Town mapping
This page is a checklist of projects to consider when complete mapping a town, city, or urban area. The items on this page turn a basic street-level map into a detailed town plan.
Contents |
Transport network
All roads should have names where known, with oneway roads marked oneway=yes, bridges (bridge=yes with layer=0-5)
Footpaths and alleyways should be there highway=footway, with names where available, and steps (highway=steps)
If practical, test the town in a routing program. Create routes across each part of town, and note any areas where the route indicates a one-way street not marked, or roads not meeting at a junction.
Parking
Public car parks should be marked with amenity=parking, preferably as an area rather than a node if it's a large car park.
fee=no or fee=yes tags will help people find free car parks where available. parking=multi-storey or similar for car park buildings
Shopping and eating
Pubs are one of the most important navigation features, with amenity=pub, and the name of the pub. food=yes if you know it serves food, along with any notes.
Restaurants indicate the areas of town to visit for food, with amenity=restaurant.
Noticable shops can be tagged using amenity=supermarket, amenity=post_office, and the various shop=* tags.
Public buildings
Police stations, fire stations, hospitals, doctors surgeries, courts can all be tagged using amenity=* and a name
Similarly, look for libraries, cinemas, theatres, city halls,
Useful information
Parks, forests, areas
Green spaces can be marked with leisure=park. Trees with natural=wood or natural=forest.
Land zoning information can be entered, using landuse=retail, commercial (office), residential, or industrial.
Most cities have a zoning or landuse map on their web sites. These can be downloaded, opened in an image editor and then uploaded to Metacarta's Map Rectifier. Once you have the image rectified, you can view it as a rectified wms image in JOSM and then each of the zones can be traced.
Individual buildings
When aerial imagery is available (see Yahoo! Aerial Imagery/Coverage for a list, or watch OpenAerialMap), building outlines can be traced.
building=* will generate the building outline, and the name of each building will be displayed if available.
Wikipedia links and URLs
If any of the objects are famous enough to have a wikipedia article, link that using wikipedia=* (see Proposed features/External links). If a place has contact information, that can be added using website=* and phone=*
Techniques
- Consumer GPS units, combined with bicycles or walking. Nearly all information required is visible from public roads or paths.
- Notepad or voice-recorder and GPS waypoints are sufficient to capture all information required when surveying
- Satellite photos are needed to add building-outline detail
