Tagging useful information in OpenStreetMap
I’ve been recently thinking of creating a new map which would help with following questions:
- 👨💻 How can I find a cafe which is laptop friendly?
- 🐶 Can I bring my dog along?
- 🪑 How can I find a restaurant which has a chair for toddlers?
- 🛝 Is there a play area for children?
- 🚾 Are there a diaper changing tables in the toilet?
- 🚐 Where can I park a bigger motorhome?
- 🍽️ Does the restaurant have a lunch buffet?
I found that OpenStreetMap can already answer to many of these questions. The caveat here is that it requires special tags which aren’t yet widely used. I wanted to document some of them here so that more people could contribute useful information into OpenStreetMap 🗺️.
📱
Editing OpenStreetMap on the go:
- For iPhone users Go Map!! app is recommended.
- For Android users Streetcomplete app is the best.
OpenStreetMap data model
Let’s look at example row from OpenStreetMap data. Here’s a simplified free parking place with a toilet in Estonia:
| kind | tags | latitude | longitude |
|---|---|---|---|
| node/20438219 | {amenity=parking, fee=no, toilets=yes} | 59.46… | 25.75… |
OpenStreetMaps tags can have basically anything written in them. Luckily during the 20 years of it’s existence contributors have agreed on certain conventions. Typically the main tag is something like amenity=cafe or amenity=parking or amenity=library. Then in addition there are extra tags like toilets=yes or fee=no. The main amenity tags have been well documented and it helps to find the main activity quite well. But the extra tags are more useful ones because they help to filter places which contain the features we want to have.
Some of them are pretty hard to find so I tried my best to document my findings here for places which are important to myself. You can find more about the tagging conventions by asking in community.openstreetmap.org or by reading wiki.openstreetmap.org.
Useful OpenStreetMaps tags for families 👩👩👧👧 👶 🍼
These should help finding restaurants/stores/cafes where it’s much easier to spend time with children:
| Tag name | Tag Value | Info |
|---|---|---|
| kids_area | yes / no | The place has separate play area for kids 🧸 |
| kids_area:indoor | yes / no | Indoor play area for kids 🕹️ |
| kids_area:outdoor | yes / no | Outdoor play area for kids 🛝 |
| highchair | yes / no | Feeding chair for toddlers or babies 👶 |
| infant_bed | yes / no | There’s a crib available for babies to sleep in. This is usually in a hotel 🛏️ |
| toilets | yes / no | Does the place have a toilet 🚾 |
| changing_table | yes / no | Are there diaper changing tables 🧷 |
| stroller | yes | There are no steps so it’s effortless to enter with a stroller 🛒 𓊍 |
| wheelchair | yes | Effortless entrance with wheelchair. (Be nice and add this too when adding info on Stroller) ♿ |
| stroller | limited | Entrance has a step but not higher than 15 cm ⛰️ 🥵 |
| wheelchair | limited | Entrance has a step but not higher than 7 cm 📏 |
Useful OpenStreetMap tags for a lunch place 🍽️
Especially in Finland many places offer separate much more affordable menu during lunch times. Many of my friends follow One-Meal-A-Day diet so when I want to see them for a lunch I have to figure out if there’s a buffet because they will not join me otherwise 😅.
| Tag name | Tag Value | Info |
|---|---|---|
| lunch | buffet | Restaurant serves lunch around midday with a buffet. In Finland the buffet typically means all you can eat buffet 🍝 |
| lunch:buffet | Mo-Fr 10:30-14:00 | The service hours for the buffet lunch 🕛 |
| lunch | menu | Lunch is offered as a fixed-price with more limited options 👨🏻🍳 |
| lunch:menu | Mo-Fr 10:30-14:00 | The service hours for the fixed-price menu lunch ⏱️ |
Useful OpenStreetMap tags for dog owners 🐕🦺 🐕
Tagging Restaurants, Pubs, Cafes, Museums, Beaches is very useful so dog owners and also people who are allergic to dogs will know if they should enter.
| Tag name | Tag Value | Info |
|---|---|---|
| dog | yes | Dogs allowed 🐕 |
| dog | outside | Dogs allowed on outdoor area like terrace 🦮 |
| dog | no | Dogs are not allowed at all ❌ |
| dog | unleashed | Dogs allowed without a leash. Typically this is inside a fenced area in dog park 🐾 |
Useful OpenStreetMap tags for laptop friendly places 💻
When I’m traveling around it’s nice to find places which are good for working with laptop. Laptop friendly is of course subjective and OpenStreetMaps doesn’t have a separate tag for that. But if many of these tags do appear in the list it’s very likely that the place is nice for having a cup of coffee and doing some remote work too.
