Key:type

type=* on a relation object specifies its type and interactions among its members. Established and proposed relation types are listed below.

type has been also occasionally used as an add-on tag to specify a "variant" of a feature category on ways and points. This approach conflicts with its use in relations and should be avoided. Also, for elements with multiple top-level tags, it is not clear to which one the type refers to. Instead, use suffix-based or subtag-based approach, as described in *:type=*.

Established relations

Type	Status	Members	Comment	Statistics	Image
multipolygon	de facto	( )	Areas where the outline consists of multiple ways, or that have holes.
route	de facto		An established (often signposted) route over multiple highways for a given transport mode (hiking, cycling, bus or motorized traffic)
route_master	approved		Contains closely related (parallel, opposite, variant, ...) routes only; heavily used to group route variants in public transport.
restriction	de facto		Permitted turns on a highway junction.
boundary	de facto		Political, administrative and similar boundaries not always observable on the ground. Defined in similar manner as multipolygons.
public_transport	approved		Part of the OSM public transport scheme. Mainly used by public_transport=stop_area.
destination_sign	approved		Destination signs at or before intersections.
waterway	approved		Groups multiple segments of a named waterway=*.
enforcement	approved		Traffic enforcement devices; speed cameras, redlight cameras, weight checks, ...
connectivity	approved		Indicates how the lanes in the "from" member connect to those in the "to" member.

Uncommon relations

Type	Status	Members	Comment	Statistics	Image
associatedStreet	controversial		House numbers related to a street. See Karlsruhe scheme proposal. Banned by community in a few countries.
superroute	controversial		Groups together a string of routes. Superroute contains (concatenable) routes only. Its usefulness is disputed.
site	in use		Groups elements of a "site" with node members, instead of using a multipolygon. See Relations/Proposed/Site
network	in use		Relations that describe networks with their members being the members of this network.
building	in use		Sometimes used to group elements that form a building in simple 3D modelling, but not usually required.
multilinestring	in use		A discontiguous series of unclosed ways that semantically represents a single physical object.
street	proposed		Bind all parts of a street together and everything else that belongs to it. See Relations/Proposed/Street
bridge	proposed		Groups together all elements of one bridge. See Relations/Proposed/Bridges and Tunnels
tunnel	proposed		Groups together all elements of one tunnel. See Relations/Proposed/Bridges and Tunnels
user defined			All commonly used values according to Taginfo	Taginfo

Proposed uses

Abandoned and obsolete proposals not included.

Junctions, intersections, grade separated crossings, and embankments

Relations/Proposed/Bridges and Tunnels

grouping all ways using a common bridge or tunnel

Relations/Proposed/Junctions

all the ways that make up a junction (such as a motorway intersection)

Relations/Proposed/Turn hints

Hints for whether a turn is a slight left, sharp left, fork, etc.

Relations/Proposed/turn lanes

which turns are allowed from a given lane

Area hierarchies and other relations for areas

Relations/Proposed/Area

to define areas between ways and lanes (linear crossover), virtual and physical dividers and crossover-possibilities, etc.

Relations/Proposed/Label

Manually placed labels or icons in areas

Relations/Proposed/Level

For floors in 3D-Objects (Subway stations, buildings, etc.).

Relations/Proposed/Sled

for grouping together all relevant items of a sled run.

Addressing

Relations/Proposed/Cluster

for grouping features with a collective name or address etc.

Karlsruhe Schema

Relations/Proposed/Postal Addresses

Others

Relations/Proposed/Defaults

defines a set of default values (speed limits, oneways, access) for a country, a state

Relations/Proposed/Provides feature

to associate an object such as a restaurant, hotel or museum with one or more map features such as addresses or entrances.

Proposed_features/Group_Relation

a relation to create groups of objects (e.g. when they have a common name as group) without requiring additional tags (they are defined through their members).

Relations/Proposed/Node

a relation to have several node objects at the same location without adding actual geometry objects (e.g. for things attached to a pole, antennas on a mast, etc.)

Possible tagging mistakes

type=*

More details at taginfo

• type=* ‒ This key should only be used on relations. Other object types should be sub-classified using one of schemes described in *:type=* or a different tag.

If you know places with this tag, verify if it could be tagged with another tag.
Automated edits are strongly discouraged unless you really know what you are doing!

Quality Assurance

• Review relations with no type=* tag (OSM Community topic, Overpass query)

See also

• *:type=*