Relations

In OpenStreetMap, relations define logical or geographic relationships between other nodes, ways and relations.

The most common relation type is a multipolygon, but all other relations can be imported as well.

Multipolygons

Multipolygon relations are used to represent complex polygon geometries. They are also the only way to represent holes in polygons.

Multipolygon relations are automatically handled by Imposm for all polygon tables.

The following mapping:

tables:
  buildings:
    type: polygon
    mapping:
      building: [__any__]

Inserts closed ways if they have a building tag:

<way id="1001" version="1" timestamp="2011-11-11T00:11:11Z">
  <nd ref="1001"/>
  ...
  <nd ref="1001"/>
  <tag k="building" v="yes"/>
</way>

It will also insert relations of the type multipolygon with a building tag:

<relation id="17101" version="1" timestamp="2011-11-11T00:11:11Z">
  <member type="way" ref="17101" role="outer"/>
  <member type="way" ref="17102" role="outer"/>
  <tag k="type" v="multipolygon"/>
  <tag k="building" v="yes"/>
</relation>

The roles are ignored by Imposm as not all holes are correctly tagged as inner. Imposm uses geometry operations to verify if a member of a multipolygon is a hole, or if it is a separate polygon.

Old-style multipolygon relations with tags on the outer way, instead of the relation are no longer supported.

Other relations

OpenStreetMap also uses relations to map more complex features. Some examples:

These relations can not be mapped to simple linestrings or polygons as they can contain a mix of different geometry types, or would result in invalid geometries (overlapping polygons).

The Imposm table types relation and relation_member allow you to import all relevant data for these relations.

relation_member

The relation_member table type inserts each member of the relation as a separate row. The relation_member has access to the role and type value of each member. You can also import tags from the relation and from the member node, way or relation.

Example

You can use the following mapping:

route_members:
  type: relation_member
  columns:
  - name: osm_id
    type: id
  - name: member
    type: member_id
  - name: index
    type: member_index
  - name: role
    type: member_role
  - name: type
    type: member_type
  - name: geometry
    type: geometry
  - name: relname
    key: name
    type: string
  - name: name
    key: name
    type: string
    from_member: true
  - key: ref
    name: ref
    type: string
  relation_types: [route]
  mapping:
    route: [bus]

to import a bus relation with stops, a platform and the route itself:

<relation id="100901" version="1" timestamp="2015-06-02T04:13:19Z">
 <member type="node" ref="100101" role="stop_entry_only"/>
 <member type="node" ref="100102" role="stop"/>
 <member type="way" ref="100511" role="platform"/>
 <member type="node" ref="100103" role="stop_exit_only"/>
 <member type="way" ref="100501" role=""/>
 <member type="way" ref="100502" role=""/>
 <member type="way" ref="100503" role=""/>
 <tag k="name" v="Bus 301: A =&gt; B"/>
 <tag k="network" v="ABC"/>
 <tag k="ref" v="301"/>
 <tag k="route" v="bus"/>
 <tag k="type" v="route"/>
</relation>

This will result in seven rows with the following columns:

Column

Description

osm_id

The ID of the relation. 100901 for all members.

member

The ID of the member. 100101, 100102, etc.

index

The index of the member. From 1 for 100101 to 7 for 100503. This can be used to query the bus stops in the correct order.

role

The role of the member. stop, platform, etc.

type

0 for nodes, 1 for ways and 2 for other relations.

geometry

The geometry of the member. Point for nodes and linestring for ways.

relname

The value of the name tag of the relation. Bus 301: A => B in this case.

name

The value of the name tag of the member element, if it has one. Note that the mapping contains from_member: true for this column.

ref

The value of the ref tag of the relation. 301 in this case.

You can insert the tags of the relation in a separate relation table to avoid duplication and then use joins when querying the data. Both osm_id and member_id columns are indexed in PostgreSQL by default to speed up these joins.

relation

The relation table type inserts the mapped element regardless of the resulting geometry. For example, this allows you to create a table with the metadata (name, reference, operator, etc.) of all available route relations. The actual geometries need to be joined from the members.

Example

The following mapping imports the bus route relation from above:

routes:
  type: relation
  columns:
  - name: osm_id
    type: id
  - key: ref
    name: ref
    type: string
  - name: network
    key: network
    type: string
  relation_types: [route]
  mapping:
    route: [bus]

This will create a single row with the mapped columns.

Note

relation tables do not support geometry columns. Use the geometries of the members, or use a polygon table if your relations contain multipolygons.