-Your installation comes with no geographic data loaded. You can either create new data using one of the editors (Potlatch 2, iD, JOSM etc) or by loading an OSM extract.
+Your installation comes with no geographic data loaded. You can either create new data using one of the editors (iD, JOSM etc) or by loading an OSM extract.
+
+After installing but before creating any users or data, import an extract with [Osmosis](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osmosis) and the [``--write-apidb``](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osmosis/Detailed_Usage#--write-apidb_.28--wd.29) task.
+
+```
+osmosis --read-pbf greater-london-latest.osm.pbf \
+ --write-apidb host="localhost" database="openstreetmap" \
+ user="openstreetmap" password="" validateSchemaVersion="no"
+```
+
+Loading an apidb database with Osmosis is about **twenty** times slower than loading the equivalent data with osm2pgsql into a rendering database. [``--log-progress``](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osmosis/Detailed_Usage#--log-progress_.28--lp.29) may be desirable for status updates.