Places

Places is the Waze Point of Interest (POI) system. Places supports two types of POIs: Point and Area.

Point

The Point type of Place is rendered with the following icons:

Standard Point marker pin is purple-ish

The currently selected Point marker will turn blue

Any Point markers which have been edited and not yet saved by you will turn an orange-pink color, just like Area Places and segments.

Location Details

• The Point marker for a Place should be located on or nearest to the segment to which the driver should be navigated. The Point Marker is the stop point.

Area

The Area type of Place is rendered as a polygon. Just like a segment, you can adjust the shape by using the geometry handles. All Area Places in the editor show in pink when not selected and blue-green when selected:

Location Details

• The Area type has a target which is the navigation stop point.
• The target stop point can be moved anywhere within the shape and also a short distance outside the actual Area shape
• The stop point target should be placed on or nearest to the segment to which the driver should be navigated.

Client Rendering

As of this writing, we do not have any details on how Point places may be rendered within the Waze app.

Setting the stop point for a Place

Point placement

The Point Area is to be placed on or nearest to the segment to which the driver should be navigated. Here is an example of a gas station Point located directly on a parking lot segment.

Area placement

Here is an example of an Area (a large park in this case) which has an entry road on the east side. The second image is zoomed in on the target to show how this type of Area should have its navigation stop point set.

Large Area Place

Stop point detail zoom

Area+Point Combinations

There are some situations where it will be appropriate to mix both Area and Point Places. For example, shopping centers and shopping malls where the mall itself could be considered a navigation destination, but there are also individual stores which are also valid for being marked.

A simple shopping center, when mapped in this manner, would look like this:

Multiple categories

• A Place can be assigned to multiple categories
• The Primary Category for a Place must be the first one you enter
• The Primary Category is displayed in a darker shade of blue than the others
• The Primary Category is used to determine whether to use a Point or Area for the Place

Place address detail

Every Place, whether Point or Area, should have as much detail completed as possible. This includes a name, proper categorization, and full street address, city and state. If any Place doesn't have a City or Street, you will need to check the None checkbox.

Here is an example of a Gas Station Area with its details completed:

Additional fields to allow entry of more detail will be coming in future editor releases. (One field available in previous editor releases but not available at this time, is phone number.)

When to use Area or Point

Here is the global guidance on selecting Area or Point for Places in the Waze Map Editor.

The Primary Category for a Place is used to determine whether to use a Point or Area.

Parent	Category	Type	Comments
Car Services	Car Wash	Point
Car Services	Charging Station	Point
Car Services	Garage / Automotive Shop	Point
Car Services	Gas Station		Voting is tied between Point and Area. Possibly size-dependent, but also depends on the future of parking lot roads and jam suppression.
Car Services	Parking Lot	Both	There are very few parking lots which should be mapped at all. Please see the Parking lot section on this page.
Transportation	Airport	Area	Special-handling
Transportation	Bridge	Area
Transportation	Bus Station	Point
Transportation	Ferry Pier	Point
Transportation	Junction / Interchange	Area
Transportation	Seaport / Marina / Harbor	Area	Size-dependent.
Transportation	Subway Station	Point
Transportation	Taxi Station	Point
Transportation	Train Station	Point
Transportation	Tunnel	Area
Professional and public	Cemetery	Area
Professional and public	City Hall	Point
Professional and public	College / University	Area
Professional and public	Conventions / Event Center	Area	Size-dependent
Professional and public	Courthouse	Point
Professional and public	Embassy / Consulate	Area
Professional and public	Factory / Industrial	Both	Size-dependent
Professional and public	Fire Department	Point
Professional and public	Government	Point
Professional and public	Hospital / Medical Care	Area
Professional and public	Information Point	Point
Professional and public	Kindergarten	Point
Professional and public	Library	Point
Professional and public	Military	Area
Professional and public	Offices	Both	Size-dependent
Professional and public	Organization or Association	Point
Professional and public	Police Station	Point
Professional and public	Prison / Correctional Facility	Area
Professional and public	Post Office	Point
Professional and public	Religious Center	Point
Professional and public	School	Area
Shopping and services	Arts & Crafts	Point
Shopping and services	ATM	Point
Shopping and services	Bank / Financial	Point
Shopping and services	Bookstore	Point
Shopping and services	Car Dealership	Point	Size-dependent
Shopping and services	Car Rental	Point
Shopping and services	Convenience Store	Point
Shopping and services	Currency Exchange	Point
Shopping and services	Department Store	Point
Shopping and services	Electronics	Point
Shopping and services	Fashion and Clothing	Point
Shopping and services	Flowers	Point
Shopping and services	Furniture / Home Store	Point
Shopping and services	Gifts	Point
Shopping and services	Gym / Fitness	Point
Shopping and services	Hardware Store	Point
Shopping and services	Jewelry	Point
Shopping and services	Laundry / Dry Cleaning	Point
Shopping and services	Market	Point
Shopping and services	Music Store	Point
Shopping and services	Personal Care	Point
Shopping and services	Pet Store / Veterinarian	Point
Shopping and services	Pharmacy	Point
Shopping and services	Photography	Point
Shopping and services	Shopping Center	Area
Shopping and services	Sporting Goods	Point
Shopping and services	Supermarket / Grocery	Point	Standalone could be an Area, but a Point if it is part of larger shopping mall/center.
Shopping and services	Swimming Pool	Point
Shopping and services	Toy Store	Point
Shopping and services	Travel Agency	Point
Food and drink	Bakery	Point
Food and drink	Bar	Point
Food and drink	Coffee shop	Point
Food and drink	Dessert	Point
Food and drink	Fast Food	Point
Food and drink	Food Court	Point
Food and drink	Ice Cream	Point
Food and drink	Restaurant	Point
Culture & entertainment	Art Gallery	Point
Culture & entertainment	Casino	Area	Large hotel-casinos perhaps could be Area Places.
Culture & entertainment	Club	Point
Culture & entertainment	Game Club	Point
Culture & entertainment	Movie Theater	Point
Culture & entertainment	Museum	Point
Culture & entertainment	Music Venue	Point
Culture & entertainment	Performing Arts Venue	Point
Culture & entertainment	Racing Track	Area
Culture & entertainment	Stadium / Arena	Area
Culture & entertainment	Theme Park	Area
Culture & entertainment	Theater	Point
Culture & entertainment	Tourist Attraction / Historic Site	Point	Size-dependent
Culture & entertainment	Zoo / Aquarium	Area	Size-dependent
Other	Construction Site	Area	Not necessary to be mapped.
Other	Residence / Home	NONE	Not to be mapped
Lodging	Bed & Breakfast	Point
Lodging	Camping / Trailer Park	Area	Size-dependent
Lodging	Cottage / Cabin	Point
Lodging	Hostel	Point
Lodging	Hotel	Point
Outdoors	Beach	Area
Outdoors	Golf Course	Area
Outdoors	Park	Area
Outdoors	Playground	Point
Outdoors	Plaza	Point
Outdoors	Promenade	Point	Unsure about mapping these at all
Outdoors	Scenic Lookout / Viewpoint	Point
Outdoors	Ski Area	Area
Outdoors	Sports Court	Point
Natural features	Farm	NONE
Natural features	Forest / Grove	Area	Only map official state/national forests, not every stand of trees.
Natural features	Island	Area
Natural features	River / Stream	Area
Natural features	Sea / Lake / Pond	Area

