Talk:Tag:landuse=recreation ground

Like village green, which I think is a good idea, neither park nor pitch really describes a recreation ground. Also like village green, it's perhaps a rather British (English even) concept though.

-- User:David.earl October 20, 2006

I have come across what can be best described as a recreation ground, in many parks of the world, although many of the countrys were once part of the British Empire which might explain it -- Batchoy 14:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Vote

• I approve this proposal.--David.earl 12.40, 19 December 2006 (UTC).
• I approve this proposal.--Batchoy 14:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal.--Geoff 18:54, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal.--Bahnpirat 14:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal.--Uboot 15:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal.--Calibrator 14:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Not being a Brit, I'm not sure what the definition of a Recreation Ground is... How should I tag a private neighborhood sports club (swimming, tennis)? Alan Jackson 00:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I always thought this was for a recreation area, a domain with facilities to do several sports like cycling or skating or just for sunbathing, sometimes with a lake suitable for water sports, and including bars or a restaurant. But now I actually read this page that seems something completely different than what landuse=recreation_ground is... --Eimai 18:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Confusing

This is obviously related to parks, but parks are leisure=park. Why is this under landuse and not leisure? Indigomc 17:57, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd second this comment, as I'd been merrily using Tag:leisure=park in other areas, yet in others landuse=recreation_ground is used. At least in the UK, people would always refer about "going down the park to kick a ball about", and most are named as parks (for example, Gadebridge Park in Hemel Hempstead, where I was surveying last weekend) -- ratarsed 12:09, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

By the name I'd expect something connected to sports, and then the description says it is like village_green. -- Dieterdreist 22:04, 13 September 2010 (BST)

I agree that this tag is confusing and probably unnecessary. It's an old one from way back in 2006. A "recreation ground" conjures images of flat grass space for doing sports and recreation, but the difference between that and a park, is not really all that interesting. Mappers would be making more useful data if they just go with the much more widely used leisure=park tag. To convey the "recreation" aspect, I would draw areas within the park with leisure=pitch and specific Key:sport tags.

The page should have a section "similar tags" which should include leisure=park and explain how a mapper might make a distinction. But maybe I would just say that this is a funny old tag, and leisure=park is much more widely used.

-- Harry Wood 00:34, 2 July 2011 (BST)

I wholeheartedly agree with Harry's comments. As relatively newer mapper, this tag seems a bit redundant and leisure=park is more useful. In the USA at least, recreation ground as a term is used rarely. However, 'Park' in the USA generally means that it can be used for recreational activities (picnics, sports, hiking,) unless otherwise specified on a physical sign at the park. :-- Skorasaurus 15:29, 21 July 2011 (BST)

I'm really missing here the difference between this and leisure=park. According to wikipedia a "recreation ground is a type of park". Again: what is the difference? --Imagic 09:30, 6 June 2012 (BST)

I often use this tag for the grassy areas containing sports fields at a school (example). This is quite different from a park, which is normally an open public area for general recreation, although a park may also contain a recreation ground. --Umbugbene (talk) 06:37, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Good example, Umbugbene! I have a similar area of grass without any markers, ready to divide in kind of fashions depending on the sport that is about to be played, often used for tournaments/cups for youth that often have smaller pitches. My thought was to only tag the grass and leave more permanent structures, like runners track, out of the recreation_ground. Could leisure=sports_centre be used for the whole area. Sports_centre includes both recreation_ground and pitches, tracks, buildings?/Johan Jönsson (talk) 15:23, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

To me a 'park' is for relaxation. A 'recreation ground' is for play. Warin61 (talk) 22:52, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I have used this tag on areas which are known locally (northern California, USA) as "conference centers." These are usually private, larger (say, >50 hectares) tracts of land upon which a variety of physically challenging activities take place, usually with the gathering of people for organized "recreation" (organized sports, often) activities. However, these activities might also include things like rope climbing, ziplining, and other "team building" activities (for the motivation of groups like corporate departments who rent out the facilities to provide an organized activity to grow their culture by fostering rapport among members). Some have religious affiliations, some do not. Some are open to individuals, some are only open to the membership of the private organization who owns the facilities, some (like the latter) will rent out their facilities to groups only (not individuals). Some host organized sports activities like (American) football, soccer, baseball, vollyball and other sports, as these "conference centers" have appropriate venues, pitches and facilities. I have neither found nor have I been able to coin a better tag to use on these. The tag might not be 100% perfectly appropriate, but its semantics do seem to fit such places. Stevea (talk) 19:39, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Secondary (Sub) tags - associated

