Wales

Mapping projects in the United Kingdom by country – England · Northern Ireland · Scotland · Wales

V・T・E Wales, United Kingdom, Europe

latitude: 52.469, longitude: -3.318

Browse map of Wales 52°28′08.40″ N, 3°19′04.80″ W

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Users in Wales 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 Wikimedia Commons Wikipedia: en, fr OpenStreetMap contributors map Panoramax Mapillary KartaView

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Wales is a country in United Kingdom, Europe at latitude 52°28′08.40″ North, longitude 3°19′04.80″ West.

	Wales Mapping Project, the home of Wales on the OpenStreetMap wiki.
	Hello! Welcome to the project for mapping efforts in Wales! You can find here national events, ongoing projects, map status and mapping guidelines, as well as links to other pages directly related to the mapping of Wales. You may also find a list of contacts and mappers involved with the OpenStreetMap community in Wales.

This page contains information relating to mapping activity specific to Wales (Welsh: Cymru). Wales is one of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom.

Status

Overall, Wales is consistent with the state of the United Kingdom with regards to transport infrastructure. In rural areas, paths, bridleways, and roads may need to be realigned. Building and address data across the country is mixed in terms of quality and quantity. Points of interest are also varied, with many lacking or requiring updates in areas where there are no active mappers. However, landcover coverage and accuracy are improving, along with education, energy, and language data.

Projects

Contributors in Wales are encouraged to join in with UK-wide projects, however there are some projects specific to Wales:

• The Mapio Cymru project aims to make mapping in Welsh as good as in English.
• Some mappers have individual projects; improving their local areas, adding language provision data to schools, adding and improving landuse and landcover, adding power lines.

Events

No events are planned at present.

Add your event to OpenStreetMap Calendar

Contacts

Forum	Discussions on mapping in Wales often take place on the UK OSM forum
Discord	There are a few active Welsh users on the OpenStreetMap World Discord server
Mailing list	Discussions on mapping in Wales sometimes take place on the talk-gb mailing list
Mapio Cymru	The Mapio Cymru team can be contacted via mapio.cymru

Guidelines

Please follow the United Kingdom mapping Guidelines to ensure consistency with the rest of the UK community. Below is some more tips for editing in Wales:

• Please use current sources of information where possible. Mapping features or place-names based on old and out of copyright imagery may not reflect what's there today.
  • The OS OpenMap and OpenData layers are available to use and have some farmyard and forest names, but not all.
• Don't forget accents! "Tŷ" instead of "Ty", "Lôn" instead of "Lon", etc.
• DataMapWales from the Welsh Government has public sector data for Wales, such as peatland areas. Be aware that not all the maps are have ODbL-compatible licences.

Welsh names

Most places in Wales have Welsh names - these are most commonly shown on signs. Welsh names can be tagged using name:cy=*, see Multilingual names#Wales for an in-depth discussion of when and where to use it.

An OpenStreetMap Carto rendering showing the Welsh names is available at OpenStreetMap Cymraeg which is run by the Mapio Cymru team, who have created the following guide for mapping Welsh language place names:

Identifying Welsh names for features

Background information

Welsh is a living language with an extremely long history, but it has only comparatively recently received official status. This means that official sources of how features are named in Welsh are limited in some instances. It also means that many features are known by names in English even by those speaking Welsh. This can mean that identifying the correct name in Welsh for a feature can be difficult unless you are a local mapper who speaks Welsh.

This note suggests an approach to identifying the name in Welsh for mappers who are either not local or do not speak Welsh.

• Only apply a name in Welsh where you have evidence to suggest that is the name that is used.
• You should never apply a name in Welsh just because it is a simple translation of the name in English. In many cases the name in Welsh is not a translation of the English (or vice versa) and in many cases the name used in English is the correct name to use in Welsh (and vice versa).

Adding names in Welsh

Names in Welsh can be added to any features in OpenStreetMap using the tag name:cy=*, where cy denotes Cymraeg, the Welsh language.

It is helpful to add the name:cy=* tag even when the value in the name=* tag is in Welsh.

In Wales as in all other countries in OpenStreetMap the value in the name=* tag should be the name by which local people know the feature whether that name is in Welsh or English.

Signage

Signage on the feature is a good way of identifying the name in Welsh. Bilingual signage is common across Wales.

If there is an official sign that clearly gives the name of the feature in Welsh this is the best source for the name:cy=* tag.

You should double-check any name you identify from signage to avoid typographical errors.

