Tag:natural=dune

The tag natural=dune is used to map a hill of sand formed by wind, covered with no or very little vegetation. See dune on Wikipedia for more information. These primarily occur in deserts or at coasts.

How to map

Dunes can be mapped either

• as nodes, in case you know where the dune is but no details about its size and shape.
• as a way along the dune's crest, in particular useful in larger fields of dunes where it is unclear where one dune ends and another begins.
• as areas enclosing the area covered by the dune. If the dune occurs in a larger dune field or is surrounded by bare sand areas that are not part of this dune map the whole sand covered area as natural=sand in addition.

Mapping caveats

This tag should not be used for:

• larger sand covered areas where dunes occur - use natural=sand instead.
• coastal sand areas shaped by the waves - use natural=beach + surface=sand instead.
• other sand covered areas - use natural=sand instead.
• dunes that are mostly covered by vegetation like grass or heath and are therefore no more moving and changing shape like an active dune - use natural=heath or natural=grassland instead.

Rendering

This tag has been requested for rendered in the Openstreetmap-carto style. See issue 545.

See also

• natural=sand - used for sand covered areas independent of the presence of dunes
• natural=beach - used for beaches
• natural=heath - used for heath, also for dunes mostly covered by heath vegetation
• natural=grassland - for vegetation covered dunes largely covered by grass
• landform=dune_system - an area of dunes (with natural=sand), or a sometimes a single dune (with natural=ridge). This tag has been used on larger number of objects than natural=dune, but only in two areas and nearly all uses are by one mapper