Regions

Dawarich Atlas is region-agnostic — the same compose stack serves Berlin, Germany, Europe, or the entire planet depending on the data you point it at. Configuration is one preset file per region under regions/.

There are two ways to switch regions:

• From the admin UI — open http://localhost:8484, click the Settings tab, pick a region from the chips, hit Save & apply. The in-app control plane swaps the active selection and triggers any data downloads.
• From the shell, before boot — copy a preset over .env, then docker compose up -d. This is the path used in Quickstart.

Built-in presets

regions/
├── berlin.env           # city (BBBike Berlin)        — ~30 MB PBF, ~5 GB total
├── germany.env          # country (Geofabrik DE)      — ~4 GB PBF, ~73 GB total
├── france.env           # country (Geofabrik FR)      — ~4.5 GB PBF, ~80 GB total
├── usa.env              # country (Geofabrik US)      — ~10 GB PBF, ~175 GB total
├── europe.env           # continent (Geofabrik EU)    — ~30 GB PBF, ~280 GB total
├── planet.env           # planet                       — ~75 GB PBF, ~1.15 TB total
├── multi-dach.env       # DE + AT + CH (merged)
└── multi-cities.env     # Berlin + Vienna (merged)

Switching from the shell

cp regions/germany.env .env
docker compose up -d

Each regions/<name>.env is a complete env file that defines PBF_URL, COUNTRY_CODE (for Photon), DEFAULT_LAT/DEFAULT_LON/DEFAULT_ZOOM, and the basemap TILES_URL. Docker Compose picks it up on up -d.

When you change .env on an already-running stack, services that read it at boot need a restart:

docker compose up -d --force-recreate

Switching from the admin UI

If the stack is already booted, the admin panel is the easier path:

Settings ▸ Region ▸ pick a preset ▸ Save & apply

Behind the scenes, Atlas:

1. Validates the preset exists in regions/.
2. Hands the new selection to the in-app control plane (Atlas.Control.*).
3. The control plane updates the active region records, downloads and stages the new OSM/GTFS inputs, then restarts the enabled data services and the selected transit engine. Progress streams back over the LiveView WebSocket.
4. The map page reloads its region_meta so its default centre / zoom matches the new region.

The map page stays live throughout. Data services restart in the background as their data lands.

Discovering coverage from a client

Clients can inspect the running instance without relying on the last region selected in Settings:

curl http://localhost:8484/api/v1/coverage

The response lists geocoding, routing, map_matching, pois, and transit under data.capabilities. Each capability includes its live service status, an available flag, the backing service, and the region names Atlas can verify from installed dataset provenance. coverage_status: "unknown" means Atlas cannot prove a region name; it does not mean that the service has no data.

Map matching inherits the routing regions because both use Valhalla. Transit also exposes transit_feeds: timetable coverage can differ from the installed walking network, so clients should not treat them as one region list. The per-capability note explains cases where staged inputs may be newer than the currently built service graph.

Scaling rules of thumb

Scope	What scales down	What doesn't
City (Berlin, Tokyo)	Valhalla PBF + Overpass index + MOTIS or OTP graph + a self-built regional PMTiles	Photon (Komoot only publishes country/continent bundles), Placeholder (always global Who's-on-First)
Country	Everything except Placeholder	Placeholder still pulls global WOF (~3 GB store after build)
Continent / planet	Nothing — full-scale ingest	—

Generating a new region preset

For a city BBBike publishes (~200 cities):

cat > regions/tokyo.env <<'ENV'
PBF_URL=https://download.bbbike.org/osm/bbbike/Tokyo/Tokyo.osm.pbf
PBF_NAME=Tokyo.osm.pbf
COUNTRY_CODE=jp
DEFAULT_LAT=35.68
DEFAULT_LON=139.69
DEFAULT_ZOOM=11
ENV

cp regions/tokyo.env .env
docker compose up -d

For any Geofabrik country:

cat > regions/france.env <<'ENV'
PBF_URL=https://download.geofabrik.de/europe/france-latest.osm.pbf
PBF_NAME=france-latest.osm.pbf
COUNTRY_CODE=fr
DEFAULT_LAT=46.0
DEFAULT_LON=2.5
DEFAULT_ZOOM=6
ENV

cp regions/france.env .env
docker compose up -d

Once the preset file exists in regions/, it shows up in the admin panel's region chips automatically.

Multi-region (merged extracts)

Multi-region presets list PBF_URLS= and a derived merged file path. The merge step uses osmium-tool inside a one-shot container:

cp regions/multi-dach.env .env
docker compose run --rm osmium-merge   # downloads sources, runs osmium merge, writes data/osm/<merged>.osm.pbf
docker compose up -d                    # boot the stack pointed at the merged PBF

Apply the preset from Settings → Region → Save & apply after booting the app. Atlas stages the merged PBF for Valhalla, Overpass and the selected transit engine automatically.

Resetting per-service data after a region change

If you switch regions on a stack that already has fully-built data, use the admin panel's Save & apply flow. It refreshes the shared inputs, invalidates affected graphs and restarts the enabled sidecars in the required order. Avoid deleting service data by hand unless you intentionally want a full rebuild.

Realistic first-boot timings (Germany, 100 Mbps link)

Service	Phase	Time
Photon	Download + extract	≈10 min
Placeholder	WOF download + build	≈1.5 hours (global WOF — country-independent)
libpostal	Ready	<30 s
Valhalla	PBF + admins + graph tiles	30–50 min
Overpass	PBF + initial ingest	2–4 hours

Total disk for Germany with all defaults and remote basemap: ~73 GB under data/. Planet: ~1.15 TB.