Relation
A relation is one of the core data elements that consists of one or more tags and also an ordered list of one or more nodes, ways and/or relations as members which is used to define logical or geographic relationships between other elements. A member of a relation can optionally have a role which describes the part that a particular feature plays within a relation.
Over 5 000 000 relations exist in the global OSM data set (as of June 2017).
Contents
Usage
Relations are used to model logical (and usually local) or geographic relationships between objects. They are not designed to hold loosely associated but widely spread items. It would be inappropriate, for instance, to use a relation to group 'All footpaths in East Anglia'.
Size
It is recommended to use not more than about 300 members per relation. If you have to handle more than that amount of members, create several relations and combine them with a Super-Relation.
Reason: The more members are stuffed into a single relation, the harder it is to handle, the easier it breaks, the easier conflicts can show up and the more resources it consumes at database and server.
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"Super-Relations" is a good concept on paper but none of the many OSM software applications is working with them. |
Roles
A role is an optional textual field describing the function of a member of the relation. For example, in North America, east indicates that a way would be posted as East on the directional plate of a route numbering shield. Or, multipolygon relation, inner and outer are used to specify whether a way forms the inner or outer part of that polygon.
Types of relation 
- Main article: Types of relation
Multipolygon
Multipolygons are one of two methods to represent 
areas in OpenStreetMap. While most areas are represented as a single 
closed way, almost all area features can also be mapped using multipolygon relations. This is needed when the area needs to exclude inner rings (holes), has multiple outer areas (exclaves), or uses more than ~2000 nodes.
In the multipolygon relation, the inner and outer roles are used to specify whether a member way forms the inner or outer part of that polygon enclosing an area. For example, an inner way could define an island in a lake (which is mapped as relation).
Bus route
Each variation of a bus route itinerary is represented by a relation with type=route, route=bus and ref=* and operator=* tags. The first members in the route relation are the nodes representing the stops. These are ordered in the way the vehicles travel along them. Then the ways are added. In PT v2 the ways form an ordered sequence, along the stop nodes. The ways don't get roles. If they form a continuous sequence this is apparent from the continuous line along them (in JOSM's relation editor).
Other Examples
- Relation:boundary to exclusively define administrative boundaries
- Relation:restriction to describe a restrictions such as 'no left turn', 'no U-turn' etc.
- see Types of relation and Category:Relations for more
Tools
- JOSM/Advanced_editing#Relations: Work with relations in JOSM
- Potlatch 2/relations: Work with relations in Potlatch
- Show a relation: Example id=11
- Show history of a relation: Example id=11
- Rendering a relation: Example id=11
- OSM Relation Analyzer
- Relation Check
- Relation Diff
- Relation lists
- Search for a relation: http://ra.osmsurround.org
- Visualise a relation on a map
- Rel2gpx
Please list routing apps here, that are able to follow a relation route (like for pilgrimages)
- No app known yet.