Showgrounds A 'showground' can be tagged landuse=recreation_ground with recreation_ground=showground While these areas are used from time to time for 'shows' (usually agricultural)they are also used for sports. Warin61 (talk) 22:52, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Verifiability

@Prince_Kassad, you have added the verifiability template which refers to the discussion on the talk page, but you have not started such discussion. You claim in the change comment the tag would have the definition "I want this area to appear green on the slippy map!" while in fact it has the definition "An open green space for general recreation, which often includes formal or informal pitches, nets and so on. Often municipally owned, but sometimes also part of colleges / companies, or commercially operated.". Could you elaborate your issue. --Polarbear w (talk) 23:46, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Please see the above dicussion. This tag is indistinguishable from leisure=park. The definition you cited is the definition of a park and there's nothing that distinguishes a recreation ground from a park. Many parks in practice feature places where games (.e g. soccer) can be played. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 08:47, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

There is a certain overlap, yes. But not all parks are recreation grounds, and not all recreation grounds are parks. Your perspective, and the opinions above, are driven from having from a particular park in mind where there is such overlap. --Polarbear w (talk) 10:14, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Then what is the difference? The wiki page doesn't mention, and it is not obvious because Wikipedia doesn't distinguish the two either. And in practice, this tag is only used as "I want this to appear green on the slippy map", as I said. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 10:26, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

There's even bigger overlap with park and garden, but there are many gardens which are not parks. Also park is mostly covered with trees, while grassy area with different pitches, picnic areas, pubs etc. are certainly not a park. They are more similar to stadium, but if there's no stadium building inside, the "recreation ground" is the best match. Kocio (talk) 12:32, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

What you describe is leisure=sports_centre which describes any place with different pitches for different sports, though the wiki definition for that tag is probably a bit confusing and seems to focus too much on indoor places. leisure=garden is a whole different issue altogether but that is not the topic. I don't think the definition for leisure=park should have "must have trees" because that can obviously only apply to temperate climates, by that definition steppe/desert countries could never have a park just because trees don't grow there. That seems silly. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 12:47, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

There are other examples for recreation_ground in the opinions above that are not parks: one user mentioned recreation grounds around schools, another showgrounds. The combination tourism=hostel + landuse=recreation_ground is recommended for accommodation-oriented, hostel-style bungalow-villages. Please stop general accusations of mappers to use that for painting green on the map. Even if you found such an example, that is not the general situation.--Polarbear w (talk) 12:51, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The example linked above is wrongly tagged and should be leisure=sports_centre. I mentioned that in my post above and will not repeat myself again. Combining tourism=hostel + landuse=recreation_ground seems completely wrong to me and way against the definition of this tag: private grounds of hostels are not areas for recreation! -- Prince Kassad (talk) 12:57, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

You are misquoting the park definition, there is no such phrase as "must have trees". It says: "...usually ... with grassy areas, trees and bushes." Please do not support your arguments with false citations, that is the poor side of rhetorics.--Polarbear w (talk) 12:54, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Shut the fuck up you dumb idiot, I was obviously replying to another user who suggested this exact definition. Falsely accusing me of such things is nothing short of libel. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 12:57, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Personal insults are now the absolute lowest category on rhetorics, typically used when there are no more factual arguments. Apparently you refer to a user in your Forum discussion, who said that "In einen Park gehören nach meinem Verständnis Bäume", which again is not an agreed "exact definition" of "must have". Even in this Forum discussion, a sufficient number of users expressed their opinion that they prefer to keep the recreation_ground tag. Interestingly, you did not point to the forum discussion when you made your edits here and on DE:Tag:sport=climbing adventure.--Polarbear w (talk) 13:48, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

You still don't know what I'm talking about? Seriously? I have no words for this other than *facepalm*. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 13:51, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

@Prince_Kassad, your behavior has been reported. You have to talk with other people to find the common ground, not insult them. I also know places where leisure=sports_centre wouldn't work, but I will not go into details until you stop personal attacks and get back to the merits, if you're able to do it. -- Kocio (talk) 14:53, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry? User:Polarbear_w is lying on purpose, accusing me of false things just to insult and make a joke of me, and you expect me to stay serious? -- Prince Kassad (talk) 14:56, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Whatever you think or feel while discussing, it's just your interpretation. You don't have to like anybody nor agree with him, but insults are completely out of question, no matter what other people say. It's better if you just stick to the subject, not the people and what you think about them, because this doesn't help anything. -- Kocio (talk) 15:07, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

