Landuse
 Feature page: Landuse
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| Description |
| Land use describes the human use of land, for example fields, pastures, and settlements. |
| Tags |
Land use is the human use of land. Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, and settlements, also military, leisure and transportation.
This concept is distinct from 'Landcover' which describes the actual surface covering of the land; the landuse might be 'military', but the landcover might be heathland. OpenStreetMap tags do not always make this distinction as clear as it could, and in some situations concepts appear blurred.
Some of the amenity=*, leisure=* and tourism=* tags are also used to describe more details landuse. In some cases these more detailed uses may be the main landuse tag, in others it may provide suplemantary information. For example a leisure=park tag may be used to describe a park within a landuse=residential area, or for a very large park may be the primary landuse.
Table of some existing landuse tags
The following table is very much 'work in progress'. Click on the symbols in the headings to sort the tables in different ways. Note however that there is an ongoing discussion on how to tag landuse and landcover (see Proposed features/highway, Landcover proposal and Land use and areas of natural land):
| Purpose | Category | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Aerodrome (airport) | Other | aeroway=aerodrome and optional landuse=military if appropriate, or type=military |
| Airport | Other | See Aerodrome |
| Allotments | Agriculture | landuse=allotments |
| Beach | Natural | natural=beach although many beaches may be considered to the Landcover. leisure=beach_resort certainly describes a land use. |
| Brownfield | Built environment | landuse=brownfield |
| Cemetery | Built environment | landuse=cemetery |
| College | Built environment | amenity=college |
| Commercial | Built environment | landuse=commercial |
| Construction | Built environment | landuse=construction |
| Farm land | Agriculture | landuse=farm or landuse=farmland andlanduse=farmyard |
| Forestry | Agriculture | landuse=forest. For trees being primarily grown for timber. Note that not all areas covered by tress are primarily being grown for timber. landcover=trees is being proposed for this purpose. |
| Garages | Built environment | landuse=garages (often within landuse=residential). |
| Grazing | Agriculture | For pasture used for grazing animals or for hay or silage for animals consider landuse=grass or landuse=meadow. For other uses of grass consider using surface=grass and see Landcover. |
| Greenfield | Built environment | landuse=greenfield is used to describe land that has been scheduled for some sort of construction. |
| Greenhouses | Agriculture | landuse=greenhouse_horticulture |
| Highways | Built environment | No approved tag at present, but there is a proposal to use landuse=highway for the purpose. |
| Hospital | Built environment | amenity=hospital |
| Industrial | Built environment | landuse=industrial |
| Landfill | Other | landuse=landfill |
| Meadow | Agriculture | See grazing |
| Military | Military | landuse=military, and optionally also military=naval_base, military=range, military=danger_area and military=barracks. For military aerodrome use aeroway=aerodrome and aerodrome=military or military=airfield. |
| Nature reserve | Leisure | leisure=nature_reserve |
| Orchard | Agriculture | landuse=orchard |
| Park | Leisure | leisure=park (for smaller parks to be part of landuse=residential. |
| Plant nursery | Agriculture | landuse=plant_nursery |
| Quarry | Other | landuse=quarry |
| Railway | Built environment | landuse=railway |
| Recreation ground | Built environment | landuse=recreation_ground |
| Reservoir | Other | landuse=reservoir or man_made=reservoir_covered |
| Residential | Built environment | landuse=residential |
| Retail | Built environment | landuse=retail |
| School | Built environment | amenity=school. Often with a landuse=residential area. |
| Salt pond | Natural | landuse=salt_pond |
| University | Built environment | amenity=university. Possibly included within a broader landuse category. |
| Village green | Leisure | landuse=village_green |
| Vineyard | Agriculture | landuse=vineyard |
| Waste water treatment | Other | man_made=wastewater_plant |
problematic key:landuse values
For following landuse tags are not actually related to landuse or are often used for other purposes.
| Purpose | Comment |
|---|---|
| Grass | landuse=grass does not describe a land use, it describes a Landcover. |
| Basin | landuse=basin does not describe a land use, it describes a water feature |
| Forest | landuse=forest is often used just to describe a group of trees, including many that are not being primarily grown for timber. |
