Key:ruins

Description

Indicate that a structure is in ruins or specifies the type of ruins of an historic=ruins.

Group: properties

Used on these elements

Useful combination

ruins=yes

ruins=yes is used in conjunction with a tag representing a structure to indicate that the structure is in ruins, e.g. historic=castle + ruins=yes or building=yes + ruins=yes

Notes:

Most data consumers don't evaluate the tag ruins=yes and thus handle the structure as it were intact. It is especially problematic for features such as amenity=hospital where ruins=yes would be a trolltag. For this reason, an unknown part of mappers advise not to use ruins=yes.^[1] As an alternative, historic=ruins together with a ruins=* sub-tag is often used for historical ruins (see section Sub-tag of historic=ruins below) and the lifecycle prefix ruins:* for non-historic features. Though for some features, such as castles - also a ruined one fulfils very similar function (tourism attraction) so ruins=yes is not always a very big problem.
Some mappers use ruins=yes for structures that are still recognisable for what they once used to be, and historic=ruins or ruins:* for structures that are no longer recognisable for what they used to be (e.g. where only the foundation walls are still visible).

Tagging with ruins=yes	Alternative tagging
`historic=castle` + `ruins=yes`	`historic=ruins` + `ruins=castle`
`building=yes` + `ruins=yes`	`ruins:building=yes`

ruins=* is used in conjunction with historic=ruins to define the historic structure that is in ruins, e.g. historic=ruins + ruins=church. Some used values are:

Key	Value	Description
`ruins`	`chapel`	Ruins of a historic chapel
`ruins`	`church`	Ruins of a historic church
`ruins`	`castle`	Ruins of a historic castle
`ruins`	`fort`	Ruins of a historic fort
`ruins`	`tower`	Ruins of a historic tower
`ruins`	`monastery`	Ruins of a historic monastery
`ruins`	`mosque`	Ruins of a historic mosque
`ruins`	`temple`	Ruins of a historic temple
`ruins`	`wall`	Ruins of a historic wall