Tag:natural=water

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Public-images-osm logo.svg natural = water
Blowdown Lake.JPG
Description
Any inland body of water, from natural such as a lake or pond to artificial like a moat or canal. Show/edit corresponding data item.
Rendering in OSM Carto
Base layer water.png
Group: natural
Used on these elements
may be used on nodesshould not be used on waysmay be used on areas (and multipolygon relations)should not be used on relations (except multipolygon relations)
Useful combination
See also
Status: approvedPage for proposal

Used to map all inland bodies of water, both naturally occurring & man made.

How to use

Draw a closed way creating an area, and tag it with natural=water. If the area contains islands or is too big to map with a single way, create a relation:multipolygon .

It is acceptable, but undesirable, to map this feature with a single node, if its extents aren't known.

natural=water is a parent tag to generally describe inland areas of water. It works as a stand alone tag, but if the type/usage of the water body is known it's preferable to specify it by additionally adding water=*.

For details on how to map specific features refer to the list in water=* and then select the required feature.

Water features not using the natural=* tag

  • natural=coastline – For the sea (ocean), including marginal areas such as tidal channels, bays, lagoons and estuaries.
  • natural=wetland – A land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally.
  • landuse=salt_pond – For salt evaporation ponds.
  • leisure=swimming_pool – For open-air, man-made swimming pools.

See also

  • Key:waterway – To map the linear flow of water, such as rivers, canals, streams, using a way.
  • JOSM plugin scanaerial works like OCR for water. You need 1 click per lake.

Possible tagging mistakes

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!
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!