March release notes (#312)

Signed-off-by: Dana Bauer <dana.bauer@gmail.com>

Author: danabauer

blog/2026-03-18-release-notes.mdx

@@ -0,0 +1,131 @@
+---
+title: 2026-03-18 release notes
+tags:
+  - releases
+---
+import Tabs from '@theme/Tabs';
+import TabItem from '@theme/TabItem';
+import QueryBuilder from '@site/src/components/queryBuilder';
+
+## Overview
+
+**The `2026-03-18.0` release of Overture data and `v1.16.0` of the Overture schema are now available.** You can access the datasets, changelog, GERS registry, bridge files, and PMTiles on AWS and Azure at the paths listed below. 
+
+## What's new?
+The [data changelog](https://docs.overturemaps.org/gers/changelog/) now includes `columns_changed`, capturing which properties changed, per feature. Also in this release, we've made several improvements to the pipeline architecture of the transportation theme, including adding several data quality improvements and fresher source data. This architectural change also lays the groundwork for integrating additional road network sources into Overture in the near future.
+
+
+## Deprecations
+The `categories` property in the places schema is now deprecated and will be removed in the June 2026 release, replaced by the new `basic_category` and `taxonomy` properties. All three properties will be available until then to ease the transition for our users. The taxonomy documentation is [here](https://docs.overturemaps.org/guides/places/taxonomy/).
+
+
+## Getting the data and release artifacts
+
+You can access this month's data and release artifacts by following the process outlined [here](/getting-data). The paths to the data and release artifacts are listed below. We encourage you to ask questions and provide feedback on the Overture Maps [Discussion forum on GitHub](https://github.com/orgs/OvertureMaps/discussions). You can also file issues and report bugs in our [data](https://github.com/OvertureMaps/data/issues) and [schema](https://github.com/OvertureMaps/schema/issues) repositories. If you have a suggestion for a new dataset or if you have data you'd like to contribute to Overture, you can email us at community@overturemaps.org. We’d love to hear from you.
+
+
+
+### Release data
+
+**Microsoft Azure:**
+```
+az://overturemapswestus2.blob.core.windows.net/release/2026-03-18.0/
+```
+
+**Amazon S3:**
+```
+s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/release/2026-03-18.0/
+```
+### Data changelog
+
+**Microsoft Azure:**
+```
+az://overturemapswestus2.blob.core.windows.net/changelog/2026-03-18.0/
+```
+
+**Amazon S3:**
+```
+s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/changelog/2026-03-18.0/
+```
+
+
+### Bridge files
+
+**Microsoft Azure:**
+```
+az://overturemapswestus2.blob.core.windows.net/bridgefiles/2026-03-18.0/
+```
+
+**Amazon S3:**
+```
+s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/bridgefiles/2026-03-18.0/
+```
+
+### GERS registry
+
+
+**Microsoft Azure:**
+```
+az://overturemapswestus2.blob.core.windows.net/registry/
+```
+
+**Amazon S3:**
+```
+s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/registry/
+```
+
+### PMTiles
+
+**Amazon S3:**
+```
+s3://overturemaps-extras-us-west-2/tiles/2026-03-18.0/
+```
+
+<!-- truncate -->
+
+
+## Theme-specific updates
+
+:::info
+The base, buildings, divisions, places, and transportation themes are in GA. The addresses theme is in alpha. 
+:::
+
+### Addresses
+
+- improved city, street, or number column in Slovakia, Belgium, Austria, and in Quebec, CA
+- added units to Portugal, Iceland, and Baden-Württemberg DE
+- added data in Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, DE
+
+
+### Base
+- made minor, incremental updates to the data
+
+
+### Buildings
+- made minor, incremental updates to the data
+
+
+### Divisions
+- made minor, incremental changes to the data
+
+
+### Places
+- made improvements to the `taxonomy` and `basic_category` fields
+
+
+### Transportation
+
+- fixed source linear references: the `sources` array for segment features previously dropped positional information (`between`) on the last source entry; now the `sources` array has correct linear references, and adjacent ranges with identical values are merged into cleaner, more compact output
+
+- cleaned up routes: `routes` with no identifying properties and duplicate entries covering adjacent sub-ranges have been removed
+
+- added more accurate timestamps: `update_time` in the `sources` array now reflects the most recent timestamp across both the feature and its components, a change that accounts for ~90M source-level differences (~28% of segments) but does not affect source identity or count.
+
+
+## Schema changelog
+
+The changelog for Overture schema `v1.16.0` is [here](https://github.com/OvertureMaps/schema/releases/tag/v1.16.0).
+
+## Attribution
+
+You'll find information about attribution and licensing [here](/attribution).

docusaurus.config.js

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ function getFromEnvironment(variableName, defaultValue) {
 }
 
 function getLatestOvertureRelease() {
-  const fallback = '2026-01-21.0';
+  const fallback = '2026-03-18.0';
   try {
     const { execSync } = require('child_process');
     const response = execSync('curl -s https://stac.overturemaps.org/catalog.json', {