OpenStreetMap

River names not being displayed

Posted by compdude on 22 June 2010 in English.

I just uploaded some new rivers a few days ago. I entered their names in a "name=" tag, but the names aren't displayed in mapnik. Even when I zoom in all the way, I still don't see the river names. But I noticed they are displayed in Osmarender.

What's up with that? Why does Mapnik only display the names of streams and not rivers? Please tell me why and if there's another tag I could use.

Location: Japantown, Chinatown/International District, Seattle, King County, Washington, 98104, United States

Discussion

Comment from Rogerdodger on 23 June 2010 at 05:37

Sorry but I have no answer for you question, but I have one to ask you, and I hope its not too stupid a question. How do you actually map rivers and streams? I mean you can't walk down the middle of one, so do you just walk the river bank? Seems like you'd be in for some jungle thrashing to make it down some of the rivers I know.

Comment from c2r on 23 June 2010 at 07:17

You could map them from a boat, from the banks, or from aerial photos.....

Comment from IknowJoseph on 23 June 2010 at 11:26

Are you sure they're not being displayed? Have you cleared your browser cache? Streams are named in Mapnik: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.73885&lon=-1.24259&zoom=17&layers=B000FTF

Comment from IknowJoseph on 23 June 2010 at 11:33

Sorry, I misread your first post. *Rivers* don't seem to be named. Yes, I've just noticed that myself. I'd keep using the name tag, however, it's the correct one to use. No need to break the database to account for problems in the renderer.

Comment from Vclaw on 23 June 2010 at 15:07

Seems like a bug, it's been reported here:http://trac.openstreetmap.org/ticket/2514
Though nothing seems to have happened with that for months. I though it would be a fairly simple fix if streams and canals etc are named correctly.

Comment from 0123456789 on 23 June 2010 at 18:32

I doubt it is fairly simple: streams, canals, etc are simply single ways. Rivers are not mapped as rivers, but as riverbanks. I'm pretty sure that epically complicates the rendering.

Comment from Sanderd17 on 23 June 2010 at 20:08

I have seen mappers drawing a river bank with in the middle a singel street for the name. This is purely for rendering so it's not such a good idea.

Comment from Vclaw on 23 June 2010 at 22:42

Rivers should be mapped as an area (tagged waterway=riverbank) and a way (tagged waterway=river). See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:waterway%3Driverbank

Its not just for rendering, it also indicates the direction the river is flowing. And it could also be used for routing, or measuring the length of a river etc.

Comment from compdude on 25 June 2010 at 01:06

@Vclaw it says that if it's a narrow river, then you don't need to do the riverbank.

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