Proposal talk:Alternate addresses

Further thoughts

From reading this proposal, I have the following thoughts and suggestions:

• Interaction with relations: The proposal doesn't describe how this scheme is supposed to interact — if at all — with the type=associatedStreet relation-based scheme. Currently, buildings within an associated street relation are assigned the role house. Perhaps a secondary address could use the role house:* with the matching suffix instead.
• Directional suffixes: Beyond numeric suffixes, it might be reasonable to also allow directional suffixes (e.g., addr:nw:housenumber=*) to indicate which facade of a building the address is associated with.
• Determining the primary address: Adding a rule-of-thumb priority hierarchy for determining the main addr:*=* set would be helpful. Based on my local mapping experience, the order should be something like this:

  Official registry records →

  Existing physical signage (if only one sign exists, with secondary/tertiary addresses inferred from adjacent numbering) →

  Public/commercial usage as stated by owners →

  Orientation of the main facade →

  Location of the main entrance →

  Primary property access point.

• Duplexes and semi-detached buildings: Mappers should be cautious around duplexes and semi-detached houses. Sometimes, both number signs are mounted on the same building corner, even though one of the numbers belongs only to the building part located further away from the streetcorner. Despite sharing a single roof, these usually represent separate properties and should be mapped as distinct ways tagged as building=semidetached_house (or building=house + house=semi-detached), at least until there is an established scheme for mapping sub-addresses on building parts.

VileGecko (talk) 13:21, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Hello VileGecko, thank you for your feedback.

- Interaction with relations: I'm not sure how alternate addresses should interact with associatedStreet relations. In my opinion, the respective addr:#:street should always be added as this is the clearest option for most mappers, though this is more of a regional mapping-style thing (these relations are rarely used in my region). I think that matching to nearby associatedStreet relations based on the name stored on addr:#:street should be valid, but I'm not sure about creating additional roles like house:* - to me that makes these tags more difficult to edit as you then have to keep the number used in sync with multiple separate objects. Additionally, if there are multiple alternate addresses for the same street, would you then add the same object as a member twice? This is probably something that should be discussed with other mappers who do make use of these relations - I'm happy to add some mention of this to the proposal if you/others think it would be helpful, but I think for simplicity addr:#:street should always be added regardless of how these alternate addresses should interact with associatedStreet relations.

- Directional suffixes: do you have an example of where this would be used? This proposal shouldn't be used to tag a building with addresses if the addresses are actually assigned to entrances (I think I need to make this clearer in the proposal). In my opinion, it's also probably isn't a good idea to try to claim more of the addr:* namespace. Maybe this could instead be tagged using something like addr:#:direction=NW, and also support numbers/degrees as directions similar to the existing direction tag.

- Determining the primary address: the proposal does mention this under the "Examples" heading, do you think it should be changed?:

> Given most maps and other software will most likely only display one address, the primary address should always be whichever address is best to have displayed to users, or whichever address is most used by a feature. If an official address database suggests a primary address that does not match real-world usage, the real-world/on the ground address should always be tagged as the primary address.

- Duplexes and semi-detached buildings: Yes, I think I will add a "should not be used for" section and add a mention of this. There are some buildings like this near me [1], but do you have a better example I could add, such as a photo of a number on the corner like you mention? Joel Koen (talk) 03:19, 23 July 2026 (UTC)