I have all the reason to be wary of users after certain other communites where disputes went so far that people attempted w:swatting on me. I have no reason to believe User:Polarbear w won't attempt the same on me. And for what it's worth I refuse to have a discussion with him until he gets back to the truth and stops making constant jokes of me. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 15:11, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

You have the right to think whatever you think about him, because it's your interpretation. You can also not talk with him, so this problem just won't be resolved - it's your choice. But if you decide to write anything, insulting is always prohibited (unconditional "NO") and focusing only on the subject, not the people, is highly recommended. -- Kocio (talk) 15:18, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

It appears to me that Polarbear didn't "lie on purpose", he mistakenly (!) assumed that the "park needs tree" definition was Kassad's own idea when instead Kassad was just referring to someone else's idea and saying that was not a suitable definition. Polarbear, because of this misunderstanding, accused Kassad of "deliberately misquoting" a definition and mocked Kassad's "rhetorics", which was not ok. Kassad, in return, reached for a bag of insults, which was not ok either. Polarbear, again, returned the favour painting Kassad as a person at the end of his rhetorical tether. Polarbear was smart enough not to resort to plain insults but his I-am-smarter-than-you-and-know-more-words style is certainly suitable to taunt someone to the point where insults are traded. Kocio, you are toeing a similar line, making fun of Kassad's temper ("... get back to the merits if you're able to do it" is a smart person's way of saying that the other side might be too stupid or emotional to actually talk sense).

May I suggest that everyone just takes a day or two off of this discussion. Kassad is normally a reasonable participant in various OSM media and not prone to insulting people easily; I trust that he knows insults have no place in OSM and will issue an apology after cooling down. I would however also call on the other parties involved to argue the case instead of arguing Kassad's intellectual or rhetorical capabilities. --Frederik Ramm (talk) 15:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

"making fun of Kassad's temper" - I'm deeply surprised that you see it this way. I'm not making fun (it's not even funny for me), I just realize that a temper is a personal thing and one knows better if he's able or not able to cool down at the moment and talk in a different way and I don't try to decide for him. Temper is neither good or bad, it's just the fact of life, it also has nothing to do with the intellect in my opinion. That being said, I can continue discussion after few days, indeed. -- Kocio (talk) 15:54, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

The analysis above is entirely correct. It is really not my intent to hold grudges on people for no reason but the discussion went way off course and in a completely wrong direction where I had to assume things are going against me on purpose. I'm always willing to discuss matters in a civilized manner - as long as others also hold by these rules. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 13:28, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Fred for the well-balanced analysis. It opened my eyes how my schoolmasterly discourse into argumentation styles fired Kassad's anger. I apologise for trying to teach without being asked.
Indeed I was notified by the page change and was not aware of any recent discussions, that's why I opened one here. I was surprised by Kassad's ridgid perspective on the issue. When he talked about a definition, with a tag-template pointing to leisure=park, I assumed a quotation from there, but I could not find that phrase. It was at a later stage that I searched other channels, and found the related forum discussion. However even there nobody used the words in the way what was quoted as exact definition. Sorry again if my irritation has been understood as overreaction. --Polarbear w (talk) 17:48, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Verifiable differences to leisure=park

Trying to get the discussion here back on track - i agree with the observation that this tag in definition and use seems indistinguishable from leisure=park. I would suggest those people who do not agree to:

• point out specific real world examples for occurrences of landuse=recreation_ground that are verifiably not leisure=park and cases of leisure=park that are verifiably not landuse=recreation_ground.
• formulate definitions of the two that describe these verifiable differences and that are largely compatible with existing use of the tags.

--Imagico (talk) 11:49, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I will collect some. However I'd like to start with my perspective that a landuse and a leisure key are not excluding each other. Landuse describes the general usage of the land, and leisure describes a specific feature that might sit within the landuse, or have the identical outline. If you compare that to landuse=residential, you would have features building=house sitting on it, or have the identical outline. Thus there might be cases where an object is tagged both {tag|landuse|recreation_ground}} + leisure=park. --Polarbear w (talk) 17:58, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Note this is about the differences between two individual tags in their practical use and meaning, not general key semantics, i.e. what the tags ought to mean to justify the respective keys. --Imagico (talk) 18:23, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

The discussion as it unfolds below shows that you cannot discuss tags without looking at their semantics. The problem is that the world is not black and white, it comes with shades. There are places that are more or less recreational, more or less sportive, more or less green or paved, at borderline when it comes to size, have the trees wildly grown or arranged 100 years ago -- that means these things are hard to categorize, and some fall out of the drawers. Thus it could be productive to have keys illuminating different, sometimes orthogonal aspects of an object. The landuse describes the general use, the leisure the suitability for different forms of relaxation, and the landcover what grows there, etc. So eventually the individual object can be recognised what it is good for. --Polarbear w (talk) 19:21, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Please carefully read what i have written: this is about the differences between two individual tags in their practical use and meaning, not general key semantics, i.e. what the tags ought to mean to justify the respective keys.

