Hiking
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 Feature: Hiking
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|
| Description |
| About tagging of ways, points and areas related to hiking. |
| Tags |
This page is concerned with tagging of ways, points and areas related to hiking.
Contents |
Tagging ways and points
Values
| Key | Value | Element | Comment | Photo | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ways | ||||||
| highway | path |  |
Preferably used for a hiking path. Follow the photo guide for help with tagging. |
| ||
| footway | |
For designated footpaths, i.e. mainly/exclusively for pedestrians. | 
| |||
| track | |
Rough roads normally used for agricultural or forestry uses etc. Use tracktype=* to describe the surface. | 
| |||
| ford | yes |  
|
The way crosses through stream or river. | 
| ||
Attributes of ways | ||||||
| sac_scale (optional) | hiking mountain_hiking demanding_mountain_hiking alpine_hiking demanding_alpine_hiking difficult_alpine_hiking |
|
A difficulty rating scheme for hiking trails. | |||
| trail_visibility (optional) | excellent good intermediate bad horrible no |
|
This key describes attributes regarding trail visibility and orientation. | |||
| incline (optional) | value% up down |
|
For marking a way's incline (or steepness/slope). | |||
| tracktype (optional) | grade1 grade2 grade3 grade4 grade5 |
|
Paved track surface of gravel or densely packed dirt/sand an even mixture of hard and soft materials prominently dirt/sand/grass, but with some hard materials only grass, sand and/or soil |
|||
Infrastructure | ||||||
| tourism | alpine_hut | |
An alpine hut is a remote building located in the mountains intended to provide board and lodging. It is managed during the opening period. | 
| ||
| tourism | wilderness_hut | |
A wilderness hut is a remote building with fireplace intended to provide shelter and sleeping accommodation. | 
| ||
| amenity | shelter | |
A small shelter against bad weather conditions. To additionally describe the kind of shelter use shelter_type=*. | 
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| shelter_type (optional) | basic_hut | |
A basic hut is a remote building intended to provide basic shelter and sleeping accommodation. | 
| ||
| lean_to | |
A lean-to is a shed with typically three walls located in the countryside intended to provide shelter. | 
| |||
| picnic_shelter | |
Structure on picnic sites to protect from rain. Normally open to all sides. | 
| |||
| rock_shelter | |
Shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. | 
| |||
| tourism | camp_site | |
Backcountry camping without facilities. The access is usually restricted to foot, bicycle, canoe or ski. Set backcountry=yes. | 
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| tourism | information | |
Information resource for tourists and visitors. To additionally describe the kind of information use information=*. | 
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| information (optional) | board | |
A board with information. | 
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| map | |
A board with a map. | 
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| guidepost | |
Signpost/Guidepost See also Relation:destination sign |
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| amenity | parking | |
Parking place. Here starts the hiking. :-) | 
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| amenity | bench | |
Bench | 
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| amenity | toilets | |
Toilets | 
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| tourism | picnic_site | |
A place where you can have an outdoor picnic. Optional: fireplace=yes | 
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| barrier | gate | |
An entrance that can be opened or closed to get through the barrier. | 
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| checkpoint | hiking | |
Checkpoint for hiking. | |||
Nature | ||||||
| natural | peak | |
Top of a hill or mountain (summit) | 
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| natural | volcano | |
A volcano, either dormant, extinct or active | 
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| mountain_pass | yes | |
The highest point of a mountain pass. | 
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| natural | water |  |
Lakes, etc. | 
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| tourism | viewpoint | |
A place with a good view of surrounding countryside. | 
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| amenity | drinking_water | |
A source of drinking water. | 
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| natural | spring | |
A place where water flows naturally from the ground. | 
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Additional tags | ||||||
| place | locality | |
For an unpopulated named place. | |||
| name | Text | |
The common default name. | |||
| ele | Number | |
Elevation above sea level in metres. | |||
Proposed_features
- Proposed features: Massif
- Proposed features: Valley
- Proposed relation: Region Topographical use: mountain range / massive / mountain/ valleys (?) See above.
- Proposed features: Hazard warning
- Proposed features/trailblazed
Tagging walking and hiking Route Networks
A route is a customary or regular line of travel, often pre-determined and publicised. It consist of paths taken repeatedly by various people.
To tag a hiking route you create a relation with the approbiate tags and add all elements (points and ways) of the hiking route to this relation.
See also Relation:route.
