Using the spieli Map¶
spieli is a free, interactive playground map based on OpenStreetMap data. This guide explains what you can do with it.
Navigating the map¶
Use your mouse (desktop) or fingers (mobile) to pan and zoom. The map shows:
- Playground polygons — coloured outlines of playground areas, colour-coded by mapping detail (see below)
- Cluster rings — at lower zoom levels, nearby playgrounds are grouped into ring indicators showing counts
Click or tap any playground to open its detail panel.
Mapping detail colours¶
Each playground is colour-coded to show how much of it has been mapped in OpenStreetMap:
| Colour | What it means |
|---|---|
| Green | Detailed — mapped play equipment and at least one detail (surface, opening hours, or access) |
| Orange | Basic — one of the two, not both |
| Red | No details yet — the playground exists in OSM but carries no equipment and no details |
Play equipment means slides, swings, climbing frames and the like, plus ball courts. A bench or picnic table on its own does not make a playground "basic" — those are useful to know about, but they say nothing about whether there is anything to play on.
A camera glyph marks playgrounds that also have a photo. Photos are a bonus, not part of the rating — a playground with everything mapped except a picture still counts as detailed.
The colours describe the OSM data, not the real-world quality of the playground. The lowest step means nobody has mapped it yet, which is an invitation to help rather than a warning.
Finding playgrounds¶
Search: Type a place name, street, or city into the search box (top bar). The map moves to the matching location.
Suggestions appear once you have typed two characters. You can work the list entirely from the keyboard — ↓ and ↑ move through the suggestions, Enter jumps to the highlighted one (or runs a plain search if none is highlighted), and Esc closes the list without leaving the box. Screen readers announce the list, your position in it, and whether a search is still running.
My location: Tap the location button to centre the map on your current position. Your position is shown as a pulsing blue dot; at high zoom a translucent circle indicates the GPS accuracy. If your browser already granted location permission, spieli auto-locates on page load (unless you opened a deeplink or region link).
Note: Geolocation requires HTTPS and your browser's permission. If the button does nothing, check your browser's location settings.
Region links: Visit a region by name in the URL — e.g. spieli.eu/fulda frames the map on Fulda. spieli geocodes the single path segment via Nominatim and pans to its bounding box (works in both standalone and hub mode). Share these links like any other URL.
Filters¶
Open the filter panel to show only playgrounds that match your needs:
| Filter | Shows playgrounds that have… |
|---|---|
| Water play | Water features (is_water=yes) |
| Baby equipment | Equipment suitable for babies |
| Toddler equipment | Equipment suitable for toddlers |
| Wheelchair-friendly | At least one piece of play equipment tagged wheelchair-accessible — see Wheelchair accessibility |
| Bench | At least one bench |
| Picnic table | At least one picnic table |
| Shelter | A covered shelter |
| Table tennis | A table tennis table |
| Football | A football pitch |
| Basketball | A basketball court |
| Fenced | A fence around the playground (enclosed=yes or barrier=fence) |
| Dogs allowed | Dogs are permitted (dog=yes) |
| Themed | Has a recognised theme — ship, octopus, castle, … (playground:theme) |
| With shade | Shaded areas (shade=yes) |
| Exclude private | Hide access-restricted playgrounds |
Active filters appear as chips below the search bar. Click a chip to remove that filter.
Wheelchair accessibility¶
This one deserves its own explanation, because it deliberately measures something narrower than the word suggests.
It describes the equipment, not the site. The filter, the map hover icon and the detail panel all answer one question: is there something here a wheelchair-using child can play on? They do not tell you whether the site can be entered or crossed.
That is a deliberate choice. With an accompanying adult, nearly every playground can be entered with a wheelchair, and playgrounds serve roughly ages 0–14 — so the entrance rarely decides anything, while the equipment always does. A playground whose area is tagged as accessible but whose equipment is not will therefore not match this filter.
"Usable with help" counts. Where a piece of equipment is tagged as partially accessible (wheelchair=limited), spieli treats it as suitable. On the objects that actually carry that value — spring riders, seesaws, swings, roundabouts — it means a transfer with assistance, which for this age group is the ordinary way a playground gets used.
