How to tag a historical canal

Question

Hi,

I am currently mapping some historical features near my home-city. I am now wondering especially concerning a historical canal (See Wikipedia: Fossa Eugeniana). Today, the canal is, in parts, still visible above ground and officially considered a national heritage site. Nevertheless in most parts only a deepening without water or with a small ditch is remaining.

I wonder now how to correctly map this, as the wiki does not state site_type=canal or similar for historical sites. I personally would consider something like historic=archaeological_site, name=Fossa Eugeniana, site_type=canal

But as I assume that historic waterways should also exist elsewhere I wanted to check with the community.

Best regards, Jaylen

Accepted Answer

the historic / archaeological aspect of it: If it fits the idea/description of the tag historic=archaeological_site then use it. And if there is no documented tag for site_type, look in taginfo (links on the right page side), and if there is nothing, invent one on your own - like you did, that is fine.

You also could have a look at other former canals to see how they are tagged. I looked at some, but all the ones I picked, were still mapped as canal since they really have water more or less.

Thought a bit broader, you could tag those different aspects:

national heritage site - as a type of protected something
what you see today - maybe abandoned:waterway=canal and in addition the outer edges as embankment, if they are significant.
the wikipedia link

All except the part what you see today (because this may change over the length) should be tagged on exactly one object to provide a 1:1 relation. Probably you need to tag those on a relation object which could consist of parts of ways with abandoned:waterway=canal and parts of ways with waterway=ditch.

Answer 2

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Just a quick mention to look at the same ideas being done on old forms of railway routes as there is a lot in common and standard approach to all ageing and less than immediately usable features from water features and roads to aeroways and railways seems a useful thing to achieve

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answered 02 May '15, 17:21

Govanus
154●3●7●11
accept rate: 3%

1

that's why aseerel4c26 mentioning using abandoned

(04 May '15, 14:42) neuhausr

Answer 3

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I have used the following tags for abandoned canals in Hampshire between Romsey & Salisbury where there is little or no water:

disused=yes
name=Salisbury Canal (abandoned)
derelict_canal=yes

This appears as a grey way on JOSM default and creates a wide dashed pale blue line on OSM Standard.

and for sections still in water:

disused=yes 
name=Andover Canal (abandoned) 
canal=yes.

This appears as a blue way on JOSM default and creates a wide solid blue line on OSM Standard.

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answered 17 Feb '15, 23:32

Sailor Steve
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accept rate: 0%

1

I think you might mean "waterway=derelict_canal" and "waterway=canal", respectively. The key-value combinations "derelict_canal=yes" and "canal=yes" aren't used by the OSM Standard renderer, so the objects as tagged above wouldn't be rendered at all. Also, "(abandoned)" seems unlikely to be part of the name of the canals and seems like tagging for the renderer. That information is already described by the "disused=yes", so it doesn't need to be in the name.

(18 Feb '15, 19:11) alester

There's a section in the wiki about including "helpful" text as part of the name:

http://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Names#Name_is_the_name_only

(22 Feb '15, 17:22) SomeoneElse ♦

1

yes, Alseter you are right. In fact I referred to previous non-standard key values that I had corrected last year in favour of those you quoted. I think the 'abandoned' adjective is a sensible addition to the name tag as it shows up clearly on the map and is useful for map users.

(22 Feb '15, 17:24) Sailor Steve

How to tag a historical canal

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