Tag:amenity=school

amenity = school

Description

A primary or secondary school (pupils typically aged 6 to 18).

Rendering in OSM Carto

Group: Education

Used on these elements

Requires

landuse=education

Implies

landuse=education

Useful combination

name=*
operator=*
isced:level=*

How to map

There are several standard situations regarding schools. Each school should be mapped only once. Don't double them.

Other relevant information can be added with the following tags:

operator=* – Name of operator, often the local education authority.
operator:type=* – type of operator, e.g. community / religious / private / government
Address and other contact details
capacity=*, the maximum number of pupils the school can accept
grades=* – Which grades the school provides, can be used in conjunction with isced:level=*
min_age=* and max_age=* to indicate age range of children that attend the school
fee=yes if the school requires a direct charge for core services.
religion=*, if the school is associated with a particular religion (also denomination=*)
school:gender=* to indicate which genders can go to the school
language:*=* or school:language=* to indicate which is the main language of the school
ref=*, if school has a reference number
Contact information such as phone=*, email=*, website=*...
wikipedia=* or wikidata=* if the school has a Wikipedia- or Wikidata-entry.

Single school on one site

If you have a single school on one ground, mark the boundary of the school using an Area or place a Node in the middle of the site if you are in a hurry (or don't have access to information about the boundary and it is not obvious from aerial imagery). If you use a Area it is also optional to mark the area with landuse=education too, but it is not necessary.

Multiple school on one site

When one or more schools share their grounds use the following schema. This also applies when schools share a site with other amenity=*.

Mark the outer boundary of the shared school grounds/campus/area using an area with the tag landuse=education. If this shared area has its own name, tag this as well.
For each school or other amenity tag a node at an appropriate place within this area, or if the school has its own building for its exclusive use on the grounds, add the amenity-tag to the building outline . Make sure that there is only one OSM-element for each school. Add the school's details to the relevant amenities.

Example of usage at a school complex with "shared ground"

School with multiple sites

If a single school occupies a discontiguous campus, it should be represented by a multipolygon relation that includes all the parts of the campus. If part of the campus can only be represented by a point for some reason, then a multipolygon would not be valid, but a site relation has sometimes been used as an alternative.^[1] Either way, make sure to use amenity=school and other tags on the relation.

Multiple school campuses operated by the same organization should be separate amenity=school areas. Do not use a relation to express the relationship between the campuses; instead, tag each campus with a matching operator=*, brand=*, or owner=* tag.

School classification

Many regions distinguish primary and secondary schools more granularly than amenity=school alone, but more discretely than grades=*, min_age=*, and max_age=*. A few different schemes exist for classifying schools:

school=* – ad-hoc keywords based on age group or specialization
school:type=* – UK terms for funding source or governance model
isced:level=* – a numeric scale based on an international statistical normalization scheme based on national education programs

Campus details

Several details can be added when drawing the complete school campus.

building=school is used for purpose-built school buildings (reused buildings keep their building type).
appropriate additional tags can be added to the building, for example amenity=swimming_pool.
entrance=* and if appropriate barrier=gate can be considered for the points where roads, paths or other access routes into the school grounds cross the boundary of the school. Building entrances can be mapped with a node on the building outline, with one of the following tags:
- entrance=main for the main entrance,
- entrance=yes for secondary entries,
- entrance=emergency for one-way out of the building in case of emergency,
- entrance=service used only by employees or for delivering.
leisure=pitch is used for individual sports pitches. Where an individual sport can be identified, sport=* and surface=grass/asphalt/... can be added.
leisure=sports_hall is used for indoor sports facilities, if purpose-built with building=sports_hall.
landuse=grass is used for areas of grass, possibly covering multiple pitches or used for other purposes.
leisure=schoolyard is an open space in schools, specifically for recreation but usually without playground infrastructure. It is typically concrete or asphalt and most often in urban areas. In American English it is often referred to as a "blacktop". Often micro-mapped with additional areas for playground=hopscotch/map/four_square/... and others.
leisure=playground is often found on primary school grounds with infrastructure such as playground=structure/swing/... and others.

Country specific rules

As school systems vary over the world, some country-specific tagging schemes have been developed. Please, refer to the following wiki pages for regional information:

Country-specific tagging rules for schools
Country or region	Wikipage
France	Specific rules
Mali	`school:ML=` and `school:ML:academie=`

Disambiguation

Typical facilities outside the scope of amenity=school are:

amenity=college – Institute of Further Education (similar to Continuing Education). Not the same as a "college" in American English.
amenity=university – Institute of Higher Education
amenity=kindergarten – Kindergarten, play group or preschool
amenity=training – where you can get training, such as driving schools, dance schools, etc.
~~amenity=preschool~~ – deprecated; use amenity=kindergarten or amenity=childcare
Specialty schools:
- amenity=dancing_school – also see leisure=dance dance:teaching=yes
- amenity=driving_school – Motor vehicle driving lessons
- amenity=flight_school – Proposed. Training to fly an aircraft. Also see amenity=college
- amenity=language_school – an educational institution where one studies a foreign language
- amenity=music_school – Music school
- amenity=prep_school – Standardized test preparation school, other than a British preparatory school (which nominally prepares for the w:Common Entrance Examination), or an American college-preparatory school (for which, use amenity=school).
- amenity=ski_school

Rendering

- Humanitarian_map_style - Map link

Possible tagging mistakes

More details at taginfo

landuse=school ‒ Replace with landuse=education or amenity=school – whichever fits better.

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!

Notes and references

↑ For example, this school occupies multiple classrooms scattered about a campus shared with other schools. Each classroom is mapped as a point because the exact indoor layout of each building is unknown. Since a valid multipolygon cannot include a point as a member, a site relation is the next best representation of this school. A label point allows the school to be represented as a simple point, since few if any data consumers understand site relations.

[1] For example, this school occupies multiple classrooms scattered about a campus shared with other schools. Each classroom is mapped as a point because the exact indoor layout of each building is unknown. Since a valid multipolygon cannot include a point as a member, a site relation is the next best representation of this school. A label point allows the school to be represented as a simple point, since few if any data consumers understand site relations.

[1]

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Tag:amenity=school

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