Tag:highway=no

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Public-images-osm logo.svg highway = no
ProhibitionSign2.svg
Description
This tag is sometimes used to show that a way is not a (physical) highway on objects where it would not be obvious otherwise. Edit this description in the wiki page. Edit this description in the data item.
Group: highways
Used on these elements
should not be used on nodesmay 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: in use

This tag can be used to show that a way is not a (physical) highway.

In almost all circumstances, this tag is not needed and should be omitted; the absence of a highway=* tag on an object will be sufficient for this purpose.

However, occasionally, there may be ways that one would expect to be highways, but are not. In this case, highway=no can be added to explicitly indicated to other mappers and data users that there is no highway here. This allows us to distinguish between the case of a highway type being unknown and needing to be determined, and the case of the way being known not to be a highway. If you decide to use highway=no, please also always add access=no to prevent more naive routers from routing over them. Also add note=* to add more detailed human-readable description to other mappers of why it is marked that way, as well as source=* of that information.

For example, in the UK, there are sometimes legal Rights of Way that are inaccessible, resulting in a legal highway that is not physically present or usable on the ground. Due to administrative errors, unauthorised constructions or lack of maintenance, the official line of a legal route may pass through dense woodland, though walls of a building a building or though a lake. highway=no can be used in these cases to explicitly mark the way as not being a highway, while still recording the official line.

This tag should not be used to roads or paths that physically exist but have restricted access. This use of this tag for such cases is wrong, in favour of highway=* + access=no or other appropriate access tags.

See also

  • no:highway=* - probably the most direct equivalent for highway=no. Prefix no:*=* indicates "features that don't exist but have an high probability to be re-added by a non surveyed edit"
  • not:highway=* - "not to be confused with" (e.g. it looks like highway on aerial photos, but in fact it isn't).
  • abandoned:highway=* - for highways which are still visible but have fallen into serious disrepair and which could only be put back into operation with considerable effort
  • construction:highway=* - for highways still in construction / modification / maintenance (not open for use yet)
  • proposed:highway=* - for highway which are only planned (with a high likelihood of being constructed), but do not exist yet on the ground
  • other lifecycle prefixes like was:*=*, demolished:*=*, ruins:*=*, disused:*=*, ...