Guelph Hydrants

A reference layer of the fire hydrants published by the City of Guelph — 3,537 municipal hydrants — ready to add to the OpenStreetMap editors iD and JOSM while you map.

City data: 2026-10-09 · tiles rebuilt: 2026-10-09

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – City of Guelph. Source: Hydrants.

Preview

The raster layer drawn over OpenStreetMap: a red dot per City hydrant, from zoom 15.

Coverage vs OpenStreetMap: see which City hydrants are missing from OSM, misplaced, mapped twice, or missing their type, colour or position — a mapper's worklist with an interactive map and table.

Two layers — which to use

Vector layer	Interactive. Click a hydrant to read the City's fields (`hydrant_id`, `location_id`, `model`, `objectid`). Best in iD.
Raster layer	Plain dots, no labels. A readable backdrop. Best in JOSM.

Do not copy the City's numbers into ref. hydrant_id and location_id are the City's asset numbers; nothing on the hydrant carries them, so no mapper can check one. The dot tells you where to look. What goes into OSM is what you can see: emergency=fire_hydrant, fire_hydrant:type, colour and fire_hydrant:position.

Add to iD

Vector layer (interactive)

Open the iD editor and press U for the Map Data panel.
Under Custom Map Data, open the settings and paste this URL:

https://guelph-maps.github.io/guelph-hydrants-layer/tiles/vector/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf

Zoom in, then click any hydrant to see its fields in the inspector.

Raster layer

Open the Background panel and choose Custom.
Paste this URL template:

https://guelph-maps.github.io/guelph-hydrants-layer/tiles/raster/{z}/{x}/{y}.png

Add to JOSM

Raster layer (recommended for JOSM)

Open Preferences → Imagery and click +TMS.
Paste this entry (the tms[15,17] prefix sets the zoom range; JOSM scales it up past z17):

tms[15,17]:https://guelph-maps.github.io/guelph-hydrants-layer/tiles/raster/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.png

Give it a name such as Guelph Hydrants, click OK, then enable it from the Imagery menu. Note JOSM's placeholder is {zoom}, not {z}.

Vector layer (optional)

JOSM can also add the vector tiles via Preferences → Imagery → +MVT:

https://guelph-maps.github.io/guelph-hydrants-layer/tiles/vector/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.pbf

Notes

The City's layer is its own hydrants. Hydrants on private land (a campus, a plaza, an industrial yard) are not in it, so an OSM hydrant with no dot under it is not wrong — the gap page lists those as “OSM only” for a look, not a fix.
The City's points are accurate: OSM hydrants placed from survey sit a median 1.4 m from them. A hydrant is verified by survey or street-level imagery, not from aerial imagery.
Vector tiles are pre-rendered for z12–19; raster tiles for z15–17 (the editor overzooms them further).
Tiles are refreshed weekly from the City's service.
This is a reference layer, not an import — add a hydrant to OpenStreetMap when you have seen it.