Kuwait

Overview

V・T・E Kuwait, Western Asia

latitude: 29.31, longitude: 47.6

Browse map of Kuwait 29°18′36.00″ N, 47°36′00.00″ E

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Users in Kuwait GPS traces Geohack for OSM with more maps

External links: Notes Quality checks with Osmose Keep Right! OSM Inspector Streets without names CheckAutopista2 Public transport with öpnvkarte.de Wikipedia: en Wikimedia Commons OpenStreetMap contributors map Mapillary KartaView

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Kuwait is a Country in Western Asia at latitude 29°18′36.00″ North, longitude 47°36′00.00″ East.

Officially known as The State of Kuwait, the country is bordered by Iraq in the North, Saudi Arabia in the West and South, and the Persian Gulf to the East, thus sharing a maritime border with Iran. Kuwait is a unitary (non-federal) state with its capital capital south of Kuwait Bay (a small Gulf within Kuwait). The Capital is Kuwait City. The official language is Arabic, with English widely used. The official religion is Islam.

Kuwait Politics and Geography

Politically:

• Kuwait is a constitutional monarchy, The head of state is the Amir.
• The country is run by the Prime Minister, aided by a council of ministers,
• Legislative power is vested in the National Assembly parliament and the Amir in accordance with the Constitution. The National Assembly consists of fifty elected members, who are chosen in elections held every four years. Currently the country is divided into 5 voting districts.
• The judiciary system is independent from government influence, and its rulings are enforced by the title of the Amir.

Geographically:

• Kuwait is divided into 6 Governorates, each with its own Municipality and Governor. Each Governorate has its own Immigration, vehicle registration and inspection, health care, and other facilities.
• Each Governorate, has Cities/Suburbs, and land areas under its administration.
• Each City/Suburb has an Administrator, and is sub divided into Blocks/Neighbourhood.
• Each Block/Neighbourhood has no administrative level, and follows the City/Suburb Administrator.

National Assembly election districts

Kuwait is divided into 5 election Circles/Districts

• First District (الدائرة الأولى)
• Second District (الدائرة الثانية)
• Third District (الدائرة الثالثة)
• Fourth District (الدائرة الرابعة)
• Fifth District (الدائرة الخامسة)

Historically, the first 3 districts are called the inner districts (city dwellers), and the last two districts as the outer districts (Bedouin dwellers).

Note that under emergency clauses, parliamentary elections are currently suspended for four years, with the 2024 elections being the last held. It is unknown if the electoral districts would remain the same after that.

Mapping & Possible Issues

Note: there has not been consensus on the topics discusses here. It is provided as an overview and for generic & informative purposes for now. Feel free to start a discussion.

Divisions

How I see Administration Levels

• admin_level 2 Kuwait
• admin_level 4 Governorates
• admin_level 6 National Assembly Election Districts
• admin_level 8 Cities and Suburbs

Governorates

The 6 Governorates of Kuwait are as follows. They are the least problematic part of editing Kuwait's map.

• Capital Governorate (a translation of the Arabic word ʿĀṣima, hence it is also known as such). Note: the capital city of Kuwait is sometimes referred to simply as Kuwait (Al Kuwayt), hence this name can be found on some maps. However, this appellation does not normally applies to other areas in Capital Governorate which makes it a misnomer.
• Hawalli Governorate (محافظة حولي)
• Ahmadi Governorate (محافظة الأحمدي)
• Jahra Governorate (محافظة الجهراء)
• Farwaniya Governorate (محافظة الفروانية)
• Mubarak Al-Kabeer Governorate (محافظة مبارك الكبير)

Areas and Blocks

In order to locate a place in Kuwait, three items are absolutely essential: the area name, the block number, and the building number. For example, to find the Grane Martyrs House, you need this correct address.

Qurain, Block 4, House #61

Some addresses have an additional mandatory field called جادة jadda, which is like a substreet and is often translated to lane or avenue in English.

