Australian Tagging Guidelines/Australia's First Peoples
Overview
The First Peoples of Australia have called this continent home for tens of thousands of years prior to European colonisation, and the indigenous community continues to hold a strong connection to Error creating thumbnail: Country. Indigenous ownership and management of land has developed into many different forms of recognition (for example, Native Title). OpenStreetMap is not a forum for politics but a means for understanding, and editors should always be conscious of the rights and wishes of First Peoples.
| We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Custodians of the lands of Australia, and acknowledge and pay our respect to their Elders, past and present. |
Cultural Heritage
First Peoples have the right to control their cultural heritage and intellectual property. Each Traditional Owner group and Indigenous community is unique and have differing views on how their culture should be shared and recorded, and the guidelines and rules that apply to one community may not apply to another. When contributing to OpenStreetMap, editors should always be respectful of the First Peoples community, their language and their wishes. When mapping a feature under Indigenous ownership or custodianship, or tagging something in an Indigenous language, defer to that community on how it should be presented.
Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.
— Article 31– United Nations Error creating thumbnail: Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Indigenous Languages and Place Names
There is no single, unified Indigenous language in Australia. While there were once at least 250 different used across the continent, there are less than 100 Error creating thumbnail: Australian Aboriginal languages in use today, and many are very difficult to research due to either limited resources or intentional secluding of the language. Protected Indigenous intellectual property, including place names, must be sourced in accordance with the OSM License, as with any other piece of data. If you are in doubt about the appropriateness of including an Indigenous place name into OpenStreetMap, reach out to the Australian Mapping Community.
Mapping Indigenous Names
- For more details on this topic, see Multilingual names.
Indigenous names can be mapped by appending the Error creating thumbnail: ISO 639 code of the language or dialect to the name=* key.
name:pjt=Kuḻpi Tjuntinya
Lasseter's Cave.pjt is the ISO 639-3 code for the dialect.Almost all indigenous languages have a unique ISO 639 code, and can be found on in the ISO639-3 list. Rarely, an Indigenous language may not have an applicable ISO 639 code. In these cases, the generic "Australian Aboriginal Language" code aus can be used. This code does not refer to a specific Indigenous language, but can be used where a more precise suffix is not available or not known (either not known at all, or not known by the mapper who added it). When the aus code is used, adding the name of the language in a note=* tag may assist future mappers further refining the language suffix.
Many place names in Australia are officially gazetted with a dual name, typically in the format "English Name / Indigenous Name". No consensus currently exists on how to tag this in Australia, and in practice tagging depends heavily on how the feature is presented on signs and other official resources. If listing only one of the two names in the name=* key, be sure to tag the other name as well with the appropriate language suffix. If tagging the full gazetted name in the name=* key, include both the English name in name:en=* and the local Indigenous name in its appropriate tag. For features that have several competing Indigenous names from different languages, include only the common name (whichever language this belongs to) in the name=* key in addition to tagging all languages separately.
For some features the Indigenous name has become the common name in English as well (e.g., Error creating thumbnail: Uluṟu), displacing a previous English name. In these cases, the previous English name can be tagged using the alt_name=* and alt_name:en=* keys.
| Language | Code | Usage | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Aboriginal Language (non-specific) | aus |
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| Error creating thumbnail: Cocos Malay | coa |
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| Error creating thumbnail: Torres Strait Creole | tcs |
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| Error creating thumbnail: Pitcairn-Norfolk | pih |
Norfuk Ailen (Norfolk Island) Norfuk Ailen (Norfolk Island)
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| Error creating thumbnail: Australian Kriol | rop |
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| Error creating thumbnail: Gurindji Kriol | gjr |
Sacred Sites and Places
Exercise extreme care and discretion when mapping sites of significant Indigenous importance, such as Error creating thumbnail: rock art, Error creating thumbnail: scar trees, fish and eel traps, birthing trees, burial sites, and other sacred places. Error creating thumbnail: Aboriginal sacred sites are afforded significant legal protection in all jurisdictions, and access to many sacred sites is heavily restricted by traditional owner groups. Incorrectly mapping or tagging them can lead to damage and disruption. Only map sacred sites that are signposted or have been publicly advertised. Sacred sites that are not public knowledge should only be mapped after consultation with the local traditional owners. If you are in doubt about the appropriateness of including an Indigenous sacred place into OpenStreetMap, or are considering engaging with a traditional owner group, please contact the Australian Mapping Community or local OSM Foundation chapter for Australia: OSGeo Oceania
Importing Indigenous data sets
 | Before importing any data please read the import guidelines and engage with the Australian Mapping Community. |
In addition to the OSM-wide import guidelines, datasets relating to First Nations peoples should be undertaken with extra care. Indigenous place data may have been incorrectly recorded or identified, and introducing those inaccuracies to OpenStreetMap may cause offence.
First Peoples land boundaries
There are many different Error creating thumbnail: forms of recognition and ownership of land by Australia's First Peoples, which is further complicated by the overlapping state/territory and federal legislation.
Indigenous Protected Areas
Error creating thumbnail: Indigenous Protected Areas are areas where traditional owners of land enter into a voluntary agreement to manage conservation efforts. They should be mapped using a combination of standard OSM tags boundary=protected_area and protect_class=6. When the data is sourced from the Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database, ref:capad:pa_id=* is also used to identify the area.
name=Wardaman Indigenous Protected Areaboundary=protected_areaprotect_class=6protection_title=Indigenous Protected Arearef:capad:pa_id=CWTH_IPA63operator=Northern Land Counciloperator:wikidata=Q7058614 8341013.Traditional Ownership Boundaries
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This section of the guidelines is still under consideration. Join the discussion |
Traditional Ownership boundaries are not currently included in OpenStreetMap, and accordingly there is no established tagging method for such boundaries. Due to the potential cultural sensitivities and license restrictions, please consult the Australian Mapping Community before mapping these boundaries.
Native Title Boundaries
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This section of the guidelines is still under consideration. Join the discussion |
Native Title boundaries are not currently included in OpenStreetMap, and accordingly there is no established tagging method for such boundaries. The tags boundary=protected_area and protect_class=24 have been proposed as an appropriate tagging scheme for these features.
Due to the potential cultural sensitivities and license restrictions, please consult the Australian Mapping Community before mapping these boundaries.
Aboriginal Reservations
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This section of the guidelines is still under consideration. Join the discussion |
The established OSM tag boundary=aboriginal_lands has not been adopted in Australia. The tag is used to define the boundaries of indigenous "reservations", such as Error creating thumbnail: Indian reservations in the United States, which do not have a modern equivalent in Australia. (The closest equivalent in Australia—Error creating thumbnail: Aboriginal reserves—were eliminated in the 1960s)
For this reason, usage of the boundary=aboriginal_lands is strongly discouraged.