Tag:natural=beach
 natural = beach
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| Description |
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landform along a body of water which consists of sand, shingle or other loose material 
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| Rendering in openstreetmap-carto |
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| Group: Natural |
| Used on these elements |
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| Useful combination |
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| See also |
| Status: de facto |
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| Tools for this tag |
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| Wikidata |
| Q40080 |
The natural=beach tag is used to mark a loose geological landform along the coast or along another body of water consisting of sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, cobblestones or sometimes shell fragments etc.
For seaside resorts use leisure=beach_resort for the boundary of the resort, which may include accommodation and other facilities and which may include one or more actual beaches. For areas of sand that are not beaches, use natural=sand or surface=sand (or a more specific tag describing the area).
How to map
The upper limit of a beach is where the loose sand or stones end or where they are no more shaped by the water waves - whichever comes first. There is no firm rule about the lower limit. Mappers either map the beach down to the mean high water (springs) line (natural=coastline) or to the edge of a lake or similar or the beach is mapped up to the low water line (in which case the beach crosses the coastline). Some mappers also split the beach into a part above and below the high water line and tag the lower part tidal=yes.
natural=beach should only be used for inclined, wave formed areas at the coast. Larger flat areas of sand or mud that are exposed at low tide should be tagged natural=wetland + wetland=tidalflat.
Use name=* to give the name of the beach, surface=* to define the surface formation (sand, gravel, pebbles, stones, shells) and supervised=* to indicate if the beach has a lifeguard (yes, no, interval - in the format of opening_hours=*).
It can be mapped as a node (if there is no way to map it as a geometry), especially when someone wants to map name or some other additional properties. But mapping as an area is strictly preferable.
Example rendering
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| natural=beach + surface=sand | natural=beach + surface=gravel |
Mapping path/track using beach as its part
Discussed for example at
- https://www.mail-archive.com/talk-au@openstreetmap.org/msg09528.html
- https://www.mail-archive.com/tagging@openstreetmap.org/msg41293.html
- https://www.mail-archive.com/talk-au@openstreetmap.org/msg11443.html
- https://www.mail-archive.com/talk-us@openstreetmap.org/msg13183.html
- https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2019-July/012759.html
Related
- sport=swimming
- sport=surfing
- nudism=yes/no/customary/permissive/obligatory
- dog=yes/no, etc. (see Animals)
- Key:emergency
- amenity=shower
- Key:shelter_type
See also
- natural=shingle - deposits of pebbles and gravel along rivers and beaches
- natural=coastline - used for ocean coastlines
- natural=stone - big boulders
- natural=bare_rock - solid rock areas
- natural=cliff
- Beach on Wikipedia
- Swimming and bathing
Possible Tagging Mistakes
Automated edits are strongly discouraged unless you really know what you are doing!