OpenHistoricalMap/Tags/Relation/street
 street
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| Description |
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The identity of a road or street as applied to physical infrastructure.  
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| Group: Highways |
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| See also |
Status: in use
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| Tools for this tag |
In OpenHistoricalMap, a street relation represents the identity of a street, separating it from the street's geometry and physical characteristics, which remain on the highway=* way.
Rationale
A street relation consolidates all the ways representing a street, so that only one element needs to contain information about its identity and link to a Wikidata item about the street. A street relation also reduces the need to draw overlapping ways, for example when the street is renamed. Similarly, adding a highway=* way to a route=road relation separates route designations from the physical street, avoiding the need for multiple copies.
Members
The street relation contains the highway=* ways comprising the street. The 
street
An element should not be a member of the same street relation twice, and it should not be a member of two street relations that have overlapping start_date=*/end_date=* date ranges.
Do not add an element to a street relation just because it abuts the street or its address includes the street's name. Use addr:street=* to indicate the street name in an address.
Software support
As of January 2026, the official vector tiles do not expose street relations, so their details do not appear on official styles such as Historical. [1]
Alternatives
The basic representation of a street is a way or series of ways tagged with highway=*. As in OpenStreetMap, name=* can appear on this way, but if the street is renamed, the street must be duplicated. Some mappers disfavor this approach because JOSM and iD have undiscoverable shortcuts for navigating among overlapping ways.
Some mappers instead prefer to map the street as a multilinestring relation. Instead of combining the street's identity with its physical characteristics on individual ways, the street's identity is combined with its physical characteristics on the multilinestring relation. A sequence of multilinestring relations may be required to represent a street that varies in physical characteristics from end to end, such as crossing a bridge. The official vector tiles automatically convert multilinestrings to features similar to roadways, allowing styles to render them automatically.