[Tagging] Flat area in the mountains

[Tod Fitch]

> On Apr 23, 2022, at 6:53 PM, Brad Haack <bradhaack at fastmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thinking about this some more, I can think of a few examples where it is used as Steve described, relatively flat.  In my examples they are surrounded by higher and lower terrain, but not very well defined topographically.
> 
> Sand Flats, Utah, https://www.blm.gov/visit/sand-flats-recreation-area-0
> 
> "A high plain of slick rock domes, bowls and fins, it rises in the east to meet the colorful mesas and nearly 13,000 foot peaks of the La Sal Mountains."
> 
> 'A high plain' seems like a stretch to me, but I'm not a geographer.   It isn't even very flat on the micro level, probably 40% slopes over 100 meters
> 
> Oil Well Flats, Colorado, and Turkey Flats Colorado.   Both relatively flat, surrounded by much steeper terrain.
> 
> If these didn't have a defined recreation area associated with them, it would be difficult to place a boundary to define a natural=* area.
> 
> Sometimes place=locality makes sense.
> 
> 
> On 4/23/22 17:14, stevea wrote:
>> On Apr 23, 2022, at 2:55 PM, Graeme Fitzpatrick <graemefitz1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Sat, 23 Apr 2022 at 20:42, solitone <solitone at mail.com> wrote:
>>> I would opt for something like natural=flat, since flat seem to be the english term used for this kind of feature [4]. Unfortunately I’m not a native speaker!
>>> 
>>> I am, & have never heard of it being used for a spot in the mountains, only for tidal-flats & other flat areas, usually in the desert or similar e.g. salt flats.
>>> 
>>> I think I'd go with your suggestion of natural=plateau.
>> And, that's OK.  I'll offer a US English perspective that I HAVE heard "flat" used in this way.  At one of my visits to Burning Man (1997?) the entirety of Black Rock City was moved from "the playa" (a very, VERY flat alkali dry lake bed in a desert) to Hualapai Flat, a relatively "level" area in a slightly-hilly area.  Also, there is a place in a coastal hilly area near me where people go mountain biking, and partly at the crest of some of those hills and partly what makes a sort of natural "saddle" area or maybe "bowl-like" topography, this is called "Sandy Flat" by all the mountain bikers in the area, to identify where a bunch of trails come together in a kind of confusing way (but we have all the trails and a node with place=locality, name=Sandy Flat in OSM, thankfully, so nobody gets lost).
>> 
>> So, "flat" IS used in (some forms of) English, denoting a "more flat than it is usually around here" kind of area.  Whether that extends in OSM to natural=flat, I'm not sure, but I would nod my head if I saw something tagged like that, meaning "ah, I understand what is meant here."  YMMV.

English, at least American English, can have some very regional terms. I was struck by this when looking at how some features in another country were tagged and came across a feature tagged as natural=gorge. Looking at the contour lines, etc. I thought that I’d have tagged it natural=canyon instead. So I went looking at taginfo and the wiki to find that actually “gorge” was probably correct though one of the example photos showed what I would consider a “slot canyon”. A quick look at some dictionaries gave me the impression that “canyon” might actually be a borrow from the Spanish “cañon” and even in the US seems to be used more in the west and southwest than in other parts of the country. On a world wide basis, “gorge” is probably more used and thus more correct to be picked as a OSM tag than “canyon”.

Regarding the use of “flat” or “flats” to describe a land form, not too far from me there is “Manker Flat”, basically a wide and relatively flat portion of another wise fairly steep and deep valley (or canyon or gorge). To the east in the same mountain range is “Henninger Flats”. So, “flat” or “flats” as a name for a relatively flat area in otherwise steep mountainous terrain is certainly used in this area. And I think that a native English speaker from most dialects would understand it even if not widely used in their part of the world.

Defining the boundary of a flat area might be a problem. You might be able to hike around what you think is a reasonable perimeter to collect a GPS track. Or you could use a topographic information to make a guess. But you probably would not be able to do it from aerial imagery. Again, in my area the areas with “flat” or “flats” in the name also seem hold other mappable features, as they are easier to build or develop than other areas near by. In the case of the two above there are named campgrounds which can be, and are, mapped so there is something there other than natural=* to put a name tag on.

If there is nothing else mappable in the area to put the name on then I am agnostic on how to map. I could argue that a point someplace around the center would be sufficient as the boundaries are not usually clearly defined. But, as in the case of Manker Flat, the area could extend longer in one direction than in the other and a linear (way) tag could make sense. And I would not rule out the existence of a flat area with clearly defined edges that could be mapped as a polygon.



-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/attachments/20220423/50026a95/attachment.sig>