Guelph Parks

A reference layer of the park boundaries published by the City of Guelph — 125 polygons with their official names — ready to add to the OpenStreetMap editors iD and JOSM while you map.

City data: 2026-09-13 · tiles rebuilt: 2026-09-13

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

Preview

The raster layer drawn over OpenStreetMap: park boundaries with names. Pan and zoom to check coverage for the area you map.

Coverage vs OpenStreetMap: see which City parks are missing from OSM or named differently — a mapper's worklist with an interactive map and table.

Two layers — which to use

Vector layer	Interactive. Click a polygon to read its tags (`name`, `address`, `objectid`). Best in iD.
Raster layer	Boundaries and park names drawn directly on the tiles. A readable backdrop. Best in JOSM.

Heads-up: at city-overview zooms only parks big enough to read are labelled — big parks from city zoom, small parkettes as you zoom in. From the closer raster zooms inward every named park is labelled; small parks carry their name just below the polygon so it never overhangs.

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-parks-layer/tiles/vector/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf

Zoom in, then click any park to see its tags in the inspector.

Raster layer (visible names)

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

https://guelph-maps.github.io/guelph-parks-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[13,17] prefix sets the zoom range; JOSM scales it up past z17):

tms[13,17]:https://guelph-maps.github.io/guelph-parks-layer/tiles/raster/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.png

Give it a name such as Guelph Parks, 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-parks-layer/tiles/vector/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.pbf

Notes

Every park the City publishes as in use is kept; parks flagged retired, proposed or planned would be dropped (today the City publishes none). The one polygon the City calls “Unnamed Neighbourhood Park” is filtered out of the tiles — that is a placeholder, not a name.
Names come from the City's cased Name field, not its ALL CAPS ParkName. A few carry the City's own casing slips (“O'connor”, “I.o.d.e.”) — fix those by hand rather than copying them.
Vector tiles are pre-rendered through zoom 19; raster tiles for z13–17 (the editor overzooms them further).
Tiles are refreshed weekly from the City's service.
This is a reference layer — verify against survey or imagery before copying anything into OpenStreetMap. The City's boundary is the parcel it owns, which can include a road allowance or a stormwater block that nobody would call part of the park.