I am happy to annouce that, after a long time we, the OpenStreetMap Carto maintainers, have prepared a new major release of the OpenStreetMap Carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on the OSM website). Once changes are deployed on openstreetmap.org it will take a couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

The main change that warrants a new major release is the move to the osm2pgsql flex backend. This now requires an osm2pgsql version >= 1.8.0. It, so far, only comes with very few and subtle changes in rendering results related to changes in defaults in polygon/linestring classification of closed ways. The database schema is explicitly meant to be backwards compatible from the style side so style users who render different styles from the same database should be able to continue to do so without problems. We hope to use the additional flexibility of osm2pgsql in the future, but we have decided to do this step by step - and with this release only make the formal move but not yet make larger changes to the database. Deployments none the less should do a full database reload.

What we have, however, in this release is an additional table with the commonly used values for shop and office tags. This is generated and filled with an sql script (common-values.sql) that is included in the style. This needs to be run on the database before using the style - like existing indexes.sql and functions.sql.

Here are some details on the visible changes this release brings to the style.

Stop shop/office catch-all

For shop and office tags OSM-Carto has so far implemented a catch-all - meaning that we have rendered these with a generic dot and label for any value except a number of exclusion values (like shop=no, shop=disused etc.). This has not been in line with our goal of providing constructive mapper feedback, because mappers got positive feedback even for obviously nonsensical values or typos. The solution we have now implemented is to use a positive list of supported values that is generated from taginfo data - practically meaning we support any value that is used at least 25 times in OSM at the time of the OSM-Carto release.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5169

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5186

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change.

Remove low zoom landuse fading

Many years ago we had added a mechanical fading of landcover colors at the lower zoom levels - a change that was and still is highly controversial. We had already reduced the fading previously, but we have now reached consensus to roll this back completely. This is going to make consistent color design across all zoom levels significantly easier.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5148

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change.

Unpaved rendering for turning circles / mini-roundabouts

We are now also rendering turning circles and mini-roundabouts on unpaved roads with an unpaved pattern.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5069

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change and sommerluk for previous work on this.

Remove natural earth boundaries for z1-3

The last remaining non-OSM geodata OSM-Carto used so far are the administrative boundaries at z1-3. Because these are not consistent with the data in OpenStreetMap, people have rightfully expressed the wish to remove those.

We have - so far - no good method to render administrative boundaries at z1-3 in decent quality so we decided to simply remove their rendering at these scales.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5123

Thanks to contributor ZeLonewolf for implementing this change.

access=destination markings on additional road types

Previously, access=destination was only rendered on some road types while not on others. We have removed this differentiation and now render access=destination on all road types where we render access=no as well.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5049

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change.

Move bus guideways to road layers

The rendering of highway=bus_guideway has been highly non-ideal for a long time. We have now managed - as a first step - to move bus guideways into the road layers and this way to at least correctly layer them with the other roads.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5057

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change.

Change drawing order for leisure=track and attraction=water_slide

leisure=track and attraction=water_slide were previously rendered at confusing positions in the layer stack. We have moved them to a more sensible location.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5046

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change.

Make slipway rendering consistent in different layers

slipways are rendered in OSM-Carto like minor service roads, but there were inconsistencies with this for bridges and tunnels. This has been fixed now.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5035

Thanks to contributor StyXman for implementing this change.

Tidy up leisure polygon labelling

Symbol and label display of various leisure related features has been in a very inconsistent state for a long time. We have now managed to make some first steps in clearing this up.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5179

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change.

Improvements of landuse outlines

The rendering of subtle outlines on landuse polygons has been somewhat inconsistent in the past and we now managed to unify this a bit.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5086

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change.

Remove operator label on ATM

So far we have displayed the operator on amenity=atm with a label, but it became clear that this does not make a lot of sense - hence we removed it.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5055

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change.

Add symbol for shop=motorcycle_repair

shop=motorcycle_repair is now rendered with a dedicated symbol instead of a generic dot.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5066

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change.

Show hole ref for golf holes

Rendering of labels on golf=hole lines had been broken in the past and we have decided to replace it with a display of ref.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5133

Thanks to contributor robert-ancell for implementing this change.

Add natural=peninsula labels

We have added rendering of nodes and polygons tagged natural=peninsula with a name label.

Thanks to contributor quincylvania for implementing this change.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/4778

Render entrance=shop

We added rendering of entrance=shop in the same design as entrance=yes. Further improvements to this by rendering entrance=shop in a dedicated design are welcome.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5108

Thanks to contributor deevroman for implementing this change.

Add avalanche_protector to tunnel types

tunnel=avalanche_protector is used to tag roads that are covered for protection against avalanches. We added rendering this on roads like we already render tunnel=yes/covered=yes.

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/pull/5166

Thanks to contributor dch0ph for implementing this change.

Other changes

This release also includes various other, non-visible changes. For a full list of commits, see

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v5.9.0…v6.0.0

Note for deployments: This release moves to use the osm2pgsql flex backend and therefore requires a database reload and osm2pgsql version >= 1.8.0. It also newly requires an additional table to be generated on the rendering database using a supplied SQL script. Instructions how to do that can be found in INSTALL.md.

Thanks

The OSM-Carto maintainers thank all contributors. Particular thanks go to the new contributors:

deevroman, gy-mate, joto, quincylvania, robert-ancell, zuzak

As always, we welcome any bug reports at

https://github.com/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto/issues