Relation:waterway
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Description |
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Used for waterways to build a unique object for each river ![]() |
Group: Waterways |
Members |
Status: approved![]() |
Tools for this tag |
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A waterway relation is a collection of all unclosed ways of a unique watercourse (the ways with tags waterway=*). The purpose is to have only one element with all common informations about this watercourse (name in different languages, wikidata, wikipedia, ref, destination) instead of having these informations on each way (with probably some ways with missing informations).
On each way you will put only the kind of the waterway (stream, river, canal...) and specific informations of this specific way (intermittent=yes, width=*...). If you add a name=* on this way, the name will appear on the map (therefore no name means nothing on the map, usefull if the waterway is going through a lake and you don't want to have the name of the rivers and streams in the middle of the lake).
If you have names in different languages in the waterway relation + a name on one specific way, the name on the map will be the name in the specific language of the user, if any, or the name in English if name:en=* is defined.
Tags
Key | Value | Description |
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type | waterway | (mandatory) |
waterway | [river, stream, canal, drain, ditch] | Subtype of the waterway relation similar to waterway=* Hint: if the waterway starts as a stream and becomes larger, then use the tag of the largest waterway (e.g. river). This is purely informational, the stream members still need their own waterway=* tag. |
name | * | Name of the waterway. When a river gets multiple names (e.g. because it passes through multiple language regions), use all different names in the name tag, ordered from source to mouth, and split by slashes (the character "/"). The individual sections can still get their localised name. |
name:lg | * | Name of the waterway in the specific language lg. The international name tag name:en=* is recommended for large waterways or when the name tag is in a language not every people can read/sound it (Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Cambogian...) |
destination | * (optional) | Name of the river, sea or ocean which this waterway flows into. |
wikipedia | * (optional) | Links to wikipedia pages |
wikidata | * (optional) | ID Qxxxx of the waterway in Wikidata |
* (optional) | Total length of the waterway in meter. To avoid. The information is or should be in wikipedia and/or wikidata. To have the information in different places means probably different values. |
Reference tags
Key | Value | Description |
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ref | * (optional) | Any kind of reference or use the specialized tags below. (See discussion for more alternatives) |
ref:sandre | * (optional) | In France you can add the Sandre reference: see French waterways wikiprojet for explanations. Sandre official Website or fr.wikipedia |
ref:fgkz | * (optional) | In Germany you can add the ![]() |
ref:regine | * (optional) | In Norway you can add the ![]() |
ref:gnis | * (optional) | In USA you can add the ![]() |
ref:gnbc | * (optional) | In Canada you can add the ![]() |
ref:gwlnr | * (optional) | In Switzerland you can add the ![]() |
Members
Object type | Role | Recurrence | Description |
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None ormain_stream
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One or more | Any kind of waterway ways. They must have a waterway=[river, canal, stream, drain, ditch] tag. |
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side_stream
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Zero or more | A branch of main stream that returns to it. They must have a tag waterway=*. |
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spring
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Optional | natural=spring The spring of the river. |
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tributary |
Zero | The waterway relations of tributary waterways (i.e. ones whose destination=* is the name of this waterway relation). To avoid. Misleading, mixes up data about separate watercourses, see Talk:Relation:waterway |
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riverbank orwaterbody |
Zero | The waterbody (area) of the river. To avoid. Not approved, not frequently used and controversial - see Talk:Relation:waterway |
See also
- The proposal Relations/Proposed/Waterway
Related pages
- WikiProject_Rivers to organize waterway mappings
- waterway=* - for mapping single waterways
- water=* - for mapping waterbodies
Tools
- WIWOSM
- displays rivers in wikipedia maps
- Scanner for waterway relations
- “OSM Waterway analyses” .
- Statistic for waterway related relations
- “OSM Relation Hierarchy: planet_waterways” . (outdated, datas are from 2010 to 2013)
- Overpass Turbo query to display the tributaries of a given river
- https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/PFD