Tag:place=suburb

+/- place=suburb Description A part of a town or city with a well-known or easily observable name. Used on these elements Useful combination Key:name Key:is_in Used combinations in World Australia/Oceania Europe (list) Asia (list) Central America (list) South America (list) Africa (list) Status Undefined

Use place=suburb to identify a major sub-division of a place=town or place=city with a distinct and recognised local name and identify. Suburbs may have uncertain boundaries and may overlap with other suburbs and are often best mapped using a node.

Use the tag place=neighbourhood for part of a suburb. There is an active proposal, (Feb 2012), Proposed features/place=quarter for for naming an area of a large settlement which is smaller than a suburb and larger than a neighbourhood.

Contents 1 Notes 2 How to Map 3 Things to avoid 4 See also

Notes

• place=suburb is used in OpenStreetMap for all major top-level sub-divisions of a large settlement, including those in the urban core (in contrast North American English usage where the term is only used for an area, often residential, outside of the central city).

• The classification of an area as a suburb is based on its size and situation rather than by any clues given in its name. Greenwich village, (also known as 'the village') should therefore be tagged as a 'suburb'[1] (or possibly as a neighboroughhood?) and not as a 'village' given that it is now part of a major city.

How to Map

Place a node at the centre of the suburb tagged with place=suburb and identify it with a name=*. Alternatively a suburb can be identified with a closed way if the boundary is clearly defined.

Things to avoid

Areas of a town/city should not be tagged with place=town, place=village or place=hamlet which should only be used for distinct settlements. In circumstances where two towns run into each other it may be appropriate to tag each as a town if they have distinct and separate administrative structures.

See also

• place=neighbourhood for a part of a suburb
• Proposed features/place=quarter (for areas smaller than a suburb and larger than a neighboroughood
• is_in= - describes a hierarchy where the suburb is located, the is_in-concept is generally considered outdated.

Related terms: village. suburb. fringe.