Tag:building=kingdom hall

A building that was built as a  Kingdom Hall for  Jehovah's Witnesses. This includes cases where the building is no longer used for its original purpose.

While Jehovah's Witnesses represent a brand of Christianity, they do not call their places of worship churches because of a different take on the semantics of the word 'church'. They use the term 'Kingdom Hall' instead. As such, when a building is built as a Kingdom Hall, and is clearly recognizable as having been built as a place of worship, this tag can be used.

Note that some places regularly used as a Kingdom Hall, but which were not constructed as such may not qualify for this tag, for example an adapted residential building now used as a Kingdom Hall. This is similar to building=church and other building=* values.

How to map

Draw as an area along the building outline. In cases where it is impossible one may use a node instead.

Tag it with building=kingdom_hall.

Possible tagging mistakes

While probably quite rare, in some cases a Jehovah's Witnesses congregation may use a building that was originally built as a church for a different denomination of Christianity. While the building will not be referred to as a church by the Jehovah's Witnesses, in OpenStreetMap it should be tagged as building=church if it was built as one and looks like one. This is because building=* documents a building's type and appearance, not its current function. amenity=place_of_worship with the proper religion=* and denomination=* marks its current function (if it is used as place of worship).