There are very few building numbers in Australian OSM which makes it very difficult to find a specific address using navigating apps such as OsmAnd, so I thought I’d add some, starting with my own suburb. I began with StreetComplete and quickly realised that it needed a building before it could be tagged with a number. This appears to be the accepted way of defining building numbers, but would it be acceptable to simply add a tag to a point, using JOSM? Dropping that point on the edge of the street to which that building fronts?
In the days before we had access to reasonably high resolution and accurate aerial imagery that is what we did. And AFAIK nobody has outawed it in the meantime.
In my experience the main issue of doing this without house outlines is that it won’t be super precise from a positional pov and imho should be done with a survey and not from an armchair.
In Australia, you generally won’t need to tag suburb, state, postcode or country, as those are fully mapped with relations.
I’d map them over the building itself, not on the edge of the street. If you want to add them on the go, Every Door is another mobile editor that makes it fairly easy to do that.
Edit: I’ll also add Australian Tagging Guidelines/Australian features - OpenStreetMap Wiki for Australia specific info on addresses.
You can also add some of the numbers, e.g. buildings at junctions or the first building in a terrace, and have the system work out the others, at least in the short term. Way: 148581108 | OpenStreetMap
I did wonder about that. I’ll move them to the building, as shown on the Bing satellite overlay.
In France we rather put the address at the limit of the parcel, so not necessary on a building like on the 32 Rue de Babylone:
It’s also where the land registry usually places the house numbers.
Hi ![]()
I’m not familiar with Australian tagging habits. My initial response would be: Generally the adress node is placed inside the building. But it depends on the country.
Check how it is done in Australia where adresses are already densely mapped and / or consult the wiki searching “Australia”
When I’m mapping the area—today using a 360° camera—I place the house number as a dot where the sign is, or at least where the main entrance is. Sometimes that might be on the property itself.
Nothing is more annoying for pedestrians than being directed to the wrong side of the house; the bigger the house, the more annoying it is.
Just pointing out you can add addresses in Street Complete without a building, as their own node using the plus button and crosshairs.
It’s possible to get a router to favor the correct side of the building even if the address is tagged on the building, as long as you map an entrance=* node as part of the building way. This depends on the geocoder understanding building entrances. For example, on the OSM homepage, you can get a walking route that heads towards the entrance, thanks to entrance support in Nominatim.