Mutations

Please be aware that mutations are regularly used in signage. Mutations are a feature of the Welsh language where the first consonant in a word is changed according to particular grammatical rules.

On OpenStreetMap we always add the canonical version of the name without the initial mutation.

For example, when visiting Bangor, Gwynedd you will see "Croeso i Fangor" (Welcome to Bangor) on signs but we always use "Bangor" not "Fangor" on the map for the city itself.

This does not mean that there are no mutations on the map.

A name for a feature may contain mutations within it particularly if the name contains multiple words.

For example:

Ysgol y Garnedd is a school located in Bangor. The unmutated form of the Garnedd in its name would be Carnedd but in this context it is mutated to Garnedd. We would use "Ysgol y Garnedd" as the name in OpenStreetMap.

Where signage is not available

Though bilingual signage is common across Wales it is not universally or consistently applied. A single name on a sign may indicate that the same name is used in Welsh and English, it may indicate the name used in English, or may indicate the name used in Welsh.

In the absence of signage, here are some approaches that may be suitable to identify the correct Welsh name.

Key official name lists

The Welsh Language Commissioner maintains a list of standardised place names in English and Welsh which is available to download under an Open Government Licence. The Commissioner has also published standardisation guidelines which may help you decide which forms to select for the map.

The Welsh Government publishes a series of resources to support translators. These include lists of Electoral Ward names and names of Cadw monuments.

These are all authoritative lists.

Local signage may sometimes differ to authoritative lists and there may be multiple variants on local signage.

You can contact the Welsh Language Commissioner directly should you have any questions about how best to spell a place-name: [email protected]. You can also contact the Mapio Cymru team on [email protected].

The Welsh Government also publishes a list of international place names (countries, crown dependencies and UK overseas territories) standardised by the Welsh Language Commissioner’s Place-names Standardisation Panel. This constitutes the “official” names of these countries, used by Welsh Government and other public bodies, which may not be the same in all cases to the names used by individual Welsh speakers.

Other authoritative websites

Many organisations in Wales, particularly public bodies, publish information online bilingually. This can be a source of the correct Welsh name for a feature.

For example, in Caerphilly Borough there is a site named “Oakdale Business Park”. A search on the Caerphilly County Borough Council for “Oakdale Business Park” provides a press release “Discover new business opportunities: New Website Launched for Oakdale Business Park”. On this page selecting “Cymraeg” delivers the Welsh version of the story with the headline “Darganfod cyfleoedd busnes newydd: Lansio Gwefan Newydd ar gyfer Parc Busnes Oakdale”.

Accordingly it should be reasonable to use “Parc Busnes Oakdale” as the value in the name:cy=* tag.

You should double check any name you identify from websites.

Local knowledge

Local people who speak Welsh will be aware of the name used for the feature. If you are directly aware of the name used in Welsh, it may be appropriate to use that in the name:cy=* tag.

Brand or company names

Where a feature is named by a brand or company with a high profile it is possible to infer the correct name from knowledge of the brand.

For example:

• The brand name Tesco is the same when speaking Welsh or English. If the feature is, for example, a Tesco supermarket it would be correct to use Tesco as the value in name:cy=*.

The Post Office brand is Swyddfa’r Post in Welsh. If the feature is a post office, it would be correct to use Swyddfa’r Post as part of the value in name:cy=*.

For example:

• This feature has the name=* Aberystwyth Post Office, name:cy=* Swyddfa’r Post Aberystwyth and name:en=* Aberystwyth Post Office.

Other online sources

Wikidata

The National Library of Wales is a huge contributor to Wikidata. This means that for some features Wikidata can be a good source of names in Welsh.

The Mapio Cymru project renders names in Welsh from Wikidata where features lack a name:cy=* tag but possess a wikidata=* tag on the openstreetmap.cymru map. These names are also supplied to the Welsh Government for use in DataMapWales.

The Mapio Cymru project also supports the practice of adding Wikidata QIDs to OpenStreetMap features. If you aren’t confident of the name in Welsh, adding the Wikidata QID alone will be very helpful to the Welsh-language mapping community as well as the wider OSM community.

Wikidata should not be used as a primary source of names in Welsh. You may find it useful as a reference to definitive sources.

Identifying the name in Welsh for features outside of Wales

Identifying the name in Welsh of features outside of Wales is tricky. Bilingual signage is not used in England and there is no official standardisation.

