West Virginia

Part of United States mapping project.

Not to be confused with Virginia.

V・T・E West Virginia, United States, North America

latitude: 38.5, longitude: -80.5

Browse map of West Virginia 38°30′00.00″ N, 80°30′00.00″ W

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Users in West Virginia GPS traces Geohack for OSM with more maps Check map features via Query-to-map

External links: Mailing list Notes Quality checks with Osmose Keep Right! OSM Inspector Streets without names CheckAutopista2 Public transport with öpnvkarte.de Wikipedia: en Wikimedia Commons OpenStreetMap contributors map Mapillary KartaView

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West Virginia is a state in United States, North America at latitude 38°30′00.00″ North, longitude 80°30′00.00″ West.

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Getting started

Publicly available resources useful for mapping in West Virginia:

• WVDOT Open Data Portal hosts GIS data provided by the West Virginia Department of Transportation.
• West Virginia Division of Highways GIS County Maps provides general highway maps in PDF format.
• MapWV.gov hosts several static and interactive maps of highways and POIs in West Virginia, many up-to-date.
  • West Virginia Property Viewer provides a parcel/address database with reasonably recent E-911 data.
  • West Virginia Trail Inventory shows reasonably accurate hiking and biking trail GPS traces.
• West Virginia GIS Technical Center hosts the state GIS Data Clearinghouse.

For help with mapping in West Virginia, check out #local-west-virginia in the OSMUS Slack.

Current projects

• Gilmer County (Sterling) – somewhat thorough mapping.
• ottwiz's forest landcover project all over the state
• Named Trails in West Virginia
• [You can add your project that you are working on in West Virginia.]

Road tagging guidelines

A general road tagging guideline can be found under United States roads tagging. Read carefully before touching any elements!

Interstate Highways

Main article: Interstate Highway relations

Interstate highways should be tagged as highway=motorway and ref=I num (without a hyphen), and their route relations with network=US:I. Interstate ramps onto or from a motorway should be tagged as highway=motorway_link; destination=* tags should be added according to signage.

US Highways

Main article: United States roads tagging § U.S. Highways

Most US highways in West Virginia will be tagged highway=primary, though this is not a hard and fast rule; some non-motorway divided highways (such as US 50 between Parkersburg and Clarksburg) are more appropriately tagged as highway=trunk. Controlled-access highways occasionally exist near (relatively) major cities, and should be tagged in the same fashion as an Interstate Highway. Tag all US highways as ref=US num, and their route relations with network=US:US.

State Routes

Most state highways in West Virginia can be either tagged highway=primary or highway=secondary, depending on the usage; occasional exceptions do exist, such as highway=trunk. Tag all state routes with ref=WV num, and their route relations with network=US:WV.

Do note that the WV Department of Transportation uses the term “trunk” in a different way than OSM does. For example, WV 5 between Glenville and I-79 is considered a trunk road by the WVDOT, but would only be considered highway=primary by OSM standards as it is (relatively) low-volume.

County Routes

Most county highways—technically secondary state highways as they are managed by the WVDOT—are most often tagged as highway=unclassified, highway=residential, or highway=tertiary. Tag all county routes with either ref=CR num for “whole number” routes, or ref=CR numerator/denominator for “fractional” (spur) routes (e.g. ref=CR 220/7 for the sign displayed on the right); tag their route relations with network=US:WV:County.

Do NOT tag county highways as highway=track; instead, use highway=residential or highway=unclassified, and some combination of surface=*, smoothness=* and/or tracktype=*.

Beware that TIGER can be notoriously inaccurate for county routes, especially small spur roads. Real-world examples of such inexactitude include (but are assuredly not limited to): a ten-meter driveway being displayed as “State Route 47” on the latest TIGER overlay; ref=CR 7/3 being erroneously tagged name=County Route 73 in the original TIGER import; and three roads with identical names intersecting each other in the 2016 shapefiles.

Home Access Road Program (HARP)

HARP roads are almost always highway=residential. Tag all HARP roads with either ref=HARP num for “whole number” routes, or ref=HARP numerator/denominator for “fractional” routes, similar to the county route scheme; tag their route relations with network=US:WV:HARP.

Delta Roads

Delta roads are entirely defunct despite the rare sightings of remaining signage. Do not tag delta roads in ref=*; instead, use old_ref=*.

Park and forest routes

Main article: United States roads tagging § Tagging Forest Roads

Roads in nature reserves (i.e. parks) can generally be tagged as highway=unclassified or highway=path; use discretion as appropriate. National Forest Roads will use either ref=NF num for primary forest routes, or ref=FR num for secondary forest routes. State Park and Forest roads (depicted right, though generally unsigned on-the-ground) are notated as ref=PFR num.

Officially labelled trails, meanwhile, are to be tagged as ref=TR num.

Other mapping information

Please follow OSM Good practices, especially by avoiding using wrong tags to “improve” rendering.

Orthoimagery

Imagery layer comparison as of April 2022

Imagery layer	Coverage	Resolution	Age in years	Alignment	Tree leaves
Bing aerial imagery	Statewide	Medium to High	1–11	Depends	Depends
Esri	Statewide	Medium	2–7	Good	Depends
Esri Clarity Beta	Statewide	30 cm	11	Good	On
Mapbox Satellite	Charleston, Huntington and surrounding areas	High	5	Good	Off
	Outside Charleston and Huntington	Medium	2–7	Depends	Depends
Maxar Standard	Statewide	Medium	2–7	Depends	Depends
Maxar Premium	Statewide	Medium	2–7	Depends	Depends
National Agricultural Imagery Program	Statewide	Low	2	Good	On
WVGISTC Best Leaf-off	Statewide (by county)	High	1–6	Good	Off

Note that Mapbox and Esri take the imagery mostly from Maxar.

Deciphering signs

A key for deciphering weight limit signs.

See also

• Users in West Virginia

Surrounding states

• Kentucky
• Maryland
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Virginia