Key:default_language - OpenStreetMap Wiki
Key:default_language
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Key:default language
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ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ
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Other languages...
default_language
Description
The most likely language of the
name
tags in the region.
Group:
names
Used on these
elements
Useful combination
name
=*
admin_level
Status:
undefined
default_language
More details at tag
info
Tools for this tag
taginfo
AD
AT
BE
BR
BY
CH
CN
CZ
DE
DK
FI
FR
GB
GR
HU
IE (N+S)
IN
IR
IT
LI
LU
JP
KP
KR
NL
NO
PL
PT
RU
ES
AR
MX
CO
BO
CL
EC
PY
PE
UY
VE
TW
UA
US
VN
overpass-turbo
QLever
Postpass via overpass-turbo
OSM Tag History
This tag is set to the most likely language of the
name
=*
tags in the region (e.g. a country). It helps data consumers decide which name or name:xx tag to use when drawing localized maps. This tag
does not
indicate which languages are spoken in the area, or the official languages of the region. It only applies to the
name
=*
alt_name
=*
, and the other similar tags.
Use the largest possible admin region for this value, e.g. a country relation with
admin_level
Do not set it on any smaller sub-regions unless their default language is different.
A region may contain a sub-region with a different
default_language
Always use just one language code per region (see multi-lingual regions below)
In some rare cases, additional non-admin regions might be required for the
default_language
. Try to avoid it if possible.
Multilingual Regions
This article or section contains
questionable, contentious
or
controversial information
. See the
talk page
for more information.
There is currently no clear evidence as to why a multi-lingual region should avoid listing multiple languages..
This tag should never be set to multiple semicolon-separated values just because multiple languages are used in an area, e.g.
default_language
fr;en
, because it has no meaning to the data consumer. Having two or more language codes does not tell the language of any specific
name
tag, and therefore should not be used.
The documentation for this key has long stated that multiple languages for multilingual areas renders the default language key useless. However, this is not demonstrably true of data consumers as a whole. For example, this blog post from
Nominatim
explains the advantage of listing multiple default languages for an area which is truly multilingual and for which breaking the languages down into fine grained regions does not help:
First of all, it is of course a bit naive to assume that exactly one language is spoken in each country. Even using a more fine-grained regions doesn’t help very much. There are enough regions where many languages are in parallel use. Fortunately, there is no need to determine exactly one language for our names. If multiple languages are spoken in a country, then we can simply take the name and analyse it multiple times, once for every language. There will be a couple of false results but still far less than our language-unaware algorithm produces now. As long as the language list for the country is complete, the right result will be in there as well.
- From "Detecting languages" (Section: "Multi-lingual countries"); 10 October 2021 on nominatim.org
[1]
If a region uses mixed languages in all of its name tags, e.g. separated by a dash or semicolon --
"[name_in_en] - [name_in_zh]"
, you could set
default_language
en - zh
, but this is not ideal. Please look at all name tags in the region with this
Overpass Turbo Query
. If you see that the majority of all tags are in a single language, please use that language (unless you can identify sub-areas with different languages). It is ok for the country or city name to have multiple languages in the name - they usually have many other names defined, so localizing them is not a problem. It is the majority of the other, smaller locations is what causes localization problems.
replace 000 with the region's relation ID --
quick link
out
csv
"name"
)];
relation
000
);
map_to_area
->
boundaryarea
nwr
area
boundaryarea
)[
name
];
out
Examples
default_language
fr
for
France
and
Quebec
See also
Multilingual names
Some country by country information particularly regarding the language used in the main 'name' tag.
Simple Sophox query of administrative boundaries and their default languages
See all regions with default_language tag
Sophox query
A query to view and copy the official country languages from Wikidata to admin_level=2 relations.
view results
show query editor
SELECT
?id
?loc
osmt
default_language
as
?tag_1
group_concat
distinct
?lng_code
separator
";"
as
?val_1
WHERE
hint
Query
hint
optimizer
"None"
# Find admin relations with wikidata tag
?id
osmt
admin_level
?admin
osmm
type
'r'
osmt
boundary
'administrative'
osmt
wikidata
?wd
osmm
loc
?loc
# Only admin_level=2
FILTER
?admin
"2"
# Remove those that already
FILTER
NOT EXISTS
?id
osmt
default_language
?default_language
SERVICE
# get the language code (P218=ISO 639-1) of the official language (P37)
?wd
wdt
P37
wdt
P218
?lng_code
GROUP BY
?id
?loc
# Limit to the regions with the single official language
HAVING
count
Retrieved from "
Categories
Key descriptions for group "names"
Key descriptions
Key descriptions with no status specified
Names
Questioned content
Hidden categories:
Pages unavailable in German
Pages unavailable in Spanish
Pages unavailable in French
Pages unavailable in Italian
Pages unavailable in Dutch
Pages unavailable in Russian
Pages unavailable in Japanese
Tag and key pages with missing images
Item with no description in language CS
Item with no description in language DE
Item with no description in language JA
Item with no description in language RU
Item with no description in language ES
Item with no description in language FR
Item with no description in language PT
Item with no description in language IT
Item with no description in language UK
Item with no description in language PL
Item with no description in language NL
Item with no description in language HU
Item with no description in language ZH-HANS
Item with no description in language ZH-HANT
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