Key:ref:gnbc
 ref:gnbc
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| Description |
|---|
ID in database of the Geographical Names Board of Canada 
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| Group: references |
| URL pattern |
| https://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/search-place-names/unique?id=$1 |
| Used on these elements |
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| Requires |
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| Status: in use |
| Tools for this tag |
Unique ID as per the Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC). They can be found in the Canadian Geographical Names Database (CGNDB).
Per CGNDB website, the following kinds of features may have GNBC IDs:
- Administrative Area
- Constructed Feature
- Feature Associated with Vegetation
- Ice and Snow Feature
- Populated Place
- Terrain Feature
- Underground Feature
- Undersea and Maritime Feature
- Water Feature
French and English names
Things that have names noted in both English and French will have two GNBC IDs ("features") for the same thing, for example Welland Canal (key FDBYB) and Canal Welland (key FHEOQ). This can be handled in several ways:
- In some cases, one of these features is marked in the database as "Status: Official" and the other as "Status: Alternate". It is recommended to use the key of the one that has status "Official".
- Some features may have two "Official" keys. In cases where this is because features touch or span provinces, this has been tagged by appending the province or territory code to the OSM key. For example 13708702 13708702 has
ref:gnbc:nu=OALKAOALKA andref:gnbc:qc=EMETLEMETL. Taginfo finds a few dozen uses of:ref:gnbc:nu=*,ref:gnbc:qc=*,ref:gnbc:nt=*, andref:gnbc:yt=*. - In some cases, a feature in one province or territory may have two official keys in CGNDB, for example "Kennedy Channel" OAIUP and "Passage Kennedy" OATTG are both listed as "Official". This has been tagged with
ref:gnbc=OAIUP;OATTG.- In theory it is also possible to tag this case using the longer "Other name(s) for this feature" ID in CGNDB, for example 0c72a6d7849c20c3b2f79e3cdb1e9e2a as
ref:gnbc=0c72a6d7849c20c3b2f79e3cdb1e9e2a. These IDs have not been used in OSM as of September 2026.
- In theory it is also possible to tag this case using the longer "Other name(s) for this feature" ID in CGNDB, for example 0c72a6d7849c20c3b2f79e3cdb1e9e2a as
Actual use
As of late 2025, there are about 200 values for this tag that have multiple uses in OSM. Since the ID is supposed to identify a feature, if One feature, one OSM element is followed, multiple uses of an ID should be rare, and many of these might be errors. Some might not be, so don't clean up blindly!
In particular, this tag is used on administrative boundary ways in Nova Scotia, e.g. 842000351 842000351. The codes used there seem to have an extra G prepended, for example 842000351 842000351 is tagged ref:gnbc=GCATEM which seems to actually refer to CATEM. The tagging is anyway wrong since the boundary way is now used by boundary relations of both Laconia CATEM 9236301 9236301 as well as Lapland CATKW 9208393 9208393. This should probably be cleaned up but hasn't yet.
The boundary relations like 9236301 9236301 are also tagged like ref:gnbc=GCATEM. It's not yet known if the extra G has significance or if it's an error.