One of the greatest things in OpenStreetMap is that, when you start looking beyond the basic features, the amount of details and specific themes you can use to enrich the map is practically endless (special mention for the guard stones mapping)

An example which may go unnoticed at first is playground mapping. I became interested in this due to the frequent visits, and I started as usual from the wiki.

The goal of this post is to have a quick summary on how to map playgrounds in order to hopefully help fellow mappers around the world interested in this topic.

Why

Because having the data in OpenStreetMap will allow your favorite app/website to let you search and display easily the existing playgrounds and their features, removing one more reason to use other providers, while making kids and parents happy.

How to map

Level 0 - starter

Minimal mapping is to place a node tagged with leisure=playground in the playground location.

Note: in some places you can also find single play installations which are not part of a playground, those can be mapped directly as nodes without a playground.

Level 1 - basic

Map the playground as an area and add tag leisure=playground and any other relevant tag on it (wheelchair access, minimal age and so on). This opens up the possibility to go further into details as explained just below.

If the playground has a fence, you can also add that to the playground area with the relative gates (and possibly some footways to reach them for the routing engines!)

Level 2 - medium

Map the devices and installations as nodes within the playground area. You can find a detailed list of possible values on the wiki.

Besides that, you can also map any additional amenity like benches or drinking water that are located within the playground area.

Level 3 - advanced

Going further, each attraction can also be mapped as an area instead of a simple node. This can be probably overkill in many cases, but it can be interesting especially for playground structures, which can be formed by different parts (slides, stairs and so on) which can be tagged within the area.

Tools to map playgrounds

For mapping play equipment as nodes I use with great satisfaction Every Door, which offers also useful presets with the known tags. The main limitation for this use case is that since it is a POI oriented editor, you need to map areas separately, so you can’t go from 0 to level 2 only using only Every Door.

To overcome this, you can create initially the areas with iD, JOSM or any equivalent tool and then continue mapping with Every Door or any alternative POI editor.

Usage/Rendering

Basic rendering (level 0/1) is supported by the vast majority of apps and website. Apart from that, the level of details shown/used depends on the specific rendering/app, and some of them may be more detailed than others. For example, OsmAnd shows also the devices and installations in the playgrounds, while Organic Maps is not showing them.

For some regions, there are also specific renderings like https://playguide.eu/ which besides showing the detail for each playground, includes also reviews and pictures making the experience very pleasant. Another specific rendering is available on mapcomplete.

Conclusion

Playgrounds are probably a niche topic, but it is one of the small things that help increase overall OpenStreetMap coverage and usage, so happy mapping!

I've just created on MapeFurlane.eu a nice Maperitive rendering which shows Friuli-Venezia Giulia region with Friulian names, both standard and local variants, using the tag "name:fur" and "loc_name". I hope to update it every Friday

When I registered in OpenStreetMap, my village was poorly mapped:

Now, thanks to:
1) regional data
2) national satellite picture (PCN)
3) local knowledge ;-)

the map look like this:

And it's better than Google Maps which hasn't been updated recently and contains subtle mistakes. Thanks to everyone who made this possible!

Well, for me the mapping season is over since tomorrow I'll go back home so I can't borrow anymore my friend's GPS receiver. I'm pretty satisfied though, I've added so far a good number of roads on the hillside of Bologna, today I added the last trip to Parco Regionale di Monte Sole, nice place, great for MTB, and nearly completely unmapped, not even the borders of the park ;-) There is still a lot of work to do, I hope that others bikers in this area will start adding some routes, and for sure they know better the tracks (we nearly got lost in the park since directions were a bit scarce)... I'll try to go a bit deeper in detail in the city of Bologna, for example adding bus stops, since you don't need a GPS for that. I could also work on something in my hometown in Friuli, but they are doing a great job by importing from an official datasource, so I'll better hold on on that side. Enjoy your holidays

I've mapped the (beautiful) road from Ceretolo to Mongardino and a couple of other roads in the opposite side of the valley. There's a lot to do in that area!

I finished the base mapping in the area of Bologna, Italy where I live in (quartiere Costa - Saragozza). I hope to map soon also the remaining street on the hillside. Those streets has no exit e they are pretty steep, so it's very boring going up there to get a track... In the future I'll try to map the areas of Casalecchio - Sasso Marconi, since there are great ways for biking there, offroad and not, but not covered at the moment by OSM. For mapping I've used mobile track explorer on a Nokia E51, good software!