Colombia/Guide for mapping/religious elements

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Colombia/Guide for mapping religious elements - Other languages

When we are going to map elements associated with religion, we have to keep in mind two elements:

  • The current use of the place.
  • The type of construction (architecture).

It is necessary to differentiate if a place was built with a place of worship architecture and if it is currently a place of worship. For example, there are Catholic church buildings that are not currently used as places of worship but have been converted to another use; for example, in libraries. On the other hand, a house was built for housing but is currently used as a place of worship.

About other features of the map that have a religious orientation, they can be places of religious education (convents, monasteries) and cemeteries. Similarly, if the area where a place of worship is located is larger than the building, landuse=religious can be used. For example, to frame the surrounding gardens.

Because Colombia is a traditionally Catholic country, this article further details the elements associated with this religion. Therefore, for a map feature that requires specifying this religion, the following tags should be used:

If something already mapped has denomination=catholic (not roman_catholic), it is still valid, but it is recommended to use roman_catholic to be more specific. For other Catholic or Christian denominations you can see denomination=*.

Current use

As explained above, if the place is currently used as a place of worship, then what religion is professed, and optionally the religious subdivision must be specified.

For this the tags are used:

Here are the most common religions and how places of worship should be mapped:

Religious buildings

Religious buildings are those constructions that were built to be a place of worship, with particular architectural characteristics, which are typical of the religion for which it is built.

The most generic construction is a temple, independent of the religion and the classification of the building within the religion that is professed: building=temple.

If the building was not built with religious architecture but is used for that purpose, building=religious can be used.

A place such as a monastery should not be mapped as a place of worship, but only the area designated for that purpose within the monastery. The rest of the areas can be restaurants, residences, etc.

Catholic Buildings

In the Catholic world, places of worship are called churches, where religious services, called masses, are held.

The most important church is of the cathedral type since it is where the bishop has his seat or chair: building=cathedral.

The other church-type buildings (Primary, Basilica, Collegiate, Dean, Parochial) are mapped as building=church. This means that no matter the hierarchy of the construction within the Catholic religion, they are all churches.

Similarly, within certain areas of another type there may be churches, such as within a military garrison, a hospital, a monastery, a cemetery or a prison and the type of church can be put there: church:type=garrison, church:type=hospital, church:type=monastic, church:type=cemetery, church:type=prison.

The smaller and independent place of worship is called a chapel. Normally, they are small constructions destined as oratories. These are mapped as building=chapel.

It should be noted that some naves (spaces) within a church are also called chapels, but these are not mapped as a chapel but are part of the church (building:part=*).

Finally, and it is not documented, some basilicas-type churches are mapped with building=basilica. However, it is only a few cases. For more information, you can see these Wikipedia articles:  Anexo:Basílicas y catedrales de Colombia (es) and  Categoría:Basílicas de Colombia (es), as well as than this map of churches in the world http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/data/basCO.htm.

Monasteries (convents, hermitages)

For monasteries, the building and amenity tags are used. We describe their differences below.

A monastery amenity=monastery is the area composed of several buildings where religious currently live. The monastery can contain a place of worship such as a chapel, residence, even farm, cemetery, which are mapped with their own tags.

Once the monastery has been mapped, its type can be indicated by means of the monastery:type=* tag that can include:

The type of monastery may not be known, but if the type of religious living, then it can be additionally put:

If a building was built to be used as a monastery, building=monastery is used. It should be noted that an active monastery (amenity) may not be in a monastery type construction (building); and a monastery building (building) may not be used as a monastery (amenity).

Buildings of other religions

In Judaism, the place of worship is called a synagogue building=synagogue.

In Islam, the place of worship is called a mosque building=mosque.

Auxiliary places

A place apart from the place of worship is the offices, such as the rectory. For this you can use:

The building, where the priests live and work is the parish house, which is labeled with building=presbytery. Not to be confused with presbyter, which is an internal part of the church.

Bell towers, which can be separate constructions (like the Leaning Tower of Pisa), are mapped to man_made=tower + tower:type=bell_tower.

Shrines

It is a place for prayer where a mass is not practiced. For example the altar of a statue of the Virgin, or of some saint, or even a cross. For this, the shrine value can be used together with place of worship, religion and denomination: building=shrine or building=wayside_shrine. The difference is that shrine is big enough to hold a person; if otherwise the shrine is small it will be a wayside_shrine (like an altar).

If the shrine is a cross, then man_made=cross is used, although this tag applies only to crosses that have no historical significance.

Some of the most important shrines in Colombia are: http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/data/shrineCO.htm.

Historical

If the place can be considered historic, then you can put the tag historic=* . For example, historic=monastery, historic=wayside_shrine, or historic=wayside_cross.

Likewise, if the building is in ruins, ruins=yes can be added.

Otherwise, if the building is a tourist attraction, tourism=attraction can be added.

Cemeteries

Cemeteries are mapped with landuse=cemetery. If it is a cemetery of a certain religion, it can be accompanied by religion and denomination.

Other places

Schools, kindergartens or social service facilities can also be associated with a religion and denomination.

Religious book stores are mapped to shop=religion along with the religion and its denomination.

Hours of services

Churches have certain times when masses are given. These times are tagged with service_times=*.

Multiple religions

If a place is for multiple religions, they can be separated by semicolons. For example, Christian and Jewish cemeteries: landuse=cemetery + religion=christian;jewish.

Catholic Territorial Division

The Catholic religion has divisions that do not correspond to the political division of the country. This division is not yet well defined in OpenStreetMap but some tags are already used. For this you can use the tag boundary=religious_administration and the following levels:

More information on the division of dioceses in Colombia:  Anexo:Diócesis_latinas_en_Colombia (es).

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