Key:ruins

This tag is used in two ways:

• as ruins=yes to indicate that a structure is in ruins,
• as a sub-tag of historic=ruins to define the historic structure that is in ruins.

ruins=yes

ruins=yes is used in conjunction with a tag representing a structure to indicate that the structure is in ruins, e.g. historic=castle + ruins=yes or building=yes + ruins=yes

Notes:

• Most data consumers don't evaluate the tag ruins=yes and thus handle the structure as it were intact. It is especially problematic for features such as amenity=hospital where ruins=yes would be a trolltag. For this reason, an unknown part of mappers advise not to use ruins=yes.^[1] As an alternative, historic=ruins together with a ruins=* sub-tag is often used for historical ruins (see section Sub-tag of historic=ruins below) and the lifecycle prefix ruins:* for non-historic features. Though for some features, such as castles - also a ruined one fulfils very similar function (tourism attraction) so ruins=yes is not always a very big problem.
• Some mappers use ruins=yes for structures that are still recognisable for what they once used to be, and historic=ruins or ruins:* for structures that are no longer recognisable for what they used to be (e.g. where only the foundation walls are still visible).

Sub-tag of historic=ruins

ruins=* is used in conjunction with historic=ruins to define the historic structure that is in ruins, e.g. historic=ruins + ruins=church. Some used values are:

See also

• Comparison of life cycle concepts — various ways (several in proposal stage) to represent map features at different points of their life cycle
• Lifecycle prefix — one of the ways to represent map features according to their life cycle stage

References