diff --git a/.github/actions/build-nominatim/action.yml b/.github/actions/build-nominatim/action.yml
index 85eef53f..73f40747 100644
--- a/.github/actions/build-nominatim/action.yml
+++ b/.github/actions/build-nominatim/action.yml
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ runs:
 
         - name: Install prerequisites from apt
           run: |
-            sudo apt-get install -y -qq python3-icu python3-datrie python3-jinja2 python3-psutil python3-dotenv python3-yaml python3-sqlalchemy python3-psycopg python3-asyncpg
+            sudo apt-get install -y -qq python3-icu python3-datrie python3-jinja2 python3-psutil python3-dotenv python3-yaml python3-sqlalchemy python3-psycopg python3-asyncpg python3-mwparserfromhell
           shell: bash
           if: inputs.dependencies == 'apt'
 
diff --git a/docs/admin/Installation.md b/docs/admin/Installation.md
index 99387ed6..7b67edd7 100644
--- a/docs/admin/Installation.md
+++ b/docs/admin/Installation.md
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ Furthermore the following Python libraries are required:
   * [Jinja2](https://palletsprojects.com/p/jinja/)
   * [PyICU](https://pypi.org/project/PyICU/)
   * [PyYaml](https://pyyaml.org/) (5.1+)
+  * [mwparserfromhell](https://github.com/earwig/mwparserfromhell/)
 
 These will be installed automatically when using pip installation.
 
