How to label and name roads (Spain)

This page covers road names for the country listed in the page title. For other countries see this page.

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Labeling: Name your street properly, the spanish way

Before you start editing in Spain, take care of some remarkable questions: You should watch out after the acents "´", the use of capital letter and grammar mistakes. Please, do not use abbreviations on the street names, and do not capitalyze all letters.

Streets that are known by both names and numbers (i.e. highways, national roads ...) should be labeled first with its numbers. Use " / " to separate the different names. Don´t forge a space on each side of the " / ".

Ej.: A-7 / E-15 / Autovía del Mediterráneo

City field should not be filled on streets located outsides cities.

You will find quite often not properly labeled roads. Common mistakes include wrong type of road -a well known highway stated as a street-, or a road that is labeled as different type along its different segments.

Two things should be taken into account when labeling:

1. High rated roads (freeways and major highways) are shown at higher zoom levels. Its correct labeling is important to appear first on the editor. The rate goes as follows: Freeways, Major Highway, Minor Highway, Primary Street, Ramps, Street… 2. When planning a route, highly rated roads are selected first: 10 kms. on a freeway are most likely to be shown that 10 kms. on a major highway.

Take care of this indicationes while editing.

Freeways (Autopistas y Autovías)

Motorways. They have at least two lanes on each way. They do not have same level stops, intersections, red lights or roundabouts.

Exit and entrance roads must be ramps.

Major Highway (2+2) / Carreteras Nacionales

Similar to Freeways but they can have roundabouts or joints without accelerationa lanes. All National Roads (N-XXX) should be labeled as Major Highway even if they are just two-way roads. They are usually intercity roads or bypasses.

Minor Highway (1+1) / Carreteras Secundarias

En general son carreteras autonómicas y locales de doble sentido con líneas de separación en la calzada.

Ramps / Rampas

Exit and entrances to Freeways. Usually, they are roads that connect different level freeways. They do not have redlights or stop signals.

They should be label as follow:

Exits: "Salida NNN" +" / "Information as shown on pannels"

Example: "Salida 480 / V-23 / Sagunt / A-23 / Teruel"

Entrances: "Dirección" + "Direction"

Example: "Dirección A-7 / Castellón / Barcelona"

Note: Don't forget the spaces on both sides of the slash: " / "

Primary Street / Calle principal

Avenues and main roads on urban and suburban areas. Also, main access roads to cities if they are not freeways.

This type could be also selected as an intermediate type among minor highway and street outside urban zones.

Note: The use of primaary street outside cities is being discussed on the forums, but since Waze has made no formal statement about this we use the above rules.

Street / Calle, Camino (1)

En zonas urbanas son las calles, y en su etiquetado debe figurar el municipio al que pertenecen.
En zonas interurbanas son carreteras de tercer nivel (caminos), normalmente sin línea de separación en la calzada. En el uso de street como caminos, no se debe poner nombre de población.

Service Road / Vía de servicio

Paralell roads to Freeways, Highways and roads. Whenever they are paralle to a main street they should be labeled as streets.

There will be times when this classifcation will not fit exactly, so, take it easys on the hard edits and use your common sense. Sometimes, getting the right connections takes many minutes of hard work.

On this forum we are discussing this topics (in spanish, of course)

FAQ

This section has been moved to Dudas frecuentes editando mapas

Summary table

Waze type of road	Rendering	Spanish type of road urban areas	Spanish type of road non urban areas
Freeways			- Autopistas - Autovias
Major Highway (2/2)		- Roads trough small villages.	- Two lanes on each way, but there can have roundabouts or entrances withouy acceleration lanes.
Major Highway (1/1)		- Roads trough small villages.	- National roads.
Minor Highway		- Roads trough small villages.	- Two-way autonomic and local roads whith separating lines.
Ramps		- Entranace ramps - Exit ramps	- Entranace ramps - Exit ramps
Primary Street		- Main roads and avenues.	- Access-to-city roads - Intermediate type among Minor and Street
Street		- Streets	- Roads whitout separating lines.
Service Road			- Paralell to freeways, highways and roads.
Dirt Roads 4x4 Trails		- Non-asphalt streets	- Non-asphalt roads
Parking Lot Road		- Access roads to parkings - Parking roads	- Access roads to parkings - Parking roads
Private Road		- Private Road	- Private Road
Walking Trails		- Sendas
Pedestrian Boardwalk		- Zona Peatonal
Stairway		- Escaleras
Railroad		- Vías de tren	- Vías de tren
Runway / Taxiway		- Runway / Taxiway	- Runway / Taxiway