest and Google Maps. Yelp is listed as an others.
Does Wikimapia have an API?
Yes. Wikimapia launched an API on 4 December 2009, making its content available in several formats for non-commercial use. The API was announced as part of the project's expansion of data accessibility.