Every single establishment (place, shop, apartment unit, house, etc) has a unique 8-digit number issued by the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI) called the الرقم الآلي للعنوان (The Automatic Address Number, though it is most commonly known as PACI number in English) which can be used to immediately locate the place. This is similar to France's SIRET system (see Key:ref:FR:SIRET). It is thus could be mapped similarly as ref:KW:PACI=*, but this is unofficial and no renderer natively supports it.

Area names

Area names are unique in Kuwait (i.e. there are not two areas with the same name but under different governorates). Thus, the governorate is extra information and not something needed or usually given for addresses.

Transliteration

Attempting to transliterate an area's name yourself to English is not recommended, because there are many transliteration methods (including unofficial ones) and the transliteration may differ depending on how the name is pronounced, whether between Kuwaiti and Standard Arabic or within Kuwaiti dialects themselves. This is why it is recommended to stick to the official somewhat lousy transliteration. Official names in English can be found on street signs as well as the official map and other official websites (some areas have different variations of their official English names, but this is uncommon). There is no official transliteration scheme plan offered by the Kuwaiti government, nor are the transliterations always consistent. However, it can be noted that

1. Official transliteration usually omit the Arabic definite article except in people's name or in the construct state (thus Al-Salmiya becomes Salmiya, but areas like Abdalla Al-Mubarak and Bnaid Al-Qar remain as such), This is fairly but not always consistent. This is also in line with how most non-Arabic speaking community in Kuwait call them (without the definite article).
2. Official transliterations are based on the Standard Arabic pronounciation, not the Kuwaiti Arabic pronounciation. Thus, Jibla is officially written as Qibla, and Bnaid Al-Qar instead of Bnaid Al-Gar, according to their Standard Arabic pronunciation.
3. Official transliteration makes use of English writing conventions, such as using <sh> to represent the /ʃ/ sound.
4. It makes use of diagrams and letters of English used to represent Arabic sounds, such as <gh>, <kh>, and <dh>.

Multiple names

Some areas may have more than one official transliteration (e.g. Granda/Ghornata). Use official_name:en=Official Name1, official_name2:en=Official Name2, etc. Some areas have names that are more common than their official names. It is recommended to put the common name in name=* and name:en=*, and put the official names in the official_name=* tag. Examples of such areas include Abdallah Al-Salem commonly knows as Dhahya, at least in Arabic, and Abriq Khaitan known as Khaitan. Sometimes, an unofficial and official name/pronunciation may coexist and both be common (e.g. for different names: Ali Subah Al-Salim = Umm al-Haiman; Mubarak Al-Abdallah = West Mishrif for different pronunciations: Omariya is pronounced as both العمرية and العميرية). If you're not certain which is more common, put the official name in the name=* tag and the unofficial name in alt_name=*. Finally, don't forget to account for variations that are unwritten officially, such as the area of جبلة being written officially as قبلة. It is a good idea to include both forms to make it possible to find the place with the alternate pronunciation-based spelling.

Designation

It is hard to establish a scheme for Kuwaiti areas for many reasons. The question was asked to the OSM community more than once without a definitive answer.

Issue 1: type of place

Kuwait is uniquely divided into مناطق (areas), which are not like cities because they tend to be smaller in area size and economic diversity, not like towns because their population is fairly big, some of them even exceeding 50,000, not like villages because they are urban, connected to the cities' metro (for most areas), and offer essential services, not localities as these indicate places where noone lives according to OSM, not districts because they are not managed by a local government, and OSM applications might struggle identifying what a district means and how to show them accordingly and use them to try to generate addresses (they might be like a province in one region but a city block in another)

Most Kuwaiti areas were tagged as suburbs in the past. However, this is problematic as 1) not all areas are suburbs; 2) suburbs are - generally speaking- not very important and prominent. This will make them appear less -if at all- on maps, as some applications deprioritize showing them or even completely ignore them. For example, Snapchat Maps, which utilizes OSM data, shows most of Kuwait as void of administrative divisions except for very few areas designated as cities (this has changed since as a lot more Kuwaiti areas are now tagged as cities, but Snapchat hasn't updated its maps as of 2024-08-30). This is because it does not think showing suburbs is important. & 3) some Kuwaiti areas do have boroughs/suburbs within them, such as ʿAbbasiya and Hasawi in Jileeb Al-Shuyoukh. My suggestions for this problem is:

1. Using place=city for all census-designated places, to ensure visibility and that all applications utilizing OSM data understand the place is important and must be shown on the map if permittable.
2. Alternatively, we could set a rule depending on the area or population size. For example, we could designate areas with more than 10,000 residents as cities and those with less as towns.

