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About the Name Suggestion Index

The goal of name-suggestion-index (NSI) is to maintain a canonical list of common map features to promote consistent spelling and tagging in OpenStreetMap.

By canonical we mean that this index contains the most correct tags for each kind of feature. Each item in the index is also linked to a Wikidata QID identifier when one exists. Items with a Wikidata QID identifier are then presented in OpenStreetMap editors like iD as tag presets or suggested tag changes.

Why this is useful:

• This helps people contribute to OpenStreetMap because they can pick common features from a list (e.g. "McDonald's", "Starbucks", "Tesco") and not need to worry about the tags being added.
• We can support localization of the features, ("Starbucks", Старбакс", "星巴克"), by showing appropriate labels for features in different parts of the world.
• Users of OpenStreetMap data can use and understand the data better when it is tagged consistently.
• By linking the features to Wikidata identifiers, we can show rich data alongside the map features (e.g. brand logos)

👉   Watch the video from our talk at State of the Map US 2019 to learn more about this project!

Please note that these amenities are outside the scope of the NSI:

• Religious organizations and denominations, typically tagged with amenity=place_of_worship (#5232, #5960, #6874)
• The campuses or locations of most colleges/universities, typically tagged with amenity=university (#4779, #9181, #9917)

Requests to add entities in these categories to the index are unlikely to be accepted.

 

About OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap is a free, editable map of the whole world that is being built by volunteers. Features on the map are defined using tags. Each tag is a key=value pair of text strings.

For example, a McDonald's restaurant might have these tags:

  "amenity": "fast_food",
  "cuisine": "burger",
  "name": "McDonald's",
  and more tags to record its address, opening hours, and so on…

The amenity=fast_food tag identifies it as a fast food restaurant.

 

Browse the index

You can browse the Name Suggestion Index and check Wikidata links for accuracy at https://nsi.guide.

 

More Info

Check out the resources in the sidebar for documentation.