NoeFlandre/osm-polygon-image-tag

OSM Polygon Image Tag

This dataset connects OpenStreetMap polygons to image references found in their tags. It contains closed ways and relations only.

The release has three files:

• polygons: one current row per OSM type and ID, including its geometry and all original tags.
• images: one row for each unique provider image. It keeps the provider's reference and, when available, a direct image URL.
• polygon_images: the links between features and images. This is a separate file. One image can be linked to many features, and one feature can have many images.

A tag value is the original reference. It may be a URL, provider ID, UUID, or category name; it is not always an image URL. The images file records the lookup result. Use polygons for the original OSM tags and images for the lookup result.

Snapshot summary

This snapshot contains:

• Source PBF files processed: 386
• Published OSM features: 337,531
• Duplicate polygon rows removed: 16,621
• Unique image records: 2,292,957
• Image-reference links checked: 2,457,001
• Unique images with a usable direct image URL: 2,147,980
• Links with a usable direct image URL: 2,301,664
• Duplicate image records removed: 378,767
• Duplicate polygon-to-image links removed: 214,723

These percentages count polygon-to-image links, not unique images. A single image can be linked to more than one polygon.

Among 2,301,664 links with a usable direct image URL:

• Directly linked from an OSM tag: 117,237 (5.1%)

• Indirectly reached through a Wikimedia Commons category: 2,184,427 (94.9%)

• Unique images with a non-expiring image URL: 2,147,980

• Unique images with a provider page URL (a page, not necessarily an image): 2,141,255

• Cached lookups reused: 215,872

• New provider lookups: 161,499

The source-tag counts below are counts of polygons carrying each tag, not image counts.

• image: 144,661
• wikimedia_commons: 162,225
• mapillary: 51,638
• panoramax: 12,018
• kartaview: 83
• flickr: 580
• bubbleid: 612

Where the features are

Polygon density map

Each colored H3 cell shows the number of published polygon rows in that cell. We place a polygon in the cell containing its geometry's center, so every polygon is counted once. The map uses H3 resolution 3, a global grid system. Colors use a logarithmic scale (magma) so sparse and dense areas are both visible. Cell counts range from 1 to 8,699 across 3,951 cells. The map contains 337,531 published polygon rows from all 386 processed source PBF files. Image rows and links are not counted on this map.

How repeated rows are removed

The same OSM feature can appear in more than one source PBF file, and an object can have several historical versions. The public polygons file keeps one row per OSM type and ID. Rows with the same OSM type, ID, and version are duplicates. The newest version (or newest timestamp when no version is available) wins.

1. We keep one copy, chosen by a fixed rule so the result is reproducible.
2. We list every source file in source_pbfs, so the provenance is not lost.
3. We deduplicate images by provider and physical image identity. A usable image URL is preferred; provider ID, reference, or page URL is used when no image URL exists.
4. We keep each distinct feature-to-image tag relationship in polygon_images, merging its source files and observed OSM versions.

The private per-PBF files remain available for resume and audit; the public files contain only this deduplicated view.

What is in the files

polygons

Each row contains the OSM type, ID, version, changeset, timestamp, source information, geometry, area in square metres, bounding box, every original OSM tag, and the raw image-reference values: image, wikimedia_commons, mapillary, panoramax, kartaview, flickr, and bubbleid.

geometry is compact WKB geometry in CRS84. tags and panoramax_values are lists of {"key": ..., "value": ...} objects, which makes every original tag easy to read in the Dataset Viewer. source_pbfs lists all source PBF files that contained the feature.

images

Each row describes one unique provider image. It keeps the provider's reference, lookup status, provider page URL, direct image URL when one was found, expiration time, file type, dimensions, and license/author information when available.

polygon_images

Each row connects one polygon to one image and keeps the original tag key/value, reference, relation type, source files, and observed OSM versions. Join it to polygons with osm_type and osm_id, and to images with image_id.

from datasets import load_dataset

polygons = load_dataset("NoeFlandre/osm-polygon-image-tag", "polygons")
images = load_dataset("NoeFlandre/osm-polygon-image-tag", "images")
polygon_images = load_dataset("NoeFlandre/osm-polygon-image-tag", "polygon_images")

Example rows

These are real rows from this snapshot and show every column in each file. Geometry is shown as WKB hex (a compact binary format). Secret-like URL query values are redacted in this documentation example.

