Tagging Country Borders

Software described on this page or in this section is unlikely to be compatible with API v0.6 (current version) deployed in 2009.
If you have fixed the software, or concluded that this notice does not apply, remove it.

current state

Currently there are multiple ways defined how a county-border is to be tagged.

• A polygon tagged "place=country" and name=* - this is documented but not actually used
• the relation type boundary associating all ways making the polygon. boundary=administrative with :
  • border_type=country - not often used
  • admin_level=2 - most used
  • it is also possible to add right:country=* and left:country=*. - often missing

See boundary=* and associated discussion.

See OSM Inspector/Views/Boundaries about a map showing OSM boundaries on a map.

searching by country

Currently User:MarcusWolschon is working on some java-code to download these borders, sort them, merge them into polygons and provide code for defining

• is a lat+lon contained in country X?
• What country is a lat+lon in?

Once these are usable, some propose that we have Country_specific_default_values.

getting all borders

wget "http://www.informationfreeway.org/api/0.5/relation[boundary=administrative]" -O nation_border_relations.osm

and the ways via:

wget "http://www.informationfreeway.org/api/0.5/way[border_type=nation]" -O nation_borders1of2.osm

and

wget "http://www.informationfreeway.org/api/0.5/way[admin_level=2]" -O nation_borders2of2.osm

See Also

• Maritime borders / boundary=maritime