Transport for Wales serves places in England by train and bus and provides bilingual materials for those places.

This article on Wicipedia maintains a list of names used in Welsh for places in England.

Welsh language media can be a good source of Welsh language names (for example when reporting on sporting fixtures) but this can be hard to access if you are not a Welsh speaker.

Wikidata may contain links to sources of Welsh names for locations. If you are unsure, adding the Wikidata QID may be the safest step.

Mapping data

Principal areas

The Principal Areas are governed by unitary authorities and are the legislative regions of Wales.

Council	OSM relation	Note
Anglesey	298793 298793
Blaenau Gwent	2750598 2750598
Bridgend	99774 99774
Caerphilly	2750677 2750677
Cardiff	1625787 1625787
Carmarthenshire	57534 57534
Ceredigion	77904 77904
Conwy	297287 297287
Denbighshire	192442 192442
Flintshire	198566 198566
Gwynedd	297286 297286
Merthyr Tydfil	2750939 2750939
Monmouthshire	358021 358021
Neath Port Talbot	89846 89846
Newport	335184 335184
Pembrokeshire	57535 57535
Powys	134324 134324
Rhondda Cynon Taf	2751428 2751428
Swansea	87944 87944
Torfaen	2750460 2750460
Vale of Glamorgan	103776 103776
Wrexham	137981 137981

Preserved counties

Preserved counties are counties based on the historic counties of Wales and used for lieutenancy.

Preserved county	OSM relation	Note
Clwyd	Relation not defined yet
Dyfed	Relation not defined yet
Gwent	Relation not defined yet
Gwynedd	77961 77961
Mid Glamorgan	Relation not defined yet
Powys	2699713 2699713
South Glamorgan	11683951 11683951
West Glamorgan	11684749 11684749

Historic counties

There are thirteen historic counties of Wales (including Monmouthshire), the last of which were created by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. For the purposes of biological recording each historic county forms an eponymous vice county, with the detached parts of Flintshire treated as being in Denbighshire.

Historic county	OSM relation	Vice county	OSM relation	Note
Anglesey		VC52	360939 360939
Brecknockshire		VC42	359909 359909
Caernarvonshire		VC49	298872 298872
Cardiganshire		VC46	361613 361613
Carmarthenshire		VC44	361616 361616
Denbighshire	363513 363513	VC50	298843 298843	VC50 includes Maelor and Marford.
Flintshire	363512 363512	VC51	298834 298834	VC51 excludes Maelor and Marford.
Glamorgan		VC41	359902 359902
Merionethshire		VC48	298875 298875
Monmouthshire		VC35	359815 359815
Montgomeryshire		VC47	298880 298880
Pembrokeshire		VC45	361615 361615
Radnorshire		VC43	359950 359950

National Parks

3 of the National Parks in the United Kingdom are in Wales.

Name	OSM Relation	Note
Bannau Brycheiniog	357283 357283
Pembrokeshire Coast	165598 165598
Eryri	287245 287245

Cities

• Cardiff
• Bangor
• Newport
• St Asaph
• St Davids
• Swansea
• Wrexham

Boundary

The Welsh boundary can be best considered as split into three types:

1. The land-based border between Wales and England. This is well defined, but the lack of copyright-free data means that the OSM boundary has been derived from New Popular Edition data and its accuracy may be limited.
2. The maritime border between Wales and international waters. This was defined by the Government of Wales Act 2006, section 158: “Wales” includes the sea adjacent to Wales out as far as the seaward boundary of the territorial sea. The territorial boundary is in general 12 nautical miles (22.22 km) from the mean low water mark. In OSM, this has been automatically derived from coastline data.
3. The maritime border between Wales and England, extending from land along the Dee and Severn estuaries to the territorial limit. The boundary is defined by means of specified coordinates in The Welsh Zone (Boundaries and Transfer of Functions) Order 2010. (Note: the coordinates specified in this legislation are erroneously written in degrees-minutes-seconds format when they are, presumably, degrees and decimal minutes, as the "seconds" are greater than 59 in several cases.)

See United Kingdom boundaries for more discussion regarding UK boundaries.

The boundary for Wales' maritime unitary authorities is generally at the 3 mile limit except where special provisions apply where islands are within three miles of more than one Unitary authority or where unitary authorities are themselves closer than 3 miles to one another. Thus the division between Anglesey and Gwynedd is a notional line down the Menai Strait. For Gwynedd the boundary includes Bardsey Island and out to a limit of 3 miles beyond.