United States/Long distance trails
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The USA is home to many world-famous long-distance trails, but freely-available maps for these can be difficult to find. OpenStreetMap can solve that by organizing, entering and keeping updated all international/continental, national, regional and local trails.
A trail in the US implies a primary focus on Walking Routes, even as many additionally allow equestrians, road bicycles, mountain bikes, snowmobiles, roller-skates/blades, all-terrain vehicles and other types of travel modalities on part or all of it.
For primary focus on US long-distance Cycle routes (not trails), see United States Bicycle Route System.
Tagging Conventions
The network=* tag is used for Walking Routes, Cycle routes and many other types of routes. Consequently, an infrastructure segment allowing multiple travel modalities (e.g. hiking and biking) overloads the network=* tag of a single route relation. So, use separate relations (one for hiking, one for biking, etc., each with the appropriate single-value network=* tag) that include member segments where that particular travel modality is allowed. It may also be correct (for example, for a segment of Regional Walking Route which is also a Regional Cycling Route) to tag a single route relation with network=rwn;rcn but this "semicolon syntax" may not be supported by a particular renderer or router. This is analogously true for the route=* tag.
Paths
For tagging paths, guideposts, shelters, sources of drinking water, camp sites, etc., refer to general guidelines of Hiking.
Section of paths can be further refined by adding information about terrain difficulty and visibility of the path.
Routes
Each hiking trail/route should be represented as relation. Do not add trail specific tags to ways or nodes.
Key | Value | Explanation |
---|---|---|
type | route | indicates this Relation represents a route |
route | hiking | Indicates that this route is for hiking. |
name | * | The name of the trail if applicable. (e.g. Quinnipiac Trail, Appalachian Trail,...) |
ref | * | The route is known by this reference (e.g. "E1") |
network | iwn nwn rwn lwn |
International walking network: long distance trails that cross international boundaries National walking network: National scenic trails Regional walking network: medium distance trails that cross or link several regions (e.g. New England Trail) Local walking network: short walking trails in National/State parks, city parks or gardens that form a cohesive network |
operator | operator name | Authority/company responsible for maintaining trail e.g. "Connecticut Forest and Park Association" |
symbol | symbol description | Human readable description of the trail symbol, e.g., "Blue stripe" |
colour | * | Either CSS color name (e.g. red) or an RGB color code (hex triplet) (e.g. #FF0000). If more than one color, separate values by colon (e.g. blue:yellow). |
osmc:symbol | waycolor :background :foreground :foreground2 :text:textcolor | (optional) Machine readable description of trail symbol used by e.g. Waymarked Trails. e.g. osmc:symbol = blue::blue_stripe for Blue Blazed Trails |
complete | yes/no | Yes, if trail is completely mapped. |
education | yes/no | (Optional) Yes, if trail is self-guided educational trail. |
description | a short description | (Optional) What is special about this route |
state | proposed / alternate / temporary | (Optional) Sometimes routes may not be permanent or may be in a proposed state. |
distance | distance | (Optional) The distance covered by this route, if known. For information of users and automatic evaluation e.g. of completeness. Given including a unit and with a dot for decimals. (e.g. 12.5 km) |
roundtrip | yes/no | (Optional) Use roundtrip=no to indicate that a route goes from A to B and instead of being circular (roundtrip=yes). |
oneway | yes/no | (Optional) Use oneway=yes to indicate that the route is to be walked in only one direction, according to the signposts on the ground |
website | * | (Optional) website that describes the route |
wikipedia | language:page title | (Optional) wikipedia page that describes the route |
Symbol tags
Picture | Symbol | osmc:symbol=* | lonvia | wander | OsmAnd |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
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blue stripe | blue::blue_stripe | ok | ? | ok |
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white stripe | white::white_stripe | ok | ? | ok |
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yellow stripe | yellow::yellow_stripe | ok | ? | ok |
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orange stripe | orange::orange_stripe | ok | ? | ok |
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blue stripe with lower red rectangle | blue_red::blue_stripe:red_rectangle_lower | ? | ? | ? |
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blue stripe with lower yellow rectangle | blue_yellow::blue_stripe:yellow_rectangle_lower | ? | ? | ? |
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blue stripe with lower white rectangle | blue_white::blue_stripe:white_rectangle_lower | ? | ? | ? |
white circle | white::white_dot | ||||
green circle | green::green_dot | ||||
yellow circle | yellow::yellow_dot | ||||
orange circle | orange::orange_dot | ||||
red circle | red::red_dot | ||||
blue circle | blue::blue_dot | ||||
blue square | blue::blue_rectangle | ||||
green square | green::green_rectangle | ||||
yellow square | yellow:yellow_rectangle | ||||
white diamond | white::white_diamond |
More information on osmc:symbol tagging:
Route relations have been at least started for these trails:
National Scenic Trails
- Appalachian National Scenic Trail: 156553
156553
- Arizona Trail: 2804113
2804113
- Continental Divide Trail: 921198
921198
- Ice Age Trail: 2381423
2381423
- Florida National Scenic Trail 1163455
1163455
- New England National Scenic Trail: 3672563
3672563
- North Country National Scenic Trail: 8808051
8808051
- Pacific Crest Trail: 1225378
1225378
- Pacific Northwest Trail: 11225405
11225405
- Potomac Heritage Trail: 1623950
1623950
Other Interstate Trails
- American Discovery Trail: 1544944
1544944
- Grand Enchantment Trail: 4485206
4485206
- Great Eastern Trail: 1024490
1024490, a collection of regional and local trails:
- NY - Finger Lakes Trail: 2603742
2603742
- PA - Mid-State Trail: 1022044
1022044
- PA - Greenwood Spur 1024489
1024489
- PA - Standing Stone Trail: 11360008
11360008
- PA, MD - Tuscarora Trail: 10449263
10449263
- GA, AL - Pinhoti Trail 1642836
1642836
- etc.
- NY - Finger Lakes Trail: 2603742
- Hayduke Trail: 8284463
8284463
Regional Trails
- AZ
- Sky Islands Traverse 3296063
3296063
- Sky Islands Traverse 3296063
- CA
- California Coastal Trail 2260059
2260059
- Bay Area Ridge Trail 2684235
2684235
- John Muir Trail 1244828
1244828
- Tahoe Rim Trail 3094865
3094865
- California Coastal Trail 2260059
- CO - Colorado Front Range Trail 1964283
1964283
- FL - Shingle Creek Regional Trail 1828311
1828311
- MN - Superior Hiking Trail 1612587
1612587
- NC, TN, GA - Benton MacKaye Trail 1675439
1675439
- NJ - Batona Trail: 4129027
4129027
- NY
- Finger Lakes Trail: 2603742
2603742
- Onondaga Trail 5143274
5143274
- Onondaga Trail 5143274
- Northville-Placid Trail: 4286650
4286650
- Finger Lakes Trail: 2603742
- NY, NJ - Long Path 919642
919642
- Shawangunk Ridge Trail 3934864
3934864
- Shawangunk Ridge Trail 3934864
- OH - Buckeye Trail 1738661
1738661
- PA
- TX
- VT - Long Trail 391736
391736
Rendered Trail Maps
- Waymarked Trails map of often-signed hiking trails (network=iwn, network=nwn, network=rwn and network=lwn) around the world, including such trails in the United States. One of the layers known as "Lonvia."
- Hikebikemap.de provides hillshading overlay with Lonvia's hiking trails layer.
- Mapy.cz shows hiking trails as colored lines (sourced from osmc:symbol) parallel with hiking paths.