Key:flag:wikidata
 flag:wikidata
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| Description |
|---|
ID of the Wikidata item about each of the flags hoisted on the flagpole 
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| Group: annotations |
| URL pattern |
| https://www.wikidata.org/entity/$1 |
| Used on these elements |
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| Requires |
| Useful combination |
| Status: in use |
| Tools for this tag |
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A flagpole can be tagged with a Wikidata item identifier to specifically and unambiguously identify each of the flags hoisted on the flagpole.
How to tag
The value should be a Wikidata item identifier, including the "Q" prefix.
The Wikidata item should have a claim of being an instance of a flag or flag design (either directly or indirectly). In other words, it should be the item for the flag or a specific flag design, not the government or organization that the flag represents.
A few very tall flagpoles are notable enough for their own Wikipedia articles and thus their own Wikidata items. The Wikidata QID representing the flagpole itself goes in wikidata=*.
Rationale
This key is especially useful when other tags like flag:type=* and country=* are ambiguous. For example:
- For flag:type=regional, flag:type=organisation, etc., the specific flag cannot be inferred from the flag:type=* and country=* tags alone. A renderer might guess a flag based on the flagpole's location, but a flag for one region may fly in a neighboring region for many reasons.
- A flag may outlast its country or vice versa. The flag of South Vietnam is still commonly flown in some regions with large overseas Vietnamese communities. The flag would be tagged flag:type=national country=VN, because South Vietnam had the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code
VNbefore it was repurposed for a unified Vietnam. But a renderer that only considers country=* would draw the present-day flag of Vietnam, which is politically incorrect and highly sensitive in some regions. So flag:wikidata=Q1740429 allows renderers to render the correct flag. - States with limited recognition, such as Northern Cyprus, tend not to have standardized country codes, but data consumers expect country=* to be a country code.
- Many countries have distinct civic, state (i.e., governmental), and naval flags. Some countries, such as Bolivia and Uruguay, have more than one official state flag.
- At some monuments in the United States, the flag flown has fewer than 50 stars or more than 13 stripes. A Wikidata QID for the Betsy Ross flag or any of its successors allows renderers to render a historically accurate flag.
Finding a Wikidata item
Search Wikidata for flag items:
Or look up the flag's article on Wikipedia and click "Wikidata item" under the "Tools" section of the sidebar.
Alternatively, in iD, select or place a Flagpole on the map. In the "Flag Wikidata" field, search for "flag of Antarctica". Presets for a number of common flags are also available in iD, thanks to entries in the Name Suggestion Index, which you can also contribute to.
Creating a Wikidata item
Sometimes you may need to create a Wikidata item to represent the flag you're mapping. Note that Wikidata items are subject to the Wikidata notability policy, which is stricter than OpenStreetMap's inclusion standards. A flag can be mapped in OSM as long as it exists on the ground even if it's a one-off, such as the logo of an obscure secondary school athletic team on a white field, or a vanity flag. However, such flags are unlikely to be considered notable for Wikidata.
Even if the flag is commonplace, you should take one or more of these steps to ensure that the Wikidata item looks notable enough, so it doesn't get deleted:
- The easiest way is to link an existing item to it. For example, if you're creating an item for flag of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (Q65741971), add a flag design (Q69506823) statement to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (Q3259709) pointing to Q65741971. You can also create a represents (P1268) or applies to jurisdiction (P1001) statement linking in the other direction.
- If there isn't an existing item for the represented organization, search Flags of the World for the flag in question. If FOTW has a dedicated page about the flag, add the flag's ID to the Wikidata item. For example, the Wildomar city flag's FOTW page has a URL ending with
us-cawld.html, so flag of Wildomar (Q65740307) has a Flags of the World ID (P3089) statement set tous-cawld. - If Flags of the World doesn't have a page dedicated to the flag, find a third-party published source mentioning the flag. Any news article will do. Add a citation to the instance of (P31) statement. Set the citation's URL (P854) property to the URL of the source.
If the flag is too obscure to meet any of these requirements, use flag:name=* and flag:colour=* instead of flag:wikidata=*.
Beyond the bare minimum, a good Wikidata flag item can also have image (P18), color (P462), and aspect ratio (P2061) statements, which allow the renderer to display the correct design and can help a future mapper verify that the same flag is still flying at a particular flagpole.
Statistics
- Most commonly mapped flags (Sophox bar chart; image grid view also available)
- Flags by frequency and represented population (Sophox scatter chart)
See also
- List of national flags by design – helpful for identifying a flag seen in street-level imagery