Tag:natural=valley
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 natural = valley
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| Description |
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A natural depression flanked by ridges or ranges of mountains or hills 
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| Group: natural |
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Status: approved
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| Tools for this tag |
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The tag natural=valley is used to map a valley: an elongated natural depression flanked by ridges or ranges of mountains or hills, and at least partially formed by fluvial degration.
How to map
- Draw a line (way) along the valley bottom and tag it natural=valley. You certainly want to set a name=* too, if the valley has a common name. In V-shaped valleys the natural=valley should share the same nodes as the waterway=*, if there is one. But in U-shaped, flat-bottomed valleys, the center of the valley and course of the waterway is not necessarily congruent. Rivers are often meandering, and there may be multiple branches of the river. In this case, do not use the same nodes as the waterways in a U-shaped valley, and map the center line of the valley bottom instead.
- While linear mapping of valleys is preferred, some valleys are mapped as a node an the center. Possible reasons include imports and lack of aerial images, or round valleys which do not have a clear centerline.
Rendering
The main purpose of natural=valley features is to tell database users the name=* of the valley, and the centerline of the valley. Renderers may use hillshading and/or contour lines generated from elevation models to make valleys look more spatial.
Both mapping and rendering may be similar to natural=ridge, the complementary landform.
As of 2024, none of the layers on the OpenStreetMap website support natural=valley but it is shown by various other data consumers including OSMAnd, OpenTopoMap and Outdooractive.