| Tag name | Tag Value | Info |
|---|---|---|
| internet_access | wlan | There’s a wifi which can be used 📶 |
| indoor_seating | yes / no | If the place has place to sit down 🪑 |
| outdoor_seating | terrace | If they have a terrace ☀️ |
| air_conditioning | yes / no | If they have AC or not 🥵 |
| power_supply | yes / no | If there are power outlets which can be used 🔋 |
| socket:schuko | 5 | How many schuko type outlets they have (this is for Europe) ⚡ |
| coworking | yes / no | I have been using this tag if a cafe or a library has designated area for coworking. This is not widely used for now. 🧑💻 |
| meeting_room | yes / no | For example a library or coworking place can have separate rooms for meetings. This is nice if you don’t want to bother others during your phone calls 📞 💢 |
| television | yes / no | Does the place have a television? Hopefully answer is “no” so you can actually focus on work instead of watching football ⚽ 🏈 😄 |
Useful OpenStreetMap tags for motorhomes 🚐
It’s sometimes surprisingly hard to find parking places near the cities where motorhomes are allowed and can be parked. For example have been using motorhome=yes tag wherever we have been able to park our car and where it hasn’t been explicitly banned 🅿️.
| Tag name | Tag Value | Info |
|---|---|---|
| caravans | yes / no | If entering with motorhome or caravan is allowed 🚐 |
| motorhome | yes / no | If entering motorhome is allowed (but perhaps with a caravan it is not possible) 🚐 |
| power_supply | yes / no | Camping site or parking place has power outlets 🔌 |
| sanitary_dump_station | yes / no | Black or Gray water can be emptied here 🕳️ |
| sanitary_dump_station:chemical_toilet | yes / no | Only black water from the toilet can be emptied here 🚽 🧻 |
| sanitary_dump_station:grey_water | yes / no | Only gray water can be emptied here 🚱 |
| drinking_water | yes / no | Drinking water container can be filled here 🚰 |
| fee | yes / no | Is payment required for the tagged services 💸 |
Useful OpenStreetMap tags for finding saunas 🧖♀️🧖♂️
In Finland we have 5.5 million people and estimated 1.5-2 million saunas. During 2025 only few hundred of the saunas have been tagged into OpenStreetMap. Marking a public sauna near you will help others to find it and use it too. I was surprised how nicely overengineered the conventions for a sauna are already at this point.
| Tag name | Tag Value | Info |
|---|---|---|
| sauna | yes | There’s a some sort of unknown sauna ♨️ |
| sauna | hot | A Finnish-style sauna with a temperature of over 60°C usually because of the water thrown on the rocks of the stove 🌡️ |
| sauna | smoke | Finnish style smoke sauna 💨 |
| sauna:water | yes / no | Are you allowed to throw water to the stove or is this only a silly warm room like the ones in Germany 🇩🇪 |
| sauna:fuel | wood | Nice extra information to know because electric saunas often don’t have a good air circulation compared to wood burning saunas 🔥 |
| gender_segregated | yes / no | If there are separated saunas or rooms or timeslots solely for different sexes 🚻 |
| access | yes | If anyone can use the sauna (freely or by paying) ✅ |
| access | customers | If the sauna is only included for hotel / camping guests but not for others 🚷 |
Useful OpenStreetMap tags for business owners
If you offer services for people in any of the above categories it costs you 0€ to update your information into OpenStreetMaps. This will bring more customers to you because these tags are used widely in hundreds of different applications and then their users will know that you offer these special services 💰 📈
Would you want to help on filling in the gaps?
If you’re reading this up to this point I would really appreciate if you would download one of the apps in the beginning and would tag the places you visit commonly with this information in mind.
Thanks in advance 🙇😊!
Querying OSM data with tags using duckdb
This blog is orientated for fellow software minded people. If using command line interface is not familiar to you I recommend stopping here.
# Download 648 Mb file of whole Finland 🇫🇮
curl -O 'https://download.geofabrik.de/europe/finland-latest.osm.pbf'
# Find all places with a play area for kids ( it's currently very few 😞 )
duckdb -c "
LOAD spatial;
SELECT
'https://www.openstreetmap.org/' || kind || '/' || id as url,
tags['name'] as name,
tags['amenity'] as amenity,
FROM 'finland-latest.osm.pbf'
WHERE tags['kids_area'] = 'yes'
"When you see the sad result of this query I hope it motivates you to participate more in your own home country 🌎 🌍 🌏