Key:material

Description
Describes the main material of a physical feature.
Group: properties
Used on these elements
Documented values: 3
Status: de facto
material=* More details at taginfo
Tools for this tag
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=* – describes the main material of a physical feature.

It is most commonly used to describe the material of monuments, memorials, statues, walls, fences, but can be used for any other physical object except those listed below, which use other tags:

• Building façade → building:material=*
• Roof of a building → roof:material=*
• Main surface of roads → surface=* for values such as surface=asphalt or surface=mud
  • =* can be still used as an extra detail – for example surface=unhewn_cobblestone =granite is fine
  • surface=granite and similar should ideally be avoided.
  • For surface=paving_stones there is paving_stones:material=*, which can also be used.
• What is inside, for example in a storage tank → content=*.

Common values

Key	Value	Description	Photo
	wood	Wood.
	concrete	Concrete.
	metal	Unspecified metal. It is better to use a more accurate value if you know what metal it is.
	steel	Steel.
	stone	Stone. Use a more precise value if you know which stone it is (see the following lines).
	reinforced_concrete	Reinforced concrete.
	plastic	Plastic.
	brick	Brick.
	bronze	Bronze.
	granite	Granite.
	brass	Brass.
	glass	Glass.
	sandstone	Sandstone.
	rock	Rock. To avoid, prefer =stone
	aluminium	Aluminium.
	copper	copper.
	soil	Soil, earth. Often used in combination with man_made=embankment.
	marble	Marble.
	limestone	Limestone.
	tufa	Tufa and/or travertine - a soft sedimentary rock formed by the chemical precipitation of calcium carbonate minerals from fresh water, typically in springs, rivers, and lakes, especially in karst around waterfalls
	dry_stone	Dry stone, stones laid without any mortar to bind them together.
	andesite	Andesite.
	adobe	Adobe, mudbrick. Material made from earth and organic materials.
	iron	Iron.
	cast_iron	Cast_iron.
	wrought_iron	Wrought_iron.
	sheet_metal	Sheet_metal.
	ceramic	Ceramic.
	terracotta	Terracotta.
	sand	Sand.
	plaster	Plaster.
	slate	Slate.
	bamboo	Bamboo.
	metal_grid	Metal grid (depending on the model also called wire mesh or wire grid, comparable is also perforated metal) is a specific type of =metal. It is often used for seats and backrests of benches, sometimes also for outdoor tables.
	basalt	Basalt.
	weathering_steel	Weathering steel, sometimes called COR-TEN steel, are steel alloys that obtain a distinctive stable rust-like exterior when exposed to the weather. Typically used as building cladding and in abstract sculptures.
	tyres	Tyres.
	rammed_earth	Rammed earth.
	trachyte	Trachyte.
	greywacke	Greywacke.
	fieldstone	Fieldstone.
	muschelkalk	Muschelkalk.
	palm_leaves	Arecaceae.
	epoxy	Epoxy, a family of resins that may replace wood or concrete to mould or cast several industrial, urban, or domestic appliances
	gabion	Gabion., is a cage, cylinder, or cube, typically mesh, filled with solid material.
	masonry	Masonry is not a material. Please use other values.
	user defined	All commonly used values according to Taginfo

This table is a wiki template with a default description in English. Editable here.

Using material tag for detailing surface info

surface=granite and similar should ideally be avoided as it fails to distinguish between surface=sett and surface=unhewn_cobblestone and surface=paving_stones^[1][2]

But, if someone wants to provide a detailed info for a surface, =* can be used as an extra detail. This is friendly both for data consumers looking for extremely detailed info and for more general-purpose ones. For surface=paving_stones there is paving_stones:material=*, which can also be used.

surface=sett =granite or surface=paving_stones paving_stones:material=granite are completely fine and much more useful tagging than surface=granite that loses useful info.

For example, the distinction between surface=unhewn_cobblestone and surface=paving_stones is very important for bicycle routing, while distinguishing between marble surface and granite surface and concrete surface is of lesser importance.

surface=metal =steel is preferable over surface=steel as it allows more general-purpose data consumers to process data without failing as soon as someone will add even more detailed info about surface.

Notes and references