I originally thought that just using the existing tag natural=plateau was easiest, but a couple people have been in favor of using 2 new tags.
1) natural=butte for hills with small flat tops surrounded by cliffs, where the width of the flat area is less than the height of the hill. Wikipedia: " an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butte) These buttes in Monument Valley are a very famous example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monument_Valley,_late_afternoon.jpg Courthouse butte in Sedona: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Butte_pdphoto_roadtrip_24_bg_021604.jpg 2) natural=mesa for mountains and hills with flat tops surrounded by cliffs, where the width of the flat tableland is greater than the height. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa "an elevated area of land with a flat top and sides that are usually steep cliffs" Eg these mesas in Canyonlands National Park, Utah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IslandInTheSky.JPG Lower Table Rock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lower_Table_Rock_from_the_south.jpg These definitions are found in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butte - "geographers use the rule of thumb that a mesa has a top that is wider than its height, while a butte has a top that is narrower than its height" (citing http://www.scienceclarified.com/landforms/Faults-to-Mountains/Mesa-and-Butte.html as a source) This would leave natural=plateau for any other "area of a highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain, that is raised significantly above the surrounding area, often with one or more sides with steep slopes", including large highlands that are less well defined, and small plateaus that lack the cliffs or steep slopes on all sides that define a mesa or butte. Thus mesas and buttes could be mapped as nodes or areas, but plateaus could only be mapped as nodes. Thoughts? On 4/18/19, Paul Allen <pla16...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 19:11, Mark Wagner <mark+...@carnildo.com> wrote: > >> >> I don't think there's an English English term for them -- England >> barely has any topographical relief at all. They even had to import >> "mountain" from the French. > > > The UK does have some topographical relief but not any plateaus that I can > think of. However, > we Brits are familiar with the word - we stole various parts of the world > from indigenous > inhabitants which had that sort of topography. > > Unless there's something I'm missing, we're going to need to pick an >> English import >> from one of the countries that does have plateaus, mesas, or buttes. >> > > We may have to use all of those words. From looking at the three relevant > articles on > Wikipedia, it appears that mesas are larger than buttes and plateaus are > larger than mesas. > Tableland is a synonym of plateau. I'd say natural=plateau/mesa/butte. > But I expect there will > be many people who disagree with that - there are as many opinions on this > list as there > are subscribers. > > -- > Paul > _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