Parking Lot

The decision to map a parking lot landmark is covered here, and the decision to map a parking lot road is covered in the Road type article for mapping parking lot roads.

Few parking lots deserve to be landmarked. Landmark-worthy parking must be something of a destination in itself, either having a well-known and documented name, or serving multiple unrelated POIs.

In nearly all situations parking associated with any other landmark, such as a shopping mall or train station, should NOT be landmarked separately using the Parking Lot type. It is sufficient simply to include such parking within the boundaries of the other landmark. In the rare case of named parking that drivers might wish explicitly to seek, such "double landmarking" of parking within a larger landmark may be acceptable, for example a cell-phone Parking Lot landmark within the boundaries of an Airport landmark.

Defining the boundaries of Parking Lot landmarks requires care. Like the Gas Station landmark, Parking Lots suppress Waze's automated "Map Problem" reports such as for missing roads; thus the Parking Lot landmark should NEVER be drawn over or attached/snapped to roads bearing through traffic.

While Waze provides a Garage landmark type, the Parking Lot landmark should be used, when appropriate, for parking structures and garages both above and below ground as well as for ordinary lots at ground level.

The Parking Lot landmark is always appropriate for:

• Generic Park & Ride and similar municipal commuter parking not otherwise landmarked with a transit-center type. Always name these "Park & Ride", or whatever generic designation is used locally, to facilitate searches. Mapped at the fence line.
• Municipal general-purpose or transit-oriented public parking that has a unique and documented identity, such as "City Lot #7", "Hourly Lot 3", "Domestic Garage", "Long-Term Parking", "South Lot", "Cell-Phone Parking", etc. Map to the extent of the lot or structure and assign the given name. If the lot is contained within a larger landmark, do not repeat that landmark's name; for example if the Domestic Garage is contained within the "SFO San Francisco International Airport" landmark boundaries, it can simply be labeled "Domestic Garage" not "SFO San Francisco International Airport Domestic Garage".
• Rental car return located on airport property, provided all on-airport vendors share the same car return area (to avoid having to label separate return areas by commercial vendor), named "Rental Car Return".

The Parking Lot landmark is NEVER appropriate for:

• Parking for a single non-transit-oriented destination, whether public or private, such as a business, office, church, park, city hall, library, hospital, gym, school, museum, restaurant, campground, etc. Do not use the Parking Lot landmark for these even if apparently supported, and widely used, as general-purpose parking; Waze cannot imply that drivers should, for example, park in the City Library Lot in order to visit a café or go shopping, even if locals often do so.
• Employee, student, resident, or guest parking.
• Parking for attendees of events or services.
• Parking associated with campuses, parklands, shopping malls, theme parks, private installations, and office parks or complexes of any size or purpose.
• Generic unnamed/unidentified parking lots associated with an already-landmarked complex such as an Airport, Train station, or Bus Station/Bus Terminal.

A gray area exists between the "always appropriate" and "never appropriate" categories above. Indeterminate situations include, for example:

• Unnamed municipal general-purpose public parking.
• Privately-operated but publicly-available general-purpose or offsite transit-related parking.

At this time, landmarking indeterminate situations like these is not encouraged, but may be appropriate in some circumstances and handled on a case-by-case basis.