Alberta
V・T・E Alberta, Canada  |
| latitude: 54.5, longitude: -115 |
| Browse map of Alberta 54°30′00.00″ N, 115°00′00.00″ W |
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Alberta is a province in Canada at latitude 54°30′00.00″ North, longitude 115°00′00.00″ West.
This page contains information relating to mapping activity that is specific to Alberta, Canada.
Highways
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Discussion is underway to revise the highway tagging guidelines in coordination with changes being undertaken in the United States. The existing road classification guidelines listed below will remain in place until a final consensus is reached. |
See Canadian tagging guidelines for overall guidelines.
Specific guidelines following were originally from the Calgary page and were placed here to avoid duplication. The rationale behind these guidelines was based on the Winnipeg guidelines.
The quick guide
highway=motorway: Freeways, i.e. highways or highway segments which allow free-flowing traffic with no at-grade intersectionshighway=trunk: Highways 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 15 (Highway 16 to Highway 28A), 28 (from Highway 28A-Highway 63), 28A, 43, and 63; most of these are divided and built to expressway standard, but some are undividedhighway=primary: all other Primary Highways (numbers 1 to 216, not including those already classified as motorway or trunk).highway=secondary: Secondary Highways (numbers 500 to 999)highway=tertiary: major range/township roads in rural communitieshighway=unclassified: other rural roads that are not part of the numbered highway system
Highways should get a surface=* tag, which can be paved or unpaved, or more specific values such as asphalt, concrete or gravel. If there is no surface=* tag, the assumption is paved.
Highways with two lanes in each direction (but without a divider/central barrier) should be tagged as lanes=4. If there is no lanes=* tag, the assumption is lanes=2.
All highways should have ref=* tags added indicating the highway number (the number on a highway marker shield). Do not tag Range Roads and Township Roads with their respective number, e.g. Township Road 430 should not be tagged with ref=430. Highways should also generally have name=* tags, particularly where they have a name different than the highway number (e.g. the Trans Canada Highway, Yellowhead Highway, Queen Elizabeth II Highway).
A significant number of at-grade highways in Alberta are divided (or "twinned") and built to expressway standard, and such roads can be tagged with expressway=*, which is independent of the highway classification. While not rendered in standard layer, expressways are rendered distinctly in OpenStreetMap Americana with a casing similar to those for freeways. This follows practice by commercial road maps in North America to distinguish between freeways, expressways, and normal highways and surface roads.
The rationale
The highway=* tag in OpenStreetMap is intended to describe the official classification of a given road. At the same time, this is not enough information to draw a useful map.
The highway tag is used to record the road's official classification. It also carries certain implications regarding the road itself; notably, highway=motorway implies that the road is a divided highway, and both highway=motorway and highway=trunk imply limited access. However, the primary meaning of highway is the official classification. This naturally leads to:
- Provincial highways that are part of the National Highway System (highways 1, 2, 3, and 16) and ring roads 201 and 216:
highway=trunk - Other Primary Highways (numbers up to 100):
highway=primary - Secondary Highways (numbers 500 to 999):
highway=secondary
Rural roads that are not part of this highway classification system can be tagged as highway=unclassified. This leaves highway=tertiary for for the major local rural roads, usually paved with a painted centreline and may have a speed limit higher than the default for rural roads (which is 80 km/h). Some rural highway=tertiary can be former highway alignments that were bypassed or decommissioned.
In Alberta, the number of lanes on a highway can vary on the trunk highways, the lanes=* tag can be used to record the total number of lanes of travel on the highway including both directions (i.e. lanes=2 for a two-way highway with one lane each direction, lanes=4 for a street with two lanes in each direction with no divider, and lanes=2 on each way of a four lane divided highway with two lanes in each direction).
The surface of the road does not affect the highway's official classification, and so it does not impact the highway=* tag. But it is important information, and can be captured in the surface=* tag. Suggested values are surface=paved, surface=unpaved or more specific values. Provincial highways and roads that are unpaved are gravel roads; for highway=unclassified roads that are unsuitable for heavy travel (dirt, grass, really bad gravel), consider switching to highway=track.
Note that routing software might make use of the surface=* tag.
Winter roads (which are either closed or not maintained during the winter months) are not currently being mapped. If you map them, please give some consideration as to the sort of tags that should be used, and document that here.
