WikiProject Belgium/Conventions/Street names

Here are some general guidelines about the way streets should be named, as a complement to the Key:name page.

Choosing the right name and dealing with abbreviations

Whereas the usual "ground truth" rule applies, street signs or government databases may contain mistakes or simplifications.

Tag Value
name=* Used for what you find on the street name sign. Should contain the full name for the street, without abbreviations. If the name has been abbreviated on the sign, write the full name.

Example: A street sign where the space is tight and most words are heavily abbreviated may say "Prof. R. Verdeyenstr." but the name in OSM will be "Professor René Verdeyenstraat".

official_name=* Can be used to add an official name, as in government databases, if it's different from the name on the street sign.

Note: When using official_name, also use the corresponding addr:street_official on buildings and POI addresses.

addr:street On buildings, write the full name of the street, without abbreviations. Take into account the notes below this table. E.g. Sint-Apollonialaan.
addr:street_official On buildings, use the official name of the street. This street may be shortened. E.g. St.-Apollonialaan. Use the digital streetname-register which is available per region.
alt_name=* Used for alternate spellings, for colloquial names or spellings which must be available for searches.

For example:

  • Without the first name ("Place Eugène Flagey" becomes "Place Flagey")
  • If street sign has "St-Janstraat" and GRB has "Sint-Janstraat", alt_name could have the abbreviated version.

If the name contains a spelling mistake, you may fix it.

  • Example: The street signs incorrectly spells "Franklin D. Rosevelt"; provided that you did some research to be sure that it is really a typo, you will type "Franklin D. Roosevelt".
  • Example: Some street signs use all-caps signs, without accented characters. "RUE DE L'ECOLE" should be written as "Rue de l'École" in OSM.
  • Always enlarge words wherever possible. Examples below:
    • Dr. => Dokter
      • If the - is present on both the street sign and official name, you may keep the dash in the full name.
    • Kon. => Koning
    • IIIstraat => III-straat
    • F.J. Houbenstraat / A. Stocletlaan / ... => full name of said person (with spaces)
      • + name:etymology to add extra info like the full legal name in correct order or more first/middle names.
    • For holy names (St./OLV) see below.

Holy names

Holy names such as Saint or "Our Lady" are often abbreviated in an inconsistent way. Dots after an abbreviation, with or without dash. Sometimes with or without space between the dot and the next word.

  • Saint is often written like:
    • St.
    • St.-
  • OLV may be written like:
    • O.L.V.
    • O-L-V

In addition to this inconsistent naming scheme, the street sign rarely (never) matches official data (geopunt/...). Because of these constant inconsistencies, OSMBE has made the decision to enforce a uniformal writing: always write names full, without abbreviations.

In addition to the full name-policy, holy names must carry a dash separator ( - ) :

Examples

  • in Balen
    • St.Odradastraat
    • becomes Sint-Odradastraat.
  • In Mol
    • St.-Odradastraat
    • becomes Sint-Odradastraat as well.
  • Thanks to the OSMBE's uniformal naming scheme, these examples are displayed the same way in the search. See example in nominatim.

Language rules

Monolingual territories

Most municipalities of Belgium have only one official language. The name=* tag must include the name in that language only. If there are official translations, they may be added as name:<lg>=* where <lg>=* is the language code for the other language.

Brussels-Capital Region

The entire Brussels-Capital Region is bilingual. Apart from a few streets for which the name is identical in every language (Heiligenborre, Kruisberg, Tomberg, etc.), street names are always written in the two official languages. The convention is "fr - nl" and additional name:fr=* and name:nl=* are mandatory.

Municipalities with facilities

Those are 27 municipalities along the edges of each language area, where a special regime applies for a minority language. In general, street signs use both languages.

The name=* tag on streets should use a bilingual version starting with the primary language, then the "facilities" language. For instance, name=Rue de la Gare - Stationstraat + name:fr=Rue de la Gare + name:nl=Stationstraat.

The streets must use "de - fr" in the following municipalities:

  • Amel
  • Büllingen
  • Burg-Reuland
  • Bütgenbach
  • Eupen
  • Kelmis
  • Lontzen
  • Raeren
  • Sankt Vith

The streets must use "fr - de" in the following municipalities:

  • Malmedy
  • Waimes

The streets must use "fr - nl" in the following municipalities:

  • Comines-Warneton
  • Enghien
  • Flobecq
  • Mouscron

The streets must use "nl - fr" in the following municipalities:

  • Bever
  • Drogenbos
  • Herstappe
  • Kraainem
  • Linkebeek
  • Mesen
  • Ronse
  • Sint-Genesius-Rode
  • Spiere-Helkijn
  • Voeren
  • Wemmel
  • Wezembeek-Oppem

Until 2024, the standard was not clearly settled and monolingual names are still commonly found. A discussion on the community forum and a vote brought up the standard described here.


Streets that are on the border of municipalities

It is relatively common for names to differ by side of the road. For example, a street on the boundary between Ninove and Pamel (Roosdaal) can be given the name "Brusselsesteenweg" in Ninove and "Brusselse Baan" in Pamel (Roosdaal).

This is solved by using the name:left=* and name:right=* tags to name both sides separately (using the direction of the way to determine left and right). The name=* tag should also be filled and should include both names.

To avoid confusion with multilingual names, the separator / is preferred.

Example:

Note: different left-and-right names doesn't preclude the existence of multilingual names. So tags like name:left:fr=* are possible.

It is not required to add the municipality names (left or right) to the street.

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