Talk:Tag:place=archipelago

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Regardless of the (un-approved) status of this tag it's obvious that we should have a supported archipelago tag. Archipelagos are not a very common feature globally but those few hundreds that we have are unique ecosystems and important to millions of people. On the history of this tag: There seems to have been a proposal years back but that din't pick up. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Archipelago --JaakkoH (talk) 04:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Complexity of archipelagos containing atolls

It is common for individual atolls to be made up of many small islands and tiny islets. Adding all these coastline ways to an archipelago multipolygon may be impractical. As an alternative, it may make sense to add the way enclosing the outer limit of the atoll's reef as a means of capturing the entire area of the atoll in a single member of the archipelago relation.

This has the disadvantage that the archipelago relation is no longer specific to the land area. But it has the advantage of keeping the relation simple enough to manage and edit. And, arguably, the submerged portions of atolls should always have been part of the archipelago.

--B1tw153 (talk) 01:03, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Why not use type=site + place=archipelago containing all the place=* then? The type=multipolygon + place=archipelago can be included as Role perimeter .
—— Kovposch (talk) 10:49, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
I suppose using type=site as a super-relation might work, but I'd like to see better clarity about the use of type=site and type=group relations in general. For example, I'm not sure it's decided whether the relation Great Lakes should use type=group or type=site. (Edit) For what it's worth, there are currently 1868 archipelago relations with type=multipolygon, 44 with type=cluster, 41 with type=group, and 12 with type=site. That's not to say that any of these are preferred, just an observation about current usage.
--B1tw153 (talk) 17:25, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
For lakes, first of all, natural=water really shouldn't be used on the type=site as that duplicates the individual lakes. Each of them already describes the land-cover properly. Duplicating the feature tag is only acceptable at most when used as a Role label , or Role perimeter (although its proposal has more restriction forbidding this, and the use of type=multipolygon ) , similar to a place=* in a boundary=administrative (they are actually different concepts) , or amenity=parking in a site=parking (I suppose site=parking was proposed to not duplicate the amenity=parking ; later on power=plant has been used directly, however it has the reason of not having another power=plant center point drawn for them) . In the opposition against type=cluster , there are ideas of a natural=lake_group feature as a counterpart to place=archipelago , which can be used on a type=multipolygon .
I feel "lake group" is a more arbitrary and less established concept than archipelagos in geography. Unless there is more explanation, I find type=cluster more appropriate for the Great Lakes.
For the topic at hand, the use of type=site would be justified by data reasons, when a type=multipolygon is not maintainable. type=multipolygon will remain the dominant and first choice for place=archipelago , and it should continue to be used as a Role label point or Role perimeter area for compatibility, simplicity, and representation reasons.
—— Kovposch (talk) 12:24, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
It looks like that would be a good contribution to the type=group proposal. --B1tw153 (talk) 16:44, 22 November 2023 (UTC)