I would suggest to focus on what i explained at the beginning, i.e. formulate definitions of the two tags in question that describe the verifiable differences between them and that are largely compatible with existing use of the tags.

--Imagico (talk) 20:06, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

The Venn diagram overlap between features in both a recreation ground & a park is substantial. No features are exclusive to each.

I'm UK based.

If its main purpose is to play sport & has multiple sport pitches but few of the other facilities, then I'd describe it as a recreation ground.

Examples: Large areas of grass within a school & municipally run sports fields for those who aren't as fit or skilful as they think they are to play rugby & football etc.

I'd also include village cricket clubs where the polygon boundary includes all facilities. Not just the actual pitch (tagged as leisure=pitch), but the clubhouse, cricket nets, car park etc.

A park would have fewer pitches, but more trees, water features, playgrounds, seating, cafes, toilets etc.

The official name containing either 'recreation ground' & 'park' also has a bearing. --DaveF63 (talk) 01:05, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

General discussion about the tag meanings and definitions

Two examples of open grassy area, none of which is a park (typical park as I know it has at least trees and bushes, it's just a big garden for walking) and they contain some sport facilities (but they are not a sport facility in itself), but also touristic/outdoor facilities, a restaurant, pub etc.:

• https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/90486125
• https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/554974964

There's also open space inside the park:

• https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/383735206

--Kocio (talk) 18:11, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

recreation_ground that are not parks:

• Tempelhofer Feld (former inner-city airport voted to remain recreational space) https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/7317281
• a recreational summer bathing facility that does not qualify as a water_park (DE: Freibad), with the typical lawn, volleyball pitches etc.
• the recreational ground of summer camps with bungalows among sports facilities
• showgrounds as cited by @Warin61 above
• recreation grounds of schools, example from @Umbugbene above: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/177600531

--Polarbear w (talk) 19:21, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Trying to understand the comments so far: They seem to indicate that landuse=recreation_ground is understood to be extremely broad - essentially every area used primarily for recreational purposes as long as it meets some greenness requirement (which makes it a climate specific tag obviously). Usefulness of such a tag seems rather limited but that is a different topic.

What has been said regarding leisure=park seems to be that

• it must contain trees or scrubs
• it must be garden-like (whatever that means)
• there is a minimum size?
• there needs to be some walking opportunity
• it is incompatible with the presence of restaurants, bungalows and sport/bathing facilities

Also - since there has been nothing mentioned to indicate otherwise it seems that according to this interpretation leisure=park is a subset of landuse=recreation_ground (if not the question is how a leisure=park would need to look like to not qualify as landuse=recreation_ground).

Apart from the problem of limited usefulness of landuse=recreation_ground in that interpretation my main problem with that view is that there are probably more things currently tagged leisure=park that do not meet that definition than there are things tagged landuse=recreation_ground in total. Among other things one of the most famous parks in the world - New York Central Park (https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/427818536) - would not qualify as leisure=park.

--Imagico (talk) 10:35, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, leisure=park is a "special case" of landuse=recreation_ground (or leisure=recreation_ground - having such similar tags is another problem), where leisure is about light physical activity like walking (it seems to me as primary goal of a park). I can imagine park that has no single plant (for example with arranged rocks and water - maybe in Japan?), but I haven't seen something like this in my life - every park I know is also a special case of garden (garden is about arranging plants - so for example the orchard is a special case of garden/farmland). In summary - every park I know is a special case of garden and recreation ground at the same time, so all of these definitions should be enhanced.

NY Central Park is a typical park for me and it also includes some special recreation/sport areas, for mild/hard physical activity (https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/37183476, https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/118729387).

