Simple geographic data collection apps

This resource was originally published on the CartoBlog in 2017 by CartONG. It was transferred to the IM Resource Portal in May 2021. The CartoBlog will be decommissioned in early 2022.

You are a Health, WatSan or shelter specialist and on your next field trip you would like to collect a few GPS points to locate boreholes, get the distance to nearby hospitals or just the coordinates of refugee camps you visit or any other location that might be of interest to you. So now you are wondering what is the best way to achieve that?

We’ve looked at many applications for mobile data collection. But here we will only discuss those that don’t require you to spend much time setting up accounts, building standardized questionnaires or web maps or even setting up entire server instances. They still allow you to work offline with a map and collect points – and they are free!

The suggestions we came up with, are these three tools:

• OsmAnd
• Maps.Me
• GeoPaparazzi