Israel

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The State of Israel (دولة إسرائيل, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל), Western Asia
Wikidata

latitude: 31.417, longitude: 35.079
Browse map of The State of Israel (دولة إسرائيل, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל) 31°25′01.20″ N, 35°04′44.40″ E
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The State of Israel (دولة إسرائيل, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל) is a country in Western Asia at latitude 31°25′01.20″ North, longitude 35°04′44.40″ East.

This page contains OSM mapping information that is specific to Israel. If you're new, start by reading The Basics section below.

The Israel relation is relation 1473946. There are additional major boundaries.

The basics

Welcome to OSM! The basics are also available in Hebrew, המדריך הבסיסי גם זמין בעברית.

  • You can visit the OSM website, sign in, zoom to an area, and click "edit". A built-in guide will explain the basics. You can also click the "?" button on the right for help. The Israel Hiking Map has an alternative editor for Israel. There are many more editors too.
  • The most important guidelines for mapping are as follows.
    • Do not use copyrighted sources such as Govmap, Google Maps, Google Street View, Waze, municipality maps and GIS sites, etc.
    • Name is the name only - Do not add descriptions, notes, or other things other than the actual name. "water tap" is not a name; Instead there is the amenity=drinking_water tag, and a button in the editor which adds it. Do not put multiple languages in one name. We have guidelines for translations.
    • Only map things that are on the ground, and can be verified by other mappers who visit the same place.
    • If you're doing something for the first time (for example, adding an address) you're strongly advised to look for other places on the map where this was already done, in order to learn how to do it properly.
    • Avoid tagging for the renderer - Do not use incorrect tags only to make the map look more pleasing in a particular app you like.
    • Aerial footage is often not fully aligned. Do not move roads only because they're not aligned with aerial footage. You can align aerial imagery instead.
    • Avoid duplicating existing features.
    • Write meaningful Changeset Comment on Save - help other mappers better understand your edit.
  • Use the Wiki search to find information on specific topics or specific tags.
  • If you have questions, use the forum or the various ways of communication.
  • There are Israel-specific conventions and guidelines for certain features and tags, please have a look before editing those. In particular, see the Israel naming standard.
  • It's recommended you gradually familiarize yourself with the general OSM guidelines too, found in the following pages:
  • We all make mistakes! That's fine. The community is happy to help. Please be responsive to changeset comments, private messages, and forum replies (You will be notified via email).
  • The full Israeli guidelines are in the following sections.

Discussion and communication

Community Forum

The Israel users forum is the main communication method. Sign in with your OSM account.

OSM Discussions

Mailing list

Talk-il is a mailing list for discussions about mapping Israel, and for easy communication between mappers from Israel. English & Hebrew are allowed. The list is not as active as the forum, but it may still be useful especially for those who do not have an OSM account.

Talk page

The talk page can be used for communication, but the forum is more active.

Telegram

The telegram group is great for quick questions. The daily conversations are usually in Hebrew, yet English is more than welcome.

Conventions and guidelines

This section covers conventions and guidelines specific to Israel. Note that there are also additional guidelines for hiking and biking trails in the next section.

Naming

  • The name=* tag should be used as the primary name, given in a single language selected like this:
    1. If there is signage with only one language, or one language more prominent than others (e.g. a shop's sign or a street name sign), use that language. This is the normal rule for name=*.
    2. Otherwise, use the language most commonly spoken in the area (usually Hebrew or Arabic).
    3. If two or more languages are equally common in the area, use your judgement or use the same language as nearby objects.
    4. Deviation from the priorities listed here is sometimes justified, for example if the local population prefers a different language from the signed one. In those cases, the reason for the selected language should be documented in note:name=* to inform other mappers.
  • Additionally, the same name should be added using a name:lang=* tag in the same language as the name=* tag. This is usually one of:
    1. name:he=* for Hebrew
    2. name:ar=* for Arabic
  • Translations are added with additional name:lang=*. Use one of the above languages, name:en=* for English, name:ru=* for Russian, name:am=* for Amharic, or see the full list.
    1. Prefer exact spelling as seen on signs.
    2. Only use translations that are in actual use and/or can be seen on a sign. If there is no translation available, do not invent one!
    3. When there's no translation, transliteration can be used, but it has caveats. Please learn when to avoid transliteration before deciding to use it.
      • Normally, transliteration is performed only on locally used languages and English.

Example: The city of relation Haifa has its main name as name=חיפה and name:he=חיפה in Hebrew, as well as name:en=Haifa, name:ar=حيفا and several other languages.

