Quite early in the OSM project (2007), the free road data from the US Government (aka TIGER) was imported[0]. However the quality of the data was, in retrospect

Quite early in the OSM project (2007), the free road data from the US Government (aka TIGER) was imported[0]. However the quality of the data was, in retrospect, poor. Even now, the data is of poor quality in the USA, especially compared to other develeped countries.[2] It also makes the map "look done", and the USA, despite it's population size, doesn't have as active a community of mappers. The USA has about the sized OSM community as the UK or Germany, despite having 5 times the size. One theory is that since the map for the USA "looked done", that people thought it was done, and hence didn't start mapping and that hindered the growth of the community there. To see more, zoom in a lot in OSM in the UK or Germany, and compare similar sized towns/cities to the USA. The USA map will usually just have the roads (with names), whereas in the UK or Germany you'll find much more shops, schools, footpaths, carparks, parks etc. mapped. [1] Details of the import http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/TIGER http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/TIGER [2] A long time OSM mapper points out some of the problems in 2015 of the USA's data http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Richard/diary/34290 http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Richard/diary/34290 Or this: http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Richard/diary/26099 http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Richard/diary/26099