Answering your questions:

- it must contain trees or scrubs/it must be garden-like (whatever that means) - garden means plants arranging/breedeing, it's maybe not essential for park (examples would be helpful to determine it), but that's at least very typical

- there is a minimum size?/there needs to be some walking opportunity - it's meant primary for walking, so yes, the size should match this purpose

- it is incompatible with the presence of restaurants, bungalows and sport/bathing facilities - no, however if they are isolated somehow, then this area should be tagged accordingly as a subarea (just like playground in the park)

--Kocio (talk) 14:10, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

(discussion of leisure=garden tagging habits moved to new section)

It is not clear to me whether the above is about the meaning of the OSM tags or about your personal ideas about the meaning of the terms park and recreation ground. I am wondering about this because much of what you write fundamentally seems to be at odds with the use of the tags in OSM.

Summarizing as i understand what you write:

• leisure=park is a subset of landuse=recreation_ground, every correctly tagged leisure=park can in addition also be tagged landuse=recreation_ground without this being wrong.
• leisure=park requires the primary recreational activity to be walking and a minimum size accordingly.

That is remarkable because the tag documentation of leisure=park indicates nothing about walking. I would guess at least about half of the areas tagged leisure=park will not meet these criteria (Central Park probably included - unless you classify running sports as walking possibly).

--Imagico (talk) 15:07, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

1. You are right - that's what I think how should it be organized and defined to make coherent, easy to understand and use tagging space. This is a follow up to our recent conversation (about place areas). I'm aware that this is trying to define things rather than discovering how it is used. I just don't believe trying to describe current messy state of things (=trying to guess the rules people are using when tagging) will help us to decide which tags are needed or not and what they mean. I try to follow meaning of the words used in tags, because in general our definitions should not deviate from general meaning (unless we have decided so, of course).

2. Special cases should not be tagged with all the more general tags - shop=clothes object should not include amenity=shop even if this is not contradicting. So for me this is not wrong generally (ontology wise), but specifically - it is (tagging wise). The second rule as you have stated it reflects what I think.

3. I guess subareas can be very different than enclosing area as a general rule - for example even school in the park can be seen as part of this park.

--Kocio (talk) 17:34, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Case 2 bath/lido/Freibad

That case conflicts with the current definition of landuse=recreation_ground which is "An open green space for general recreation" - in practice most bathing facilities of that sort have trees growing to provide some much-needed shade in hot summer days, but a grassy area with trees is not "an open green space", so the tag is not applicable by the current definition on the wiki.

Amenities should not be tagged with a landuse tag, anyway. For tagging the facility itself we have amenity=public_bath (which is not very widespread, but the wiki is very poor at actually explaining how bathing facilities are supposed to be tagged, and the addition of rendering for leisure=water_park has also created an unfortunate "rendering pitfall" where any place where you can take a bath is tagged leisure=water_park because it shows a nice logo on the slippy map, even if it's not a water park at all). Adding an area rendering for amenity=public_bath would probably be the best solution as none of our other landuse tags really fit this particular case (it's not a park, not grass, obviously not a forest, and nothing else really). -- Prince Kassad (talk) 21:09, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Addendum: the wiki gives leisure=sports_centre as an example for "Freibad", which could work for these facilities (but obviously not for related facilities like lakes or waterfronts of oceans which are not commonly used for (even recreational) sports). -- Prince Kassad (talk) 21:24, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I do not see trees contradicting the openness, I read that as open vs. building.
What or who prevents us from combining amenity or leisure tags with landuse?
I agree on the "rendering pitfall" for water_park that led to abuse of the tag. However I feel that Public bath (with examples Onsen, a hot spring, a hammam or a thermal bath) is something different than our de:Freibad, the latter more focusing on general recreation than just bathing. Regarding your addendum, the wiki is never free from contradictions or strange translations. The criterion is here if it is used for sportive swimming or recreation. Which page do you refer to? --Polarbear w (talk) 21:41, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

So "open green area" is an antonym of "enclosed green area"? I have to admit, I've never heard of grass growing inside buildings before, but maybe you can enlighten me on this.
The example is given right on the page I linked, on leisure=sports_centre, the German version of the page even calls it "Freibad". -- Prince Kassad (talk) 10:16, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

No, open is the opposite of enclosed in this context, and green probably meant as the opposite of paved. @Nochmaltobi and @Yarl introduced these words in 2010, before the description was "neither park nor pitch really describes a recreation ground".
I am not defending a particular word in the definition, I defend the usefulness of the tag.
As requested, I am happy to enlighten you about grass indoor, just feed these two words into your favourite search engine. Here is a really cute example, meant to de-stress students in a library. The world has more variety than a single person could imagine.
As for swimming, the EN page for sports centre says "Swimming pool facility" which is still on the sportive side, while the DE page translated that to "Freibad" which is more the recreational. There was a long discussion on Tagging recently about the tagging gap for the recreational one, which as usual did not properly conclude.--Polarbear w (talk) 12:11, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Case 5 school