Additional notes:

Inter-city roads

  • First rule for numbered roads: The category is determined by the color of the sign, not by the number of digits!
  • Different sections with the same road number can have different categories.
  • Speed limits stated below are the defaults by law, though can be altered in a specific road section by a "special speed limit" sign.
Key Value Element Description Colored sign Mapnik color Default speed limit Key:ref tag on way Remark
highway motorway way All freeways - National and Inter-City roads Blue. Red 110 km/h mandatory for all highway=motorway Usually a single-digit road number (e.g. road 2) or a double-digit road number (e.g. road 20).

Motorways mostly have an Dálnice sign at the entrances, but not necessarily.

highway trunk way National roads Red. Orange 100 km/h mandatory for all highway=trunk (including roundabout) Expressways / trunk in Israel can look very much like a freeway. Many of them have double-digit road number (e.g. road 10).
highway primary way All regional roads Green. Lighter orange 90 km/h mandatory for all highway=primary (including roundabout) Many of them have triple-digit road number (e.g. road 412).
highway secondary way All regional roads Black. Yellow 80 km/h only if exist Many of them have quadruple-digit road number (e.g. road 4111) and priority over other crossing roads (i.e. crossing drivers encounter a stop sign).

Exception for the priority rule: unnumbered roads that are important for routing connections may have crossing priority over secondary roads.

highway tertiary way important (connection-) roads Not numbered and without a colored sign White 80 km/h no Priority over other crossing roads (crossing drivers encounter a stop sign). Main roads inside cities are tertiary.

Other road types

Also see next section for trails conventions.

Key Value Element Description Implied access
highway unclassified wayarea Smaller paved roads in non-residential places. e.g. agricultural roads, forest roads, roads from behind one village to behind another village, etc. motor_vehicle=yes, bicycle=yes, foot=yes
highway residential way Roads in residential places (city, town, village, etc.) motor_vehicle=yes, bicycle=yes, foot=yes
highway service wayarea Short access roads: roads in parking lots, fuel stations, inside universities, inside factories, etc. motor_vehicle=yes, bicycle=yes, foot=yes
highway track way Unpaved road suitable for motor vehicles (Double). motor_vehicle=yes, bicycle=yes, foot=yes
highway path way A pathway too narrow for vehicles, accessible by foot, bicycle, and horse. Usually Unpaved.
Add bicycle=designated where the path is part of a bicycle trail.
Add foot=designated if the path is to be shared by bikers and hikers. 		motor_vehicle=no, bicycle=yes, foot=yes, horse=yes
highway footway way Mainly, or exclusively for pedestrians. Add bicycle=yes or change to highway=path if bicycles are also allowed. motor_vehicle=no, bicycle=no, foot=designated
highway cycleway way Exclusively for bicycles. Usually paved. motor_vehicle=no, bicycle=designated, foot=no
highway pedestrian wayarea Where people walk and there are many shops. Like "Midrahov", or "Passage", etc. motor_vehicle=no, bicycle=yes, foot=yes, horse=yes
highway living_street way "רחוב הולנדי" - Residential road where there is no sidewalk or other separation between pedestrians and vehicles. motor_vehicle=yes, bicycle=yes, foot=yes, horse=yes
highway road way Temporary tagging, if the type is unknown. Try to add a "note" tag. motor_vehicle=yes bicycle=yes, foot=yes, horse=yes
bridge yes way A bridge. Useful with layer=*
tunnel yes wayrelation A tunnel. Useful with layer=*

Please see He:Map Features, this forum thread, and default access restrictions

Other

Here are some Israel-specific clarifications unrelated to road tagging.

Key Value Element Description
amenity place_of_worship node area Use religion=jewish for synagogues, religion=christian for churches, religion=muslim for mosques. More options include religion=bahai, religion=druze
barrier gate node way A section in a wall or fence which can be opened to allow access. Closed gate: access=private. For a vehicles barrier set: bicycle=yes, foot=yes, motor_vehicle=no. If it's a removable wire fence, the hampshire gate tagging below is more suitable.
barrier hampshire_gate node A section of wire fence which can be removed temporarily. Hampshire gates are quite common in Israel on both hiking trails and general-use unpaved tracks in non-urban areas.
barrier cattle_grid node A hole in the road surface covered in a series of bars that allow pedestrians and wheeled vehicles but not animals to cross. Very common in Israel.
barrier stile node A stile allows pedestrians to cross "over" or "through" a wall or fence, but never actually "opens" the barrier. In Israel, the most common type of stile seen on hiking paths is a narrow passage between metal rods/tubes, triangular in plan (like this: ———<———; an example can be seen here or here). This kind of stile should be mapped with stile=squeezer and material=metal. Another common type looks like a small rounded "bridge" (example); these should be mapped with stile=stepover and material=metal.
historic tomb node Ancient burial sites are common in Israel. If it's a tomb carved in rock, consider adding tomb=rock-cut too. natural=cave_entrance is not the proper tagging for man made burial sites.
tourism camp_site node area A "חניון לילה". An area where people can camp overnight using tents, camper vans or caravans. Often erroneously tagged as parking=* because of the Hebrew translation.

