Key:material

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material
Description
Describes the main material of a physical feature. Show/edit corresponding data item.
Group: properties
Used on these elements
may be used on nodesmay be used on waysmay be used on areas (and multipolygon relations)should not be used on relations (except multipolygon relations)
Documented values: 3
Status: de facto

material=* – describes the main material of a physical feature.

It is most commonly used to describe the material of monuments, memorials, statues, walls, fences, but can be used for any other physical object except those listed below, which use other tags:

Common values

Key Value Description Photo
material wood Wood.
material concrete Concrete.
material metal Unspecified metal. It is better to use a more accurate value if you know what metal it is.
material steel Steel.
material stone Stone. Use a more precise value if you know which stone it is (see the following lines).
material reinforced_concrete Reinforced concrete.
material plastic Plastic.
material brick Brick.
material bronze Bronze.
material granite Granite.
material brass Brass.
material glass Glass.
material sandstone Sandstone.
material rock Rock. To avoid, prefer material=stone
material aluminium Aluminium.
material copper copper.
material soil Soil, earth. Often used in combination with man_made=embankment.
material marble Marble.
material limestone Limestone.
material tufa Tufa and/or travertine - a soft sedimentary rock formed by the chemical precipitation of calcium carbonate minerals from fresh water, typically in springs, rivers, and lakes, especially in karst around waterfalls
material dry_stone Dry stone, stones laid without any mortar to bind them together.
material andesite Andesite.
material adobe Adobe, mudbrick. Material made from earth and organic materials.
material iron Iron.
material cast_iron Cast_iron.
material wrought_iron Wrought_iron.
material sheet_metal Sheet_metal.
material ceramic Ceramic.
material terracotta Terracotta.
material sand Sand.
material plaster Plaster.
material slate Slate.
material bamboo Bamboo.
material metal_grid Metal grid (depending on the model also called wire mesh or wire grid, comparable is also perforated metal) is a specific type of material=metal. It is often used for seats and backrests of benches, sometimes also for outdoor tables.
material basalt Basalt.
material weathering_steel Weathering steel, sometimes called COR-TEN steel, are steel alloys that obtain a distinctive stable rust-like exterior when exposed to the weather. Typically used as building cladding and in abstract sculptures.
material tyres Tyres.
material rammed_earth Rammed earth.
material trachyte Trachyte.
material greywacke Greywacke.
material fieldstone Fieldstone.
material muschelkalk Muschelkalk.
material palm_leaves Arecaceae.
material epoxy Epoxy, a family of resins that may replace wood or concrete to mould or cast several industrial, urban, or domestic appliances
material masonry Masonry is not a material. Please use other values.
material user defined All commonly used values according to Taginfo

This table is a wiki template with a default description in English. Editable here.

Using material tag for detailing surface info

surface=granite and similar should ideally be avoided as it fails to distinguish between surface=sett and surface=unhewn_cobblestone and surface=paving_stones[1][2]

But, if someone wants to provide a detailed info for a surface, material=* can be used as an extra detail. This is friendly both for data consumers looking for extremely detailed info and for more general-purpose ones. For surface=paving_stones there is paving_stones:material=*, which can also be used.

surface=sett material=granite or surface=paving_stones paving_stones:material=granite are completely fine and much more useful tagging than surface=granite that loses useful info.

For example, the distinction between surface=unhewn_cobblestone and surface=paving_stones is very important for bicycle routing, while distinguishing between marble surface and granite surface and concrete surface is of lesser importance.

surface=metal material=steel is preferable over surface=steel as it allows more general-purpose data consumers to process data without failing as soon as someone will add even more detailed info about surface.

Notes and references