OpenStreetMap Forum

parambyte

Member

Registered: 2012-08-31

Posts: 110

Tag for rocky terrain?

How should I tag large areas of dry rocky terrain? Not boulders, but more like eroded earth with large areas of underlying rocky surface and very little shrub?
natural=scrub?

abc26324

Member

Registered: 2010-07-10

Posts: 40

Re: Tag for rocky terrain?

Is this the sort of landscape you're referring to? (ignoring the big rock at the back): http://www.colourbox.com/preview/260805 … israel.jpg

parambyte

Member

Registered: 2012-08-31

Posts: 110

Re: Tag for rocky terrain?

Yes thats right.

abc26324

Member

Registered: 2010-07-10

Posts: 40

Re: Tag for rocky terrain?

I'm sorry but i'm really not sure. The only thing I can't think of would be 'natural=scree' - but that would not be the right tag. Perhaps 'natural=sand'?

n76

Member

Registered: 2013-05-22

Posts: 313

Re: Tag for rocky terrain?

Having been raised in a desert area I'd go with natural=dirt but when I broached that on a mailing list a while back I got shot down. I'm guessing by people who have only lived in non-arid environments and who figure that if nothing visible is growing then it must be rock.

Looks like taginfo has 22 "votes" for natural=dirt and 4 "vote" for natural=earth

There are 724 instances of natural=desert so that is a possibility but sounds pretty generic to me. At least in the American Southwest there are several significantly different deserts. On the other hand, natural=wood has the same issues with all the different kinds of forests there are.

I guess, end the end, I'd choose natural=desert

Mateusz Konieczny

Member

Registered: 2013-09-22

Posts: 2,698

Re: Tag for rocky terrain?

I would use

natural=desert
surface=dirt

parambyte

Member

Registered: 2012-08-31

Posts: 110

Re: Tag for rocky terrain?

There are large areas of terrain like this
Is this scrub? rocky? dirt?