Nonexistent features

Here, the no longer existing railway is gone without any clearly identifiable trace in terrain. Its course is known from various documents, but such historic features are out of scope for OpenStreetMap, should not be mapped, and should be deleted if mapped.

OpenStreetMap is not the place for storing data about nonexistent map features. The world is constantly changing, causing OpenStreetMap to become outdated. Some features are mapped incorrectly and never existed in the first place, for example due to someone making a mistake. Features that no longer exist should be deleted, or in rare cases should be kept in OSM but marked as nonexistent. If a shop, building or lake is completely gone in reality, then it should be also deleted from OpenStreetMap.

Deleting a nonexistent feature

Even if there was cemetery here some time ago, it is gone without traces so it should be deleted from OSM. It is also possible that no cemetery ever existed at this location and it was incorrectly mapped.

To delete a map feature in iD, the default Web-based editor:

1. Visit https://www.openstreetmap.org/ and navigate to the location of the nonexistent feature, then click the "Edit" button.
2. After the editor loads, right-click on the nonexistent feature and select the Delete option, which looks like a trash can. In some cases, you will instead see a Downgrade option, which preserves the address but discards everything else about the feature.
3. Now save your change. Click on the Save button in the top-right corner and write a short changeset comment in the text field at the top-left corner. Explain why you know that this feature is gone. Submit your change by clicking the Upload button.

After you make your edit, it will take effect immediately in the OpenStreetMap database. The default map view typically requires minutes to update. Other data consumers will update on a different schedule, within minutes, days, months – or in some cases never.

Retagging a closed feature

Typically, when a shop or office closes, it physically remains as a vacant shopfront or office space with the same address as before. Instead of deleting the feature, change it to reflect its current state:

1. Visit https://www.openstreetmap.org/ and navigate to the location of the shop or office, then click the "Edit" button.
2. After the editor loads, click on the shop or office. Click on the < button at the top-left corner to change the feature's type:
   • If it was a kind of shop, change the type to Shop, then set the Type field to vacant. iD should now label the feature as a "Vacant Shop".
   • If it was a kind of office, change the type to Office, then set the Type field to vacant.
3. Now save your change. Click on the Save button in the top-right corner and write a short changeset comment in the text field at the top-left corner. Explain why you know that the shop or office has closed. Submit your change by clicking the Upload button.

After you make your edit, it will take effect immediately in the OpenStreetMap database. The default map view typically requires minutes to update. Other data consumers will update on a different schedule, within minutes, days, months – or in some cases never.

Reporting a nonexistent feature

See notes.

Note that if you know that something is gone - it is better to just make an edit. Notes require someone else to verify report, it is normal that notes wait for years before someone can and wants to process them.

Mark feature as nonexistent

• Pavement which looks like a building on the satellite imagery: not:building=yes
• Official right of way without real road: not:highway=yes

Additional considerations

Railway tracks are gone, but physical remains are still present and it is OK to map them as railway=abandoned

• Is the feature marked as something that isn't always visible but does exist? Considering adding tags such as seasonal=*, street_vendor=yes, location=underground, intermittent=yes, etc., or add a note=* or description=* to describe the situation in more detail.
• Does the feature exist nearby? It is fairly common for a shop to be offset, say, 10 meters from the actual location. In such cases, it is better to move the object to the correct position rather than delete it. However, you may be looking at aerial or street-level imagery that itself is offset from reality.
• Is the feature really completely gone, or does it still exist in another form? In some cases, the feature needs to be retagged rather than deleted. For example, demolished railways are commonly mapped as such as long as there's even a faint trace of the railway. Or a bridge destroyed because of a natural disaster is maybe visible on imagery but can no longer be used: add prefix destroyed:*=* before the tag highway. There is ongoing, seemingly intractable controversy over whether defunct railways should be tagged as extant features via the railway=abandoned and railway=razed tags. [1]
• If you are at all unsure - contact original mapper or mappers active in a given area. Sometimes one may be mistaken, miss the feature or a proper fix is to just move it.
• It is often useful to check other related features - for example in case of likely vandalism it is useful to check other edits made from given account, if tree was cut down then maybe other nearby ones also were lost

Mapping no longer existing features

In rare cases, when feature is very likely to be mapped by others one may use lifecycle prefixes. One typical case is a recently demolished building, or a recently rerouted road, retagged to demolished:building=yes or demolished:highway=* as long as it is visible on aerial imagery used to map given area.