A missing badge does not mean "not accessible". The detail panel distinguishes three states, and only two of them are statements:
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Wheelchair-friendly | Someone tagged at least one device as accessible |
| No wheelchair equipment | Someone surveyed the equipment here and none of it is tagged accessible |
| (nothing) | Nobody has recorded accessibility for this playground either way — unknown, not negative |
The third row is by far the most common. Accessibility tagging is patchy in OpenStreetMap and tends to exist only where a mapper has walked the site with it in mind, so entire regions can show nothing at all. That is a gap in the map, not a finding about the playgrounds.
Please check before relying on it. Everything above reflects what mappers recorded. It is not a substitute for looking at the playground, and "usable with assistance" covers a wide range of ability. If you find a playground tagged wrongly — in either direction — the Edit on MapComplete link in the detail panel opens the playground in an editor.
Mapping detail filter¶
The Erfasste Details section lets you show or hide playgrounds by how much of them is mapped:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| detailliert (green) | Mapped play equipment and at least one detail (surface, opening hours, or access) |
| grundlegend (orange) | One of the two, not both |
| keine Details (red) | Neither |
All three states are shown by default. Deactivate a state to hide those playgrounds — for example, uncheck Missing and Partial to see only well-documented playgrounds, or uncheck Complete and Partial to find playgrounds still needing OSM survey work.
Playground detail panel¶
Click any playground to open its detail panel. The panel shows:
- Name, operator, opening hours (when mapped)
- Surface type and size
- Status pills — completeness, data age, and (when tagged) a shade pill (Shaded / No shade), baby / toddler suitability, and wheelchair-friendly equipment (see Wheelchair accessibility)
- Theme highlight — a symbol for playgrounds with a theme, such as a ship or castle (see Playground themes)
- Equipment list — devices, pitches, benches, and their sub-attributes, including each item's surface when tagged
- Street-level photos (from Panoramax, when available)
- Community reviews (from Mangrove.reviews, when available)
- Nearby POIs — toilets, cafés, bus stops, and pharmacies within 500 m
- A "Take me there" button that opens navigation to the playground (geo: URL on mobile, OSM directions on desktop)
- A "Contribute data" link to add or improve information in OpenStreetMap via MapComplete
Playground themes¶
Some playgrounds have a theme — they are built around a motif like a ship, castle, or octopus. When OpenStreetMap records a theme for a playground, spieli highlights it in the detail panel:
- A banner near the top ("Ship-themed playground") when the whole playground is themed.
- A symbol next to the "Equipment" heading, and beside individual pieces of equipment, for themed devices.
To keep the highlight meaningful, spieli only shows a curated set of recognised whole-playground themes: ship, castle, spider web, water, adventure, rocket, dragon, octopus, and circus. Common animal spring-rider shapes (a horse or duck rocker) are not treated as playground themes, since almost any spring rider can take one of those shapes.
Themes come straight from the playground:theme tag in OpenStreetMap — you can add or correct one via the "Contribute data" link. Themes are shown only in the detail panel, not on the map.
Standalone pitches layer¶
Enable "Standalone pitches" in the filter panel's Layers section to see sports pitches that are not part of any playground (football fields, basketball courts, skate parks, etc.).
Deeplinks¶
Each playground has a unique URL. When you open a playground, the URL bar updates to include a hash like #W37808214. Share that URL to link directly to a specific playground.
Adding or improving data¶
All playground data comes from OpenStreetMap. If a playground is missing, has the wrong location, or lacks details:
- Click the playground and open its detail panel
- Use the "Contribute data" button to open MapComplete — a beginner-friendly OSM editor focused on playgrounds
- Or edit directly at openstreetmap.org
Changes you make in OpenStreetMap will appear in spieli after the next data import (usually weekly).
Data age¶
The "last import" date shown in the instance footer indicates when the database was last refreshed from Geofabrik's OSM extract. The OSM data itself may be up to a week older than the import date (Geofabrik's extract cadence varies by region).
Privacy¶
- No user accounts, no tracking, no cookies beyond what the browser stores locally
- Your browser directly contacts Nominatim (search), the configured basemap provider (map tiles), Panoramax (photos), and Mangrove.reviews — see External Services for the full list
- spieli itself does not log search queries or playground clicks