Places

A place should have a node and a polygon.

The node tells the renderer where to draw the name of the place. It also should have all the tags related to the place, like population, wikipedia, etc. It should have all the various names with different spelling, e.g. name, name:en, name* and name:* tags.

The polygon should only have the following tags:

  • landuse=residential
  • place=*
  • name tags

All the other tags belong to the node. A place often has a related administrative boundary, too.

For neighborhoods a polygon isn't always used and a node can be sufficient.

Administrative boundaries

See also: List of major boundaries and Admin_level for all countries

The boundary=administrative tag is used on ways or relations to separate districts, cities, etc. Below is Israel-specific rules for the admin_level of the boundary.

Wikipedia has up to date lists for Local Councils, Regional Councils, Municipalites (cities), sub-districts, and Districts.

Municipalities

See also: The 2011 MOIN import

A municipality should have a relation with one node with role admin_centre, and one or more ways, to form closed polygon(s).

The relation should have the following tags:

The nodeadmin_centre node should be a place node, or an amenity=townhall node in the case of a regional council.

Nature reserves

Nature Reserves should be tagged as follows:

Because Nature Reserves are governed by Israeli law,

  • Do not map Nature Reserves that have not completed the official declaration process.
  • Do not use leisure=nature_reserve as it is incompatible with the meaning and legal implications in Israel.

National parks

National Parks should be tagged as follows:

Because National Parks are governed by Israeli law,

  • Do not map National Parks that have not completed the official declaration process.
  • Do not use leisure=* as it is incompatible with the meaning and legal implications in Israel.

Train and bus

  • Bus stops are automatically managed by the gtfs2osm bot. But you are allowed to make some changes to them.
  • Public transport lines should be mapped using the Public Transport Version 2 schema. See: Public transport#Service routes.
  • Public transport routes are analyzed for quality assurance by Public Transport Network Analysis (PTNA for short). Common tagging or mapping errors are checked.
  • PTNA uses data published by the Ministry of Transportation to know which routes are missing, and which routes are outdated. The PTNA output is divided by region. See the Israel PTNA index. Please take a look at the analysis page of the region you're editing. PTNA can be an invaluable tool for improving the quality of mapped routes.
  • Old discussion in forum about train routes

Conventions for hiking and biking trails

See also: National and regional trails

For some general info see Walking Routes and cycle routes. Specific information about Israel can be found on Wikipedia and here (both in Hebrew).

A trail is represented by one or several ways way, all belonging to the trail's relation relation. Generally speaking, the ways of a trail describe its geographical path and physical grade, while the trail relation holds its administrative information. Trails should be mapped according the following guidelines.

The original discussions can be seen here and also here.

way Ways belonging to a trail

  • Add a colour=* tag to ways belonging to local and regional trails. Note that the spelling is "colour" and not "color"!
    • When a trail has different Israel Trails Committee (ITC) and JNF (KKL) colors, use only the ITC color.
    • When a way belongs to local and regional trails, use the color of the local trail.
    • When a way belongs to two local ITC trails, use multi-value tagging with a semicolon, such as colour=red;green.
    • When a way has a transparent shield would be tagged with colour=transparent.
  • Try to add a source=* tag to ways belonging to the trail. Common tag values are source=GPS and source=Bing. The source tag is an indicator of the accuracy of the trail position. GPS-based mapping is preferred and it can replace Bing-based mapping.
  • For highway=track ways please try to add a tracktype=* tag, indicating which kinds of vehicles can use the track:
Key Value Description
tracktype grade1 High quality unpaved road. Usable, for example, by low-clearance cars - דרך עפר באיכות גבוהה
tracktype grade2 All vehicle unpaved road - דרך עפר לכל כלי רכב
tracktype grade3 All-wheel-drive unpaved road - "דרך עפר לרכב שטח "רך
tracktype grade4 Unpaved road requiring high clearance and/or low gear - (דרך עפר לרכב שטח "קשוח" (מוגבה ו/או עם הילוך כח
tracktype grade5 Unpaved road requiring a locking differential and high clearance - "דרך עפר לרכב שטח "נעול

relation Trail relations

Every marked trail should be represented by a relation relation and tagged according to the guidelines below. The ways way belonging to the trail are the members of the relation.