Such objects should be deleted once accidental remapping is no longer a serious threat - for example, once primary aerial imagery is updated and stopped showing demolished building. It should be treated as special form of note=* rather than mapping demolished buildings. For example it is not OK to add demolished:building=yes where no buildings were mapped before or in cases where no reasonable mapper would mark a building there.

Please feel free to contribute any historical or current features to OpenHistoricalMap, a sister project that is designed to represent changes to the world over time. When you add a feature to OpenHistoricalMap, make sure to set start_date=* and end_date=* so that it only appears during the right time period.

Transferring a feature from OpenStreetMap to OpenHistoricalMap

Before you transfer a feature from OpenStreetMap to OpenHistoricalMap, make sure you are its sole author by inspecting its history. If someone else has touched the feature, contact them and ask them for permission to transfer their contribution for safekeeping, as an alternative to deleting it outright. Or consider mapping the feature from scratch in OpenHistoricalMap if that would be easier or the result would be more accurate.

In JOSM:

1. Copy the feature to a new layer.
2. Temporarily change your server settings to OpenHistoricalMap.
3. Download the visible area from OpenHistoricalMap as a new layer.
4. Merge the feature into OpenHistoricalMap.
5. Add start_date=* and end_date=* tags to the feature, or start_date:edtf=* and end_date:edtf=* if you are uncertain about the precise dates. For example, if you only know that a shop closed between 2019 and 2024, enter 2019/2024. Or if you only know that it opened before 1974, enter /1974.
6. Add source=* to the feature if you used an external source to determine the dates.
7. Upload your changes to OpenHistoricalMap. In the changeset comment, describe what you have transferred, indicating the element ID.

In iD or Rapid:

1. Select the feature. Open the Map Data pane on the right side of the map. Under the Data Layers section, check the Show Measurement Panel checkbox. Copy the coordinates in the Measurement panel.
2. Go to OpenHistoricalMap in a separate tab. Paste the coordinates into the search bar to jump to the same location, then click Edit to open OpenHistoricalMap's version of iD.
3. Add a point, line, or area with a similar geometry as the OpenStreetMap feature. It doesn't have to precisely match the OpenStreetMap feature's geometry.
4. Bypass the preset chooser by clicking the button to the right of "Choose a feature type".
5. In your OpenStreetMap tab, expand the Tags section of the left sidebar and change the view from to . Copy the entire contents of the textbox.
6. In your OpenHistoricalMap tab, expand the Tags section of the left sidebar and change the view from to . Paste the tags into the textbox.
7. In the Fields section above, fill in the Start Date and End Date fields, or click the buttons to the right of these fields if you are uncertain about the precise dates. For example, if you only know that a shop closed between 2019 and 2024, enter 2019/2024. Or if you only know that it opened before 1974, enter /1974.
8. Fill in the Source field if you used an external source to determine the dates.
9. Click Save to upload your changes to OpenHistoricalMap. In the changeset comment, describe what you have transferred, indicating the element ID.

Ruined features

Road near Centralia, USA abandoned due to underground fire, photo taken over decade after this road section was abandoned. Mapped as highway=track + access=no

Similar but distinct case is mapping existing remains. In such case one is not mapping nonexisting object but existing ruins, verifiable by mappers.

Typical case is to keep disused:shop=* together with name=* or old_name=* when a vacant shop still shows the livery of a previous tenant. It both maps vacant shops, which may be of interest for some data consumers and protects against potential confused "drive-by" mapper which might put the old information back. Though entirely deleting such object is also fine! And definitely better than keeping say shop=kiosk

Roads in particular may need such tagging for a long time, since abandoned roads may show up in aerial images and terrain for decades after they are no longer in use. Note that abandoned road may become highway=track or highway=path