Shapefiles and OpenStreetMap data do not overlap in QGIS?

What we really have to find out here are the projections of your input data.

  1. City data

    The Shapefile comes with a .prj file that is perfectly interpreted by QGIS. Don't change the layer settings!

  2. OSM data

    If you are using OSM vector data, they are in WGS84 Geographic coordinates (EPSG:4326). Only the raster tiles are in Web Mercator (EPSG:900913).

  3. Open Street Style data

    If QGIS recognized the .prj content, leave it that way.

Finally, chose a project coordinate system (I'd suggest the UTM one) and activate on-the-fly reprojection as @Mike_Toews already explained.


You need to reproject the different layers to the same projection 'on the fly'. Go to:

Settings > Project Properties... > Coordinate Reference System (CRS)

and check on Enable 'on the fly' CRS transformation