Disclaimer: I am new to OpenStreetMap.
I was wondering if was a way to map heritage sites on OpenStreetMap. For example, in the United States that would be anything that falls into the National Register of Historic Places, in the Netherlands it would be Rijksmonumenten, etc.
Basically many countries designate older buildings as national heritage sites, etc.
I wanted to use the “Monument” icon but it specifically refers to large memorials and not heritage sites.
Any help is appreciated.
Hi,
I’ve used the heritage key on a couple of Unesco’s World Heritage Sites in Finland. Sadly enough, there’s no instructions on how to use that key. The keys are:
heritage=1
heritage:operator=nn (nn = the operator’s name)
name=nn (the name of the heritage site)
ref:operator_nn=nn (operator_nn = the operator’s name & nn = operator’s ref code)
Here are two examples:
Struve Geodetic Arc in Puolakka. There’s no icon shown on the map, except for the peak Oravivuori. On the site there is a bolt showing the original geodetic vertice, a conmemorative plaque and an observation tower. Three separate nodes mark the heritage, the tower resp. the peak at the site. I added, some minutes ago, the key tourism=viewpoint for the tower.
and
Petäjävesi Old Church. Even though the church is a heritage site, it is still in use for weddings, concerts &c. Both the church building and the annexed, wooden bell tower (man_made=campanile) are tagged with tourism=museum besides the heritage keys. In this case the museum icon is shown on the map.
Hope this was to any help. 
I was searching on “Rijksmonumenten” in this forum and found this thread.
In the Netherlands http://rijksmonumenten.nl/ is using the OSM map to visualize the monuments.
For Example:
http://rijksmonumenten.nl/monument/527621/t+suideras/vierakker/
The heritage key mentioned by the others is rendered on http://geschichtskarten.openstreetmap.de/historische_objekte/
together with many other history related tags, see http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/DE:Historical_Objects/Karteneigenschaften (in German)