OpenStreetMap
Proposal to expand the tagging (and documentation/wiki) of cultural heritage in Belgium
Posted by Eebie on 28 May 2026 in English. Last updated on 15 June 2026.Following the proposal made a few weeks ago to expand heritage tagging for Belgium and the feedback received, I have modified and improved the sections regarding heritage tagging in Belgium in the Heritage section of the wiki, regarding Vlaanderen, Wallonie and Brussels.
The tag heritage=inv has been added to indicate heritage that is not protected but is included in a heritage inventory. In Flanders and Brussels, being included in such an inventory has legal implications and means a form of ‘light protection’.
For JOSM, the sections in the “Belgium (Mapping in Belgium)” and
“Heritage Properties” Presets (nl:Predefined tags; fr:Préréglages) related to heritage in Belgium have been updated for Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels.
By the way, the “Belgium (Mapping in Belgium)” preset is the better choice here.
Discussion
Comment from chris_debian on 29 May 2026 at 23:54
Hi Eebie,
Thank you for this well-reasoned proposal. The distinction between inventoried and protected heritage is genuinely useful and the alignment with existing practice in France, the Netherlands, and others makes a strong case for adoption.
A few thoughts that might strengthen it further:
Wikidata linkage
Many Belgian heritage items, particularly protected ones, already have Wikidata entries, and the Flemish Erfgoed database is increasingly cross-referenced there. The proposal already recommends including URL links to inventory pages, which is helpful, but a
wikidata=Q...tag is more robust: it is language-neutral, stable over time, and allows Wikidata’s heritage designation property (P1435) to be queried across countries. It might be worth proposingwikidata=*as a recommended companion tag wherever a Wikidata item exists, alongside the inventory URL. This would also make the data more useful to consumers working across OSM and Wikidata together.Ref tags for inventory IDs
The proposal notes that including an ID number is valuable for traceability in Flanders, which is a good point. It might be worth going a step further and proposing specific
ref:*tag names for each agency, for exampleref:erfgoedobjecten=*for the Flemish inventory and equivalent tags for IRP Wallonia and the Brussels inventory. Without a defined tag name, contributors will use inconsistent keys and the data becomes harder to query. Other countries have established this pattern successfully (for exampleref:onroerenderfgoed=*is already in use for some Flemish items).The German-speaking Community
The gap is fairly acknowledged. It might be worth adding a note to the proposed wiki page explicitly flagging it as unresearched and inviting contributors from that community to fill it in, rather than leaving the wiki looking incomplete without explanation.
Minor corrections
There are a couple of small typos in the closing questions: “German-speeking” and “propasal” are worth fixing before this goes to a wider audience.
Overall this is a well-motivated proposal and I hope it gets the support it deserves.
Chris