Tags of the relation
| Key | Value | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| type | route | indicates this Relation represents a route |
| route | hiking | Instead of the tag route=hiking there is less frequently also used route=foot. Don't use route=pilgrimage (almost non-existent) but add pilgrimage=yes to a hiking-route. |
| name | a name | The route is known by this name (e.g. "Westweg") |
| name:xy | localised name | where xy is the iso language code |
| ref | a reference | The route is known by this reference (e.g. "E1") |
| network | iwn nwn rwn lwn |
International walking network: long distance paths that cross several countries National walking network: long distance paths Regional walking network: used for walking routes that cross regions Local walking network: used for small local walking routes |
| operator | operator name | The route is operated by this authority/company etc. e.g. "Schwarzwaldverein", "Alpenverein" |
| state | proposed / alternate / temporary | Sometimes routes may not be permanent or may be in a proposed state. |
| symbol | symbol description | Describes the symbol that is used to mark the way along the route, e.g., "Red cross on white ground" for the "Frankenweg" in Franconia, Germany |
| colour | a hex triplet | (optional) Colour code noted in hex triplet format. Especially useful for public transport routes. Example: "#008080" for teal colour |
| description | a short description | What is special about this route |
| distance | distance | (optional) The distance covered by this route, if known. For information of users and automatic evaluation e.g. of completeness. Given including a unit and with a dot for decimals. (e.g. "12.5km") |
| ascent | ascent | (optional) The ascent covered by a route in meters. If a route has start and end point at different altitude use descent too |
| descent | descent | (optional) The descent covered by a route in meters. Use it only if it differs from the ascent (different altitude at start/endpoint of a route). |
| roundtrip | yes/no | (optional) Use roundtrip=no to indicate that a route goes from A to B and instead of being circular (roundtrip=yes). |
| oneway | yes/no | (optional) Use oneway=yes to indicate that the route is to be walked in only one direction, according to the signposts on the ground |
| osmc:symbol | * | (optional) Some renderer uses the osmc:symbol=* to indicate a route on the map. |
| website | * | (optional) website that describes the route |
| wikipedia | (optional) language:page title | wikipedia page that describes the route |
Hiking routes are extensively mapped with route relations, and the Lonvia map will render route relations following this proposal and the osmc:symbol=*
Hiking routes are rendered for selected areas in Germany in a Hiking and Trail riding map (german). The tags required for rendering are:
- type=route
- route=hiking
- name=* Meaningful route name suitable for identifying this route.
- symbol=* Verbal description of the route marker symbols.
- osmc:symbol=* Coded description of the route marker symbols.
Usage
Since the tagging is generic, it is up to each country to decide how to map the hiking networks that exist in their country onto the hierarchy of national/regional/local. For countries with no specific local/regional/national "walking network", it may be helpful to consider whether different trails are managed or funded by government bodies at different levels.
See also Walking Routes.
Connectivity
Hiking trails that cross or touch normal roads should be connected to the road ways on the map. This will allow mixed routing applications to be built on OSM.
Mapping Projects
The SAC hiking tags as are very useful to plan a trip on the PC or for back country navigation.
4UMaps.eu support the SAC hiking tags as well as track attributes. Additionally it has elevation lines, hill shading, accommodation etc.
It is the perfect outdoor map and allows the download of free maps.
Relief Mapping Projects
- Hiking Map gather feature ideas for a new OSM Slippy map layer especially for hikers
- Shaded relief maps using mapnik Dokumentation about rendering a topographical map
- Relief maps Overwiew
- Hillshading with Mapnik Howto
Online-Maps
- 4UMaps.eu Outdoor maps for Mountainbiking and Hiking
- OSMC Wanderreitkarte shows OSM with contour lines and hill shading and hiking routes in europe
- WayMarked Trails (ex-Lonvia's Weltwanderkarte) shows OSM with hill shading and hiking routes, among other interesting layers like MTB and rollerblades.
- Hikebikemap shows OSM with contour lines and hiking and biking routes
- Cyclemap shows OSM with contour lines and biking routes
- WORLD OSM WMS shows OSM with hill shading for europe
- Hiking/openhikingmap shows OSM with contour lines and hill shading
See Also
- An 80 days hike/mapping party (!) in the Alps, along the Via Alpina, in Summer 2012!
- Route altitude profiles SRTM Create an altitude profile for routes based on the freely available NASA SRTM3 altitude data.
- OpenTrail OpenTrail aims to be an OSM-based Android app for UK hiking/walking.
- Managing waypoints with OSM Extract waypoints from OSM database.
- [1] Making Your Own Hiking Maps With Kosmos.
- hikingbook.pl This program will create hiking books out of osm files.
