Hi. Sorry about all the questions. I have been touching up small islands around Baranof Island. 57, -135. So far I mostly just make the islands less jaggedy. Well my question is, is there ever a time to make the area an Island? Vs. a coastline? Baranof itself is a 100-mile long island. It has many little islands around it.
asked 20 Sep '13, 20:42  Jfact0ry |
One Answer:
I am not quite sure what exactly you are asking here. I'll try to answer anyway. :-) You always have to tag all ways forming the coastline as natural=coastline. You may add other tags, but, because coastlines are handled special, no other tag is ever handled quite in the same way. Some people add place=island tags to the coastline ways, some like to put place=island on a node in the middle of an island. Sometimes an island is completely covered in forest and you can put landuse=forest on the way, too. But you always need the natural=coastline tag! answered 21 Sep '13, 08:22  Jochen Topf |
If the island has a name, then it is helpful to tag it with place=island plus the name. Either on a node in the middle, or preferably a way around the island (or a multipolygon for larger islands). This makes it clear what the name tag refers to.
Note that there is also a place=islet tag for very small islands.
Thank you. Every one of those comments helps. I didn't understand that the place=island tag was additional to natural=coastline tag.