Issue 2: blocks

Each area is divided into several blocks, which can range vastly in size and what's inside them (most are residential which explains why we use landuse=residential for (most of) them, but some house main supermarkets, parks, school, retail store. and other non-dwelling activities. See Sulaibikhat Block 5 and Doha Block 3 for examples. I suggest tagging such blocks as something else, such as city_block or simply tagging it as a commercial area and adding that area to the boundary relation of the area it falls under.

Knowing the block of the area is absolutely essential in order to have a proper, locatable Kuwaiti address. To make it easier for map users as well as maps services, I suggest we label each block with the name of the area. For example, for block 8 in Bayan, we would map the area as Bayan - Block 8. This will ensure block tags are not ambiguous as users will be able to easily tell to a block is attached to which area. Because such naming scheme could get long, we can make the names appear shorter by using short_name=Bayan B4 or just short_name=Block 4 when space does not permit the full name to show.

To make sure the addresses show correctly, I suggest using the name of the city as well as the block number in addr:city=* when adding nodes and areas. The approach of mapping each area block as its own place is followed by every single maps provider that I know of that can actually show Kuwaiti addresses correctly, including Here WeGo, Kuwait Finder, Waze and several map applications I have seen in different car models including Cadillac and Volvo. The mapping services that do not do that, such as Google Maps, cannot locate Kuwaiti addresses correctly if at all.

Note: I do not recommend labelling the blocks with the area name + block number directly (e.g. Salmiya 4). This can cause confusion as some areas are officially designated with a name and number (For example, Ardhiya, Ardhiya 4, and Ardhiya 6, all of which have their own blocks). This can also cause confusion for the huge new areas being built whose divisions are (at least initially) distinguished directly with a number after the area's name (e.g. Subah Al-Ahmad 1, Subah Al-Ahmad 2, etc).

Streets & Roads

Highway/Roads classification in Kuwait

Highway can be classified as

• Motorway (120 km/h): for controlled- or limited-access highways that achieve the permitted maximum speed limit in the country, which is 120. These include, for example, most the 5th Ring Road, 6th Ring Road, 7th Ring Road.
• Primary (80-100 km/h): major roads that are not freeways or expressways (e.g. Gulf Street & Routes 80 & 85 in parts of Kuwait)
• Secondary (≈60-80 km/h): big roads inside or between areas that continue into other areas (e.g. Al-Aqsa Mosque Street)
• Tertiary (≈45 km/h) major roads inside the area (e.g. Nasser Al-Mubarak street in Rumaithiya, Issa Al-Abdiljaleel Street in Rawda)
• Residential (≈45 km/h)

Ring Roads

The major highways conecting the East of Kuwait to the West are the ring road which are, perhaps with the exception of the 1st Ring Road, aren't actual ring roads (this is trivial and doesn't affect the mapping process). Ring Roads are mostly known by their number and not by their name, which is not the case for most other major routes. Because of that, I recommend putting "X Ring Road" in the name=* field for the highway (e.g. name=5th Ring Road) and putting the official names in official_name=*.,

Places and nodes

Follow the guidelines for most nodes. Some features the can be found in Kuwait might be hard to figure out how to map correctly.

