I do not know who may create these names but in real life people do not use such names. I have regularly visited various popular bathing places with friend and I have never ever anyone heard saying “Let’s meet at the Greenlake bathing place” or “what about a swim at the Greenlake bathing place”. People say “Let’s meet at the Greenlake” or “come with us to the Greenlake for a swim” and the like. So if the name of the location is “name-of-the-waterbody”_bathing_place then I would not see any additional value in adding this name to the bathing place node.
Another thing is when a water body has more than one bathing places but in such cases these places will have real names to distinguish between them and not just the name of the water body plus bathing_place.
That will of course be highly dependent on the local language. I fully agree that your examples sound strange for English, but for Swedish it is in fact very common for a bathing place to be called (including in everyday speech) something “badet” (example) or “s badplats” (example).
This seems to me like a pretty clear case where leisure=bathing_place should not be added (because no particular point is more suitable for bathing than any other), or possibly by mapping it as a way coincident with the shore/coastline.
The type of place I think @osmuser63783 refers to is something like the following, where while the beach is a long one (even if not as long as your example) most people are concentrated at/around the text “Rullsand”, where all the paths go to. In such a case there is a spot that can be roughly represented by a single node that is more commonly used as a bathing place.
I have some concerns about tagging a particular spot on the beach, as the place to go swimming, though.
In Australia, most popular swimming beaches are patrolled by lifeguards, either every day, or on the weekend during summer. At the start of each day, & sometimes again during the day, the lifeguards will make a decision of the safest area to swim, & set the swimming area flags out there. But, because beach conditions constantly change, yesterday that spot was 200m to the north of “here” (which is where the swimming-place node is mapped), today it’s right here on top of the node, but tomorrow it may be 200m south?
No, as “bathing place” should also include the part where you actually bathe/swim.
That also sounds to me like a clear cut case where one would map it as a way coincident with the coastline, unless there is a more or less clear-cut “entrance” to the beach (like one car park with one main path through the dunes or something) in which case it could still make sense to map it as a node for navigation (as one would always pass close to the node, regardless of the current location of the swimming zone.
This is also an interesting case that should be noted on a revised wiki when leisure=swimming_area should not be used, despite there being verifiable flags, since they change regularly.
I don’t want to put a number on it and barely even another measure, but in my mind one might want to use a way rather than a node when the the width of the shore is more than maybe 150-250m.
Also thank you for everyones input so far, this is exactly the kind of discussion I wanted so that we can get a description of these features that fits internationally!
We have a lot of informal bathing areas across lakes, rivers and beaches. On the odd occasion, there may be facilities and signage but lots of cases where there is neither.
Beaches are probably the most popular location (especially when the weather is warm during the summer). Popular beaches will have lifeguards on duty - the previous discussion around this aligns with practices in Ireland. While swimming parallel to the shore is common, a lot of people entering the water are more likely to be paddling or standing and jumping as the waves come in. Marked areas and lanes are rare at beaches (but do exist in some places where there may be boat activity).
In relation to lakes (and a lesser extent rivers), marked areas / specific facilities for swimming are again rare. What I do see a lot of is people training for triathlons and other endurance events - I believe “open water swimming” is the turn used for this. These are people swimming 1+ km along a lake / river without any particular navigation aids. In relation to families, we do have spots on lakes and rivers where bathing would occur (I wouldn’t call it swimming per se).
In relation to terminology:
“public baths” would be very rarely used here. Swimming pool would be used in most cases. We do have a few outdoor swimming pools. Some are pools that are only used during particular seasons (summer). There are attempts to build a number of lidos in the country but they may just end up being white elephants (our weather isn’t that good). We also have a handful of pools that are located on the coast and filled by sea water (sole commercial, most are not).
“batheing_place” would not be in use normally here but would be understood by most. I think people would lean towards assuming it was a natural location without markers in the water / formal structure.
swimming_area: I’m sure we have some examples of this but the discussion to date indicates this is a more formal setup with the potential for marked lanes, etc.
