Classifying Roads

highway = *

All roads are classified as some type of highway. Roads are primarily classified based on their function. Tertiary roads connect villages and major streets in towns of some importance. Secondary and Primary roads connect medium and large cities. Motarways are restricted access highways. Sometimes it is difficult to immediately recognize what type of roads exist. An option is being able to re-classify some of the roads at a later point.

In this project, most of the roads you collect will be either a tertiary road, residential road, track, or path.

surface = *

In addition to using the highway tag, one can indicate the physical surface of the road with the surface tag:

Generically, a hard surface (asphalt, cobblestone, concrete…) is indicated with surface=paved and a soft one (ground, sand…) with surface=unpaved.