Names
Primary and Secondary Highways generally should have a name=* tagged. However, the name of the road segments on the map will not necessarily coincide with the highway number (that number should be tagged with ref=*). Names of highway segments should follow OpenStreetMap's "map what's on the ground" guideline. A name entered into the map should match the name of the road as shown in reality on street signage. Many of the province's Primary and Secondary Highways were designated by the Ministry of Transportation on pre-existing range and township roads, and the roads still carry those names regardless of having been designated a Primary or Secondary Highway.
For example, Highway 22 through Rocky View County is generally signposted as "Range Road 42". That is to say the small blue signs with white text at intersections read "RGE RD 42", and properties abutting the road have address signs reading "<number> RGE RD 42". The road segments should have the tags name=Range Road 42 and ref=22. Within the town limits of Cochrane, it's signposted "Highway 22" (street signs say "HIGHWAY 22"); road segments there should be tagged name=Highway 22 and ref=22. North across the county line into Mountain View County the signs read "HWY 22", and as such it should also be tagged name=Highway 22 (don't keep "HWY" abbreviated), ref=22.
Besides the Primary and Secondary Highways, the province's rural roads are generally arranged in a numbered grid following the road allowances of the Alberta Township Survey system, based on the original Dominion Land Survey (DLS). North-south roads are named Range Roads, while east-west roads are named Township Roads. These roads should be tagged name=Township Road <number> and name=Range Road <number>. They should not be tagged with a ref=* unless they're also a Primary or Secondary Highway, and should be tagged with the highway number as described above.
name=Ridge Road <number> is almost certainly a typo, and should be changed to "Range Road".In some rural municipalities the names of the range and township roads have an added hyphen. For example in Clearwater County instead of Range Road 44 and Township Road 382, they are named "Range Road 4-4" and "Township Road 38-2". The name=* should reflect this, despite not matching the nomenclature elsewhere.
Note that Foothills County has its own street grid numbering modelled after the grid of the neighbouring City of Calgary, and they eschew range and township roads entirely. Instead, north-south roads are numbered "Streets" and east-west roads are numbered "Avenues". The numbering of streets radiates outward from an origin at the Fifth Meridian—what would be "Range Road 10" is instead signposted "Meridian Street"—increasing by one for approximately every 100 metres and appended with East or West to indicate which side of Meridian Street it's on. Every range road in the grid thus corresponds to roughly 16 streets (1 mile ≈ 1600 m = 100 m × 16), i.e. whereas Meridian Street would be "Range Road 10" if it followed the range and township road numbering system, what would be "Range Road 11" is signposted "16 Street W". What would be "Range Road 12" is "32 Street W", and so on. The numbering of avenues follows Calgary's grid (in effect the origin point of the Foothills County street grid is located in Calgary at the intersection of Barlow Trail and Centre Avenue) and so the numbers begin at the north end of the county at 146 Avenue and increase by one integer for roughly every 100 metres southward.
Cities/Towns/Villages/Municipal Districts
- Edmonton
- Calgary
- Airdrie
- Banff
- Camrose
- Grande Prairie
- Jasper
- Lethbridge
- Lloydminister
- Red Deer
- Spruce Grove
- St. Albert
- Stony Plain
- Strathcona County
- Vegreville
Official list:
Wikipedia list:
There are also a couple of additional 'place' types in Alberta
- Summer Village - A mainly vacation/weekender community, separately administered.
- Special Municipal District
Sub-projects
Public transit systems
OSM Pages for specific places
- Airdrie
- Calgary
- Camrose
- Crowsnest Pass
- Edmonton
- Fort McMurray
- Grande Prairie
- Jasper
- Lethbridge
- Lloydminster
- Red Deer
- Spruce Grove
- Stony Plain
- Strathcona County
Roads
List of Alberta provincial highways
Buildings
There were 1,772,670 "private dwellings" in Alberta in the 2021 census. OpenStreetMap has 927,600 buildings mapped (a ratio of 0.52) as of September 2024, with about 65,000 buildings being added each year.
Tourist/Scenic Trails
There exist an number of 'scenic trails' which follow existing roads. These can be mapped using Relations.
- Boomtown Trail
- Cowboy Trail
Cowboy Trail - Crowsnest Highway Crowsnest Highway
- David Thompson Explorer’s Trail David Thompson Explorer’s Trail
- Deh Cho Trail
- Grande Alberta Trail
- Icefields Parkway Icefields Parkway
- Kalyna Country
- Klondike Trail
- North to Alaska Trail
- Northern Alberta Heritage Trail
- Northern Lights and Oil Sands Trail
- Northwestern Alberta Circle
- Trail of the Buffalo
- Trail of the Great Bear
- UNESCO Trail
- Yellowhead Highway