polygons

{
  "osm_type": "relation",
  "osm_id": 566,
  "osm_version": 10,
  "osm_changeset": 0,
  "osm_timestamp": "2026-03-15T14:28:11+00:00",
  "source_pbf": "belgium-latest.osm.pbf",
  "source_feature_id": "belgium-latest.osm.pbf|relation|566|10",
  "geometry": "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",
  "geometry_type": "MultiPolygon",
  "area_m2": 1199.756473168498,
  "bbox_min_lon": 4.6847903,
  "bbox_min_lat": 50.8605152,
  "bbox_max_lon": 4.6857283,
  "bbox_max_lat": 50.8610441,
  "tags": [
    {
      "key": "OnroerendErfgoed:criteria",
      "value": "M"
    },
    {
      "key": "addr:city",
      "value": "Heverlee"
    },
    {
      "key": "addr:housename",
      "value": "De Oude Kantien"
    },
    {
      "key": "addr:housenumber",
      "value": "3"
    },
    {
      "key": "addr:postcode",
      "value": "3001"
    },
    {
      "key": "addr:street",
      "value": "Kantineplein"
    },
    {
      "key": "building",
      "value": "yes"
    },
    {
      "key": "building:levels",
      "value": "2"
    },
    {
      "key": "description",
      "value": "Former coaching inn of Arenberg Castle domain"
    },
    {
      "key": "heritage",
      "value": "4"
    },
    {
      "key": "heritage:operator",
      "value": "OnroerendErfgoed"
    },
    {
      "key": "heritage:website",
      "value": "https://inventaris.onroerenderfgoed.be/dibe/relict/83764"
    },
    {
      "key": "historic",
      "value": "wayside_inn"
    },
    {
      "key": "old_name",
      "value": "Afspanning Cantine"
    },
    {
      "key": "ref:OnroerendErfgoed",
      "value": "83764"
    },
    {
      "key": "start_date",
      "value": "1641"
    },
    {
      "key": "type",
      "value": "multipolygon"
    },
    {
      "key": "wikimedia_commons",
      "value": "File:Heverlee-Kantineplein3-Cantine.JPG"
    }
  ],
  "image": null,
  "wikimedia_commons": "File:Heverlee-Kantineplein3-Cantine.JPG",
  "mapillary": null,
  "panoramax": null,
  "panoramax_values": [],
  "kartaview": null,
  "flickr": null,
  "bubbleid": null,
  "source_pbfs": [
    "belgium-latest.osm.pbf"
  ]
}

images

{
  "image_id": "img_000002824988937a95abe458f339c4ea12e05281a078a7d9f84e0bdbfeab353e",
  "provider": "wikimedia_commons",
  "canonical_reference": "Kneipp-Anlage in Niederalteich",
  "provider_asset_id": "136071540",
  "page_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kneipp_Anlage_(Niederalteich).jpg",
  "image_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Kneipp_Anlage_%28Niederalteich%29.jpg",
  "thumbnail_url": null,
  "image_url_expires_at": null,
  "mime_type": "image/jpeg",
  "width": 8000,
  "height": 6000,
  "license_id": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0",
  "author": "<a href=\"//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:APneunzehn74&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1\" class=\"new\" title=\"User:APneunzehn74 (page does not exist)\">APneunzehn74</a>",
  "status": "resolved",
  "reason": null,
  "category_truncated": false,
  "retry_after": null,
  "resolver_contract_version": 1,
  "response_sha256": "10cdd6166870a9be2d259d66960ca4cd720598bb13d44e9aa860ebd770d26ee2",
  "source_pbfs": [
    "bayern-latest.osm.pbf"
  ]
}

polygon_images

{
  "osm_type": "way",
  "osm_id": 30044304,
  "osm_version": 19,
  "image_id": "img_06e3ff3e92599f810eac5d15dbed94aa45d6f6b742d92a8c4a420fb3735d761f",
  "provider": "wikimedia_commons",
  "source_tag_key": "wikimedia_commons",
  "source_tag_value": "Category:Felix Meritis",
  "canonical_reference": "Felix Meritis",
  "asset_index": 124,
  "relation_kind": "category_membership",
  "source_pbfs": [
    "netherlands-latest.osm.pbf"
  ],
  "observed_osm_versions": [
    19
  ]
}

Code and metrics

The pipeline is maintained in the OSM Polygon Image Tag GitHub repository.

The Trackio metrics Space shows the current row counts, image-URL coverage, duplicate removal, and map summary. It stores one data-derived snapshot for each published update.

This snapshot is versioned as GitHub release v0.1.1.

Source, license, and citation

The source extracts come from Geofabrik's OpenStreetMap extracts. OpenStreetMap geometry, tags, and feature metadata are available under the Open Database License (ODbL). Attribution: © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Image links are separate from the OSM data. The provider terms and image license are separate from ODbL. When available, the images row records this information in license_id and license_url. A URL is not permission to copy, redistribute, or use the image. Check the provider and the original image page before using an image. This dataset does not download or relicense image files.

If you use this dataset, cite Noé Flandre, OSM Polygon Image Tag, version 0.1.0. The machine-readable citation is in the dataset's citation.cff and the project's citation.cff.

Limitations

An image reference or URL can be stale, inaccessible, provider-specific, or unrelated to the mapped feature. A URL is not a guarantee that an image can be downloaded today. Inclusion does not establish copyright, license, safety, or that the image depicts the feature. A Wikimedia Commons category can contain many unrelated files; those rows are marked category_membership. The pipeline does not download image bodies.

Statistics in this card are generated only from finalized, size-checked public GeoParquet files. (See the generated statistics file for exact counts.) The map uses Natural Earth 1:110m landmass data (public domain) for context.