I do think it’s helpful to map these so it’s easier for data consumers to find such locations. I also concur that hazard tags will be useful for flagging locations with known rip currents, other dangers.
As an American the bath/e divide doesn’t exist. We make no distinction between the two concepts or spellings. Bathing has always been related to self cleaning or soaking in a small body of water. That water can be in a tub or outside. It has never been connected to any type active swimming.
This makes bathing_place and swimming tags redundant. Unless a body of water is too small or shallow for active swimming it is just considered a swimming area. Man made swimming areas are simply swimming pools.
I can think of at least one example on a long beach where in theory you could swim anywhere but people tend to go where the car parks are, and locals would say (in English) “let’s meet at [place X]”, not “let’s meet at [beach X]”. The beach is too long, you would never find each other. The locations of these named places don’t change. This strikes me as a good example of where multiple leisure=bathing_place nodes could be mapped along a single, longer beach.
As the Australian example shows, at the end of the day it always has to be up to the local community and what makes the most sense given local conditions.
@Mammi71 I wonder what you make of this map? As you can see, the regional government has actually subdivided the long beach from your example into seven distinct bathing spots (“Badestellen”), with descriptions of each of them and data on which kind of facilities they have. Not sure if these are signposted.
I’ve never seen marked lanes in the sea but I have seen areas for swimming that are marked by a rope, buoys or some other barrier. Here is an example, this is what I understand leisure=swimming_area to be:
I haven’t seen this in the UK either but in tourist resorts in the Mediterranean, and in lakes elsewhere. Swimming outside the marked area is often forbidden or discouraged as there may be algae, jet skiers or other hazards.
I don’t think that’s the same as an open-air seawater swimming pool, which would probably be tagged something like leisure=swimming_pool location=outdoor covered=no tidal=yes/no:
Setting up area with divided lane is common on lakes. It is usually away from a beach or general swimming area. I have seen at least two versions. One version is where a rectangular frame is created by a collection of piers. The lanes ropes are then strung between piers. The other use the existing ropes used to divide the swimming areas as attachment points.
In either case, I would consider the area created by the swim lanes, marker ropes. This is a close as we get to a pitch. As a result I would tag the area as sport=swimming. Any immediately surrounding piers used by swimmers during competition could be considered a its own swimming facility.
With the definitions proposed by @02JanDahl we would get:
for the area with divided lanes for doing lengths, an area with leisure=swimming_area sport=swimming
for the separate “general swimming area” by the beach that is used by families to go in the water for a short while, play with inflatable toys, … a node with leisure=bathing_place (unless, if that area is also clearly marked by ropes, then it would also be a swimming_area but without sport=swimming as people who want to exercise would likely use the separate facility)
Of course, the bathing spots are signposted. There it is called “Übergang” (crossing) or “Strandzugang” (beach access).
This begins in the very east with crossing 1 (called “Sundische Wiese” on the map of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state government). From here on to the east, bathing is prohibited; this is where the core zone (absolute protection zone) of the national park begins. Unfortunately I don’t have a recent photo here, Mapillary still shows the old signs.
Further westwards, the “next” bathing place on the map of the state government called “Müggenburg” is already Crossing 5.
The “next” bathing place “Kurhaus Zingst” is crossing 22, the main crossing of the Municipality of Zingst with a pier.
The seventh crossing, called “Prerow Regenbogencamp”, is already number 49!
And then, in the area of the campsite along the beach, there are countless more crossings, probably no longer counted.
The state government cannot measure the water quality at all bathing spots here. It doesn’t make sense here either, because due to the sea current along the coast, conditions are almost equally good everywhere. That is why the measurements are only taken at selected bathing spots.
Thanks! It would be great if we could get more of these identifiers into OSM (ref:EU:bwid and/or link to the Wikidata entity with the wikidata key). This could pave the way for future OSM-based apps to show things like water quality directly in the app. The leisure=bathing_place tag seems like a natural fit.