Key Value Explanation
type=* route Mandatory. The relation represents a route.
route=* hiking / bicycle / mtb (mountainbike) Mandatory. The trail kind of the route.
network=* nwn / rwn / lwn / ncn / rcn / lcn Mandatory. Level of the trail.
  • nwn: National Walking Network - Shvil Israel (Israel National Trail - שביל ישראל) only
  • rwn: Regional Walking Network - Special named (Golan, Jesus, Emek Ha'Ma'ayanot, Sovev Kineret, Jerusalem, etc.) and unnamed long "regional" (purple and orange) routes
  • lwn: Local Walking Network - All other walking routes
  • ncn: National Cycling Network - Israel Bike Trail (שביל ישראל לאופניים) only
  • rcn: Regional Cycling Network - Such as TLV-JM (מים לי-ם)
  • lcn: Local Cycling Network - All other bicycle routes(e.g. Ness Ziona Scenic, Canada Park Black)
operator=* itc/kkl/rtg/user-defined Mandatory. The authority that built and maintains the route.
  • itc - Israel Trails Committee (הועדה לשבילי ישראל). Most of the hiking trails are of this type.
  • kkl - Keren Kayemet LeIsrael (הקרן הקיימת לישראל).
  • rtg - Rashut HaTeva VeHaGanim (רשות הטבע והגנים).
  • Other authorities, such as municipalities, by name.
osmc:symbol=* The shield of the route, used for rendering. Mandatory for ITC trails. Machine readable value for the route's colors and how the marking (shield) should look like.
Shield osmc:symbol Shield osmc:symbol
black:white:black_stripe blue:white:blue_stripe:orange_stripe_left
red:white:red_stripe purple:white:purple_stripe
blue:white:blue_stripe orange:white:orange_stripe
green:white:green_stripe blue:white:blue_stripe:green_stripe_left
blank:white yellow:blue:yellow_stripe

For the single-colored routes, the value should follow this example: red:white:red_stripe, which means: red colored way is drawn with white background and a red vertical stripe. In particular, the foreground color and the stripe color should be equal to the "colour" tag of every way in the trail ("red" in the above example). The shield background color should always be "white".

A transparent shield would be tagged with osmc:symbol=blank:white.

Tags for three-colored trail marks, such as Israel Trail and Golan Trail, should follow this example: blue:white:blue_stripe:orange_stripe_left, which means: blue colored way, white background shield, a blue vertical stripe in the middle, and an orange vertical stripe on the left.

name=* a name Highly recommended. The route is known by this name (e.g. "Shvil Israel", "Golan Trail"). The name should be preferably specified in Hebrew.
name:en=* a name Optional. The English route name.
name:he=* a name Optional. Identical to the name attribute above.
ref=* a reference Optional. The route number as specified by the Israel Trail Committee.

Names of unofficial MTB single-tracks

Official mountain-bike (MTB) trails are represented using relations, as described above. In addition there are many unofficial single-tracks that have been named by the MTB community. Such single-tracks do not have relations. Instead, the mtb:name=* mtb:name:he=*, and mtb:name:en=* (optional) are placed on the way(s) themselves.

The mtb:name=* tags can also capture the name of a special segment within an official MTB trail. For example, the "סינגל הכלניות" segment of Beeri Single.

Lists and features of interest

National and regional trails

See also: Conventions for hiking and biking trials
Trail Relation Trail mark
Israel National Trail relation 282071
Israel Bike Trail relation 6639060
Golan Trail relation 568661
Upper Galilee Trail relation 2193374
Sea to Sea Trail relation 2860967
Jesus Trail relation 364191
Sovev Kineret Trail relation 5145441
Lower Galilee Trail relation 3929958
Haifa Wadis Trail relation 3734116
Megiddo Trail relation 15787317
Jerusalem Trail relation 1314299
TLV JM Bike Route relation 947776
Har HaNegev Trail relation 6148872
Makhtesh Ramon Trail relation 6148296

Major boundaries

See the list here.

Mapping tools

Israel permalinks

The following list has Israel-specific permalinks to QA and monitoring tools:

Note that some tools may show entries from neighboring countries, because they're based on a rectangle bounding box.

Useful QA tools

The following are general QA tools that can be helpful:

Statistics

The following are Israel-specific statistics:

Bots and imports

This is a list of major bots and imports.

National

Regional

See also

Retrieved from "https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Israel&oldid=2854987"