The last case is very clearly a leisure=sports_centre. I mentioned that in the discussion above. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 19:43, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Some schools have sport centres, yes, when there is a density of fixed installations, so the sport is centred. Umbugbene's example is a borderline case. Have a look at this one:

• Secondary school rec ground https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/23433381 which is about 10x as large as the school it serves, with no formal sports setup. Comparing sat images over years you see some chalk marks sometimes here, sometimes there.

Or another one, not school related:

• King George V Playing Fields https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/23439544

---

There's a recent discussion on the tagging forum - https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2022-June/064808.html

My comments:

https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2022-June/064829.html

Specifically:

The Venn diagram overlap between a recreation ground & a park is substantial. No features are exclusive to each.

I'm UK based.

If its main purpose is to play sport with multiple sport pitches but few other facilities, then I'd describe it as a recreation ground.

Examples: Large areas of grass within a school & municipally run sports fields, for those who aren't as fit or skilful as they think they are, to play rugby & football etc.

I'd also include village cricket clubs where the polygon boundary includes all facilities. Not only the actual pitch (tagged as leisure=pitch), but the clubhouse, cricket nets, car park etc.

A park would have fewer pitches, but more trees. water features, seating, cafes, toilets etc.

The official name containing either 'recreation ground' & 'park' also has a large bearing. --DaveF63 (talk) 16:42, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

related tags: leisure=garden

The following discussion originated from discussing the garden-likeness of parks:

In practice leisure=garden is used as a tag for "private backyard" rather than "general green area", probably because this is one of the meanings of the word "garden" and arguably the most common meaning of that word in German. This is problematic in its own right (we shouldn't map in people's private properties), but garden is certainly not used as a general green area, at least not in practice. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 14:51, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

I've seen it also on small public areas in populated places (similar to flower bed, but not necessary containing flowers) and on big areas like palace gardens, which are open (and I would describe them as a park). Omitting private items should not hide away some easy visible things - for example private road might be shown with a pattern and a private parking has dimmed letter to show that they are different than public ones, but not showing them at all is too strict IMO as it creates virtual "white holes" on the map. But that's a bit off topic here, I guess. --Kocio (talk) 15:44, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

It would be helpful if @Kassad could support statements as "leisure=garden used for private backyard" with some facts and statistics. [This garden] is apparently not a private backyard. Oxford defines "ornamental grounds laid out for public enjoyment and recreation". Having seen some mappers applying it to private backyards does not mean it is general practice. --Polarbear w (talk) 18:28, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Instead of posting a long long rant, I'll just give some examples from different countries: UK Germany Denmark. Enough yet or do I need to seek more? -- Prince Kassad (talk) 18:46, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

I have no doubt that these extremes exists. What I meant was that we cannot generalize them as an argument against the tag itself. --Polarbear w (talk) 19:28, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, you asked for the impossible, a statistic that can figure from an OSM element what this element actually represents in real-life. Artificial intelligence hasn't progressed that far, last time I checked. But I can speak from experience, having seen many, many leisure=garden during my OSM mapping days, and not a single one of these was actually a public garden, they were all private backyards. You can trust my word on that. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 19:56, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

I had show you a single one already, here are three more that are not private backyards: in the UK, in Germany, in Denmark. To conclude, what do you propose regarding the leisure=garden tag? --Polarbear w (talk) 23:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

leisure=recreation_ground

I've never understood why recreation ground is tag with the key 'landuse'. Given the close association of other leisures features such as pitch park, playground, seating, dog park etc I firmly believe it should also be tagged as leisure.

landuse=recreation ground & leisure=park are mutually exclusive. An entity can not have both tags, yet there are currently 6638 erroneous cases worldwide. Tagging as leisure would prevent these errors. --DaveF63 (talk) 16:55, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

They even want to remove leisure=recreation_ground because this is a umbrella tag? See https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4572 --快乐的老鼠宝宝 (talk) 07:32, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

And, for the picture example File:Outdoor_gym_in_Parque_de_Bateria,_Torremolinos.JPG, we can see that this recreation ground is located in a park/sport center/residential area. --快乐的老鼠宝宝 (talk) 07:36, 19 July 2022 (UTC)