Illustration	Place (Arabic)	Place (English)	Instructions	Example	Further information
	جمعية تعاونية	Co-Op Society	The territory in which the main supermarket, as well as the other shops and services, encompasses the actual Co-Op Society location (not just the grocery store in it). You can map the whole Co-Op as landuse=retail, and the main supermarket building should be mapped and named something like name:en=Jabriya Co-Op - Main Supermarket. You can also use short_name:en=Main Supermarket for cases in which showing the full name isn't practical.	For the territory of the co-op, which includes the main supermarket as well as the other shops and services: landuse=retail name=جمعية مشرف التعاونية name:en=Mishref Co-Op Society operator:type=public website=https://www.mishrefcoop.com/ contact:instagram=mishref_co_op addr:city=مشرف - قطعة 4 For the main supermarket within the co-op territory, mark the building and add the appropriate tags: building=commercial shop=supermarket name=جمعية مشرف - السوق المركزي name:en=Mishref Co-Op - Main Supermarket short_name=السوق المركزي short_name:en=Main Supermarket operator:type=public	[Co-Op Society on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-Op_Society]
N/A	برادة	(public) Water cooler	tag as a a water faucet (tap) + potable water + temperature key. If the tap is non-functional, you can use the disused=yes tag man_made=water_tap amenity=drinking_water (or drinking_water=yes) temperature=cold (only for working water coolers)
	ثلاجة	Public refrigerators
N/A	Supply branch (direct Arabic translation; subsidised or discounted government-run food supply ration depots/stores for citizens with families)	التموين			This seems similar to India's Public Distribution System, where the government has set up fair price shops/ration shops to sell commodities at a subsidized rate.
	ديوانية	Diwaniya			Diwaniya on Wikipedia
	حسينية	Husainiya			see Proposal:Husainiya
	مركز خدمة المواطن	Citizen Service Centre (Similar to an DMV/MVD in the USA)
	محل عصاير	Juice coffee shop	See Juice
	مأكولات كويتية تقليدية (آش وهريش أو باجلا ونخي)	Traditional Kuwaiti food deli
	مستوصف	Public polyclinics/Primary Healthcare Centres
	لوازم العائلة	Family Necessities	For bigger ones, tag as shop=doityourself and for smaller ones shop=hardware (it depends on the variety of stuff they sell)

Tips and Tricks

1. For public school, you can use school:gender=*
2. Instagram is a main hub for official information. You can add instagram accounts via contact:instagram=*

Trivia and other information

Most of Kuwait's areas are suburbs that are connected to Kuwait City. This has been the case since the foundation of the state. For example, the suburbs of Adailiya (which used to include Rawda as well) was a farming settlement. It is narrated that many Kuwaitis liked some subrubs in the past for some of their features, such as the nice vegetation (the area of Rumaithiya is named after the [1]), whereas the areas of Hawally and Adailiya were named for their sweet water. The area of Nizha literally just means a picnic. However, other big cities did exist, such as Jahra. Ahmadi is another non-connected area in the south of Kuwait that gained prominence due to its heavy use by the oil industry. Other non-metropolitan cities are recently built or in the process of being built include Subah Al-Ahmad City in the south and South Mitla or Residential Mitla in the north of Kuwait.

Following the oil boom, the Kuwaiti government started a housing scheme which built up and organized the suburbs to offer new dwellings and services. The 1st Ring Road encompasses most of the original Kuwait City proper, which includes the areas of Sharg, Jibla, Dasmān, Mirgāb, and Wuṣṭa which together form the capital of the country. Areas outside the ring are Kuwait City's suburbs

Contributors

Username/Team name	Status
Apple Data Team (#adt)	Active
User:Kuwaity26	Active
User:Q8Maps (#q8maps)	Active
Add your name/username here	N/A

Other maps

NEVER copy information from other map sources unless legally permitted to do so.

Independent

• OpenStreetMap
• Kuwait Finder / PACI GIS: The official map
• Google Maps: the most used (and thus most up-to-date) map in Kuwait which also offers traffic conditions and useful information such as opening hours (remember, you mustn't copy any of those to OSM). However, it does not support Kuwaiti addresses and often shows the wrong names of areas in which a place is located.
• Here WeGo
• Waze: owned by Google but the map is unique
• Wikimapia: outdated
• Yandex Maps

Mixed sources

• Apple Maps: TomTom + OSM (see also Organised Editing/Activities/Apple)
• Bing Maps: TomTom + OSM