Talk:Tag:natural=hill

No clear distinction between natural=hill and natural=peak or natural=ridge

What type of hills are not peaks or ridges?

• A peak is any point that is higher than the surrounding land. There is no prominence cut-off, so a peak could be only 5 meters higher than the key saddle.

• A ridge can be a low feature.

• In British English, a hill is mainly distinguished from a mountain by having a lower maximum elevation, but there is not a clear cut-off. In high elevation regions, eg Colorado, a 2000 meter peak might be considered a hill if it only rises 100 meters above the surrounding plain, but a 2000 meter peak with 50 meters of prominence on a high ridge near the ocean might be considered a mountain. --Jeisenbe (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Prominence is not a distinguishing feature

In high elevation regions, eg Colorado, a 2000 meter peak might be considered a hill if it only rises 100 meters above the surrounding plain, but a 2000 meter peak with 50 meters of prominence on a high ridge near the ocean might be considered a mountain.

I don't believe that topographic prominence is a clear way to distinguish hills from mountains. The visual prominence above the surrounding flat land is probably closer to the definition used, but it's very fuzzy. In my valley (elevation 1600m) many "mountains" with names are actually a promontory - an end of a ridge that has no prominence, but they are 1000 meters above the valley floor so they are a "mountain". --Jeisenbe (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Usage of this tag for small eminences

I have been mainly using this tag (on the east coast of Scotland) to refer to localities that don't feel "notable" enough (subjectively speaking) to be tagged as a peak - usually because they're eminences that are like a few metres higher than the surrounding landscape, and given that the natural=peak tag is of interest to climbers, mountaineers etc it would be misleading to tag these as peaks. I try to double tag with place=locality. What are folk's thoughts on this? What do other folk use it for? Meadowgreen (talk) 19:03, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Unnecessary tag

It doesn't accomplish anything that natural=peak doesn't already cover. I think it should be deprecated. --Adam Schneider (talk) 16:38, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I think if we tagged every single slight eminence as a peak then the dataset would be totally overloaded with peaks, so it's good to have a tag like this so that those things have a more specific tag than locality. Meadowgreen (talk) 14:24, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that the distinction is completely arbitrary. Why is having too many peaks a problem? --Adam Schneider (talk) 15:49, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I find it rather confusing if several thousand metres high mountains, and on the other hand hills that rise some 10 m or less above surrounding flat ground, appear the same on maps. This tag more or less allows the distinction to be made. There probably isn't universal criterium for mountain and hill distinction, but nonetheless the distinction is often made. I think local mappers should be able to figure out what criterium is useful/appropriate in their region. Pikse 10:02, 10 November 2021 (UTC)