Bigger lakes often has alternate names on parts of the lake. How should these (the main name and part names) be mapped and tagged?
I do feel it’s unfortunate there’s =coastline
and =sea
/ =strait
/ =bay
for seas, but only natural=water
+ water=lake
for lakes. If interpreting literally, natural=water
doesn’t have to be a single identifiable feature, but only any arbitrary water area. For comparison, boundary=forest
has been voted to be used separately from tree areas on land. (Of course, there’s a small difference in that a lake only includes water area)
type=site
could be considered, as the big lake is one lake, only split into different parts for naming. It’s not =cluster
/ =group
, because each part is not one complete lake on its own. Personally, I try to avoid overlapping natural=
areas, but it may be accepted for being a perimeter
member in the =site
for compatibility.
Apparently there was something that looks suitable for this distinction before Tag:natural=lake - OpenStreetMap Wiki
If you would allow me to express some opinion here, this is why landcover=
is needed. natural=
is a mix of individually identifiable features ( =strait
, =bay
, etc), and homogeneous statistical classification (=wood
etc that landcover=
is suitable for; cf landuse=
), not to mention other special cases (=tree
, =tree_row
). This causes a problem when the natural=water
used for both purposes needs to be split for your question.
I don’t know if it can pass as a role model, but there are a few named parts of the lake on Lake Constance. But as far as I can see, only 2 of 7 names are rendered (because they are tagged as natural=bay
. The largest part of the Bodensee called “Obersee” is certainly not a bay. No idea how you could positively influence the rendering here.
- The whole Lake of Constance relation as a
natural=watrer
+water=lake
: Relation: ‪Bodensee‬ (‪1156846‬) | OpenStreetMap - The “Obersee” (biggest sub-part): Relation: ‪Obersee‬ (‪1150296‬) | OpenStreetMap
- The “Überlinger See”: Relation: ‪Überlinger See‬ (‪74974‬) | OpenStreetMap
- This one is tagged as
natural=bay
- This one is tagged as
- The “Seerhein” (It could probably pass for a very wide river, but it is part of the lake): Relation: ‪Seerhein‬ (‪2185061‬) | OpenStreetMap
- The “Untersee”: Relation: ‪Untersee‬ (‪2066485‬) | OpenStreetMap
- There is a small area with the name “Gnadensee”, also mapped as
natural=bay
: Relation: ‪Gnadensee‬ (‪1722835‬) | OpenStreetMap
- There is a small area with the name “Gnadensee”, also mapped as
- A sub-part of the “Untersee” (same here, it’s river-ish): Relation: ‪Rheinsee‬ (‪1547659‬) | OpenStreetMap