Boundaries

Feature : Boundaries

Description

Boundaries mark the borders of areas, mostly political, but also of other administrative areas.

Group

boundaries

Tags

boundary=*

The original accepted usage was to only apply this tag to areas.

+ However there now seems to be a consensus of using the boundary key also on linear ways, with relations used to aggregate these ways if needed.

Also see the boundary relation.

Administrative values

See main article Tag:boundary=administrative

The following values are possible, though might be old due to the new admin_level tag

National

boundary=administrative
+ admin_level=2 

marks country borders, such as the border between Austria and Germany. The names of the countries is specified through the tags "left:country", "right:country", if used on a linear way rather than an enclosed/area way.

There is some controversy about what is the exact meaning of country. For the sake of clarity, only political entities listed on the ISO 3166 standard are to be considered countries.

Subnational

boundary=administrative 
+ admin_level=3 to 11

marks subnational borders. The names of the subnational entities involved is specified as with national borders, with "parish", "district", "region", "province", "state"

Other

boundary=aboriginal_lands

approved, used for marking official reservation boundaries of recognized aboriginal / indigenous / native peoples

boundary=civil

lists its status as "abandoned," see its wiki to link to taginfo usage data

boundary=maritime

for marking maritime borders (rather than land areas normally assumed by boundary=administrative and following the coastlines)

boundary=metropole

trial: When metropolitan areas don't match with an administrative subdivision (sometimes even country borders are crossed), this tag could be used.

boundary=national

lists its status as "in use," though its usage is somewhat rare; see its wiki to link to taginfo usage data. It is likely better to use boundary=administrative + admin_level=2 instead.

boundary=national_park

an older tag to denote boundaries of a national park. See also boundary=protected_area, below.

boundary=political

approved, should be documented in each country where they are used. Can be used for electoral boundaries, or administrative areas not covered by the strict hierarchical model (of admin_level=*) in specific countries (as they don't create exclusive partitions).

boundary=protected_area

a newer tag with numerical values intended to denote IUCN-categorized areas and more. Has broad categories of protections and protection levels: nature-protected (wilderness, national parks...), resources-protected (soil, water, species...) and social-protected areas (special cultural assets, heritage sites, et cetera).

boundary=religious_administration

trial for dioceses, parishes, etc. First used, discussed and supported in France, but also used now in other countries (see FrViPofm/Tag:boundary=religious_administration)

boundary=vice_county

for marking vice counties in Britain and Ireland.

Proposed values

• Relation:boundary
• Key:boundary

See also

• place=* for toponyms, human settlements and fractions of them.

Downloads

• OSM Boundaries by User Wambacher (defunct)
• OSM-Boundaries by User Magma1447, a replacement for the now defunct site by Wambacher.
• Cosmogony is a set of tools to extract, see and check administratives boundaries from OSM
• Boundary.Now to find and download a single boundary as GeoJSON, Shapefile or KMZ.
• flosm.de map that shows only boundaries