diff --git a/docs/develop/Development-Environment.md b/docs/develop/Development-Environment.md
index 577ccbd0..29d376a7 100644
--- a/docs/develop/Development-Environment.md
+++ b/docs/develop/Development-Environment.md
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ virtualenv ~/nominatim-dev-venv
     types-jinja2 types-markupsafe types-psutil types-psycopg2 \
     types-pygments types-pyyaml types-requests types-ujson \
     types-urllib3 typing-extensions unicorn falcon starlette \
-    uvicorn mypy osmium aiosqlite
+    uvicorn mypy osmium aiosqlite mwparserfromhell
 ```
 
 Now enter the virtual environment whenever you want to develop:
diff --git a/packaging/nominatim-db/pyproject.toml b/packaging/nominatim-db/pyproject.toml
index c2020f13..19a37512 100644
--- a/packaging/nominatim-db/pyproject.toml
+++ b/packaging/nominatim-db/pyproject.toml
@@ -20,7 +20,8 @@ dependencies = [
     "jinja2",
     "pyYAML>=5.1",
     "psutil",
-    "PyICU"
+    "PyICU",
+    "mwparserfromhell"
 ]
 dynamic = ["version"]
 
diff --git a/src/nominatim_db/tools/special_phrases/sp_wiki_loader.py b/src/nominatim_db/tools/special_phrases/sp_wiki_loader.py
index 9908f753..06853cdf 100644
--- a/src/nominatim_db/tools/special_phrases/sp_wiki_loader.py
+++ b/src/nominatim_db/tools/special_phrases/sp_wiki_loader.py
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ from typing import Iterable
 import re
 import logging
 
+import mwparserfromhell
+
 from ...config import Configuration
 from ...utils.url_utils import get_url
 from .special_phrase import SpecialPhrase
@@ -36,10 +38,6 @@ class SPWikiLoader:
     """
     def __init__(self, config: Configuration) -> None:
         self.config = config
-        # Compile the regex here to increase performances.
-        self.occurence_pattern = re.compile(
-            r'\| *([^\|]+) *\|\| *([^\|]+) *\|\| *([^\|]+) *\|\| *([^\|]+) *\|\| *([\-YN])'
-        )
         # Hack around a bug where building=yes was imported with quotes into the wiki
         self.type_fix_pattern = re.compile(r'\"|"')
 
@@ -58,11 +56,21 @@ class SPWikiLoader:
             LOG.warning('Importing phrases for lang: %s...', lang)
             loaded_xml = _get_wiki_content(lang)
 
-            # One match will be of format [label, class, type, operator, plural]
-            matches = self.occurence_pattern.findall(loaded_xml)
+            wikicode = mwparserfromhell.parse(loaded_xml)
 
-            for match in matches:
-                yield SpecialPhrase(match[0],
-                                    match[1],
-                                    self.type_fix_pattern.sub('', match[2]),
-                                    match[3])
+            for table in wikicode.filter_tags(matches=lambda t: t.tag == 'table'):
+                for row in table.contents.filter_tags(matches=lambda t: t.tag == 'tr'):
+                    cells = list(row.contents.filter_tags(matches=lambda t: t.tag == 'td'))
+
+                    if len(cells) < 5:
+                        continue
+
+                    label = cells[0].contents.strip_code().strip()
+                    cls = cells[1].contents.strip_code().strip()
+                    typ = cells[2].contents.strip_code().strip()
+                    operator = cells[3].contents.strip_code().strip()
+
+                    yield SpecialPhrase(label,
+                                        cls,
+                                        self.type_fix_pattern.sub('', typ),
+                                        operator)
diff --git a/test/python/tools/test_import_special_phrases.py b/test/python/tools/test_import_special_phrases.py
index c676c40a..2df1c682 100644
--- a/test/python/tools/test_import_special_phrases.py
+++ b/test/python/tools/test_import_special_phrases.py
@@ -203,7 +203,7 @@ def test_import_phrases(monkeypatch, temp_db_cursor, def_config, sp_importer,
     placex_table.add(cls='amenity', typ='animal_shelter')  # in db for special phrase filtering
     sp_importer.import_phrases(tokenizer, should_replace)
 
-    assert len(tokenizer.analyser_cache['special_phrases']) == 18
+    assert len(tokenizer.analyser_cache['special_phrases']) == 19
 
     assert check_table_exist(temp_db_cursor, class_test, type_test)
     assert check_placeid_and_centroid_indexes(temp_db_cursor, class_test, type_test)
diff --git a/test/python/tools/test_sp_wiki_loader.py b/test/python/tools/test_sp_wiki_loader.py
index b8e41cbe..9b937112 100644
--- a/test/python/tools/test_sp_wiki_loader.py
+++ b/test/python/tools/test_sp_wiki_loader.py
@@ -54,4 +54,6 @@ def test_generate_phrases(sp_wiki_loader):
          ('Water near', 'amenity', 'drinking_water', 'near'),
          ('Embassy', 'amenity', 'embassy', '-'),
          ('Embassys', 'amenity', 'embassy', '-'),
-         ('Embassies', 'amenity', 'embassy', '-')}
+         ('Embassies', 'amenity', 'embassy', '-'),
+         # test for one-cell-per-line format
+         ('Coworkings near', 'amenity', 'coworking_space', 'near')}
diff --git a/test/testdata/special_phrases_test_content.txt b/test/testdata/special_phrases_test_content.txt
index e5f340b9..edfcc322 100644
--- a/test/testdata/special_phrases_test_content.txt
+++ b/test/testdata/special_phrases_test_content.txt
@@ -1,78 +1,120 @@
-<mediawiki xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.11/ http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.11.xsd" version="0.11" xml:lang="en">
-<siteinfo>
-<sitename>OpenStreetMap Wiki</sitename>
-<dbname>wiki</dbname>
-<base>https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Main_Page</base>
-<generator>MediaWiki 1.35.2</generator>
-<case>first-letter</case>
-<namespaces>
-<namespace key="-2" case="first-letter">Media</namespace>
-<namespace key="-1" case="first-letter">Special</namespace>
-<namespace key="0" case="first-letter"/>
-<namespace key="1" case="first-letter">Talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="2" case="first-letter">User</namespace>
-<namespace key="3" case="first-letter">User talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="4" case="first-letter">Wiki</namespace>
-<namespace key="5" case="first-letter">Wiki talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="6" case="first-letter">File</namespace>
-<namespace key="7" case="first-letter">File talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="8" case="first-letter">MediaWiki</namespace>
-<namespace key="9" case="first-letter">MediaWiki talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="10" case="first-letter">Template</namespace>
-<namespace key="11" case="first-letter">Template talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="12" case="first-letter">Help</namespace>
-<namespace key="13" case="first-letter">Help talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="14" case="first-letter">Category</namespace>
-<namespace key="15" case="first-letter">Category talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="120" case="first-letter">Item</namespace>
-<namespace key="121" case="first-letter">Item talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="122" case="first-letter">Property</namespace>
-<namespace key="123" case="first-letter">Property talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="200" case="first-letter">DE</namespace>
-<namespace key="201" case="first-letter">DE talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="202" case="first-letter">FR</namespace>
-<namespace key="203" case="first-letter">FR talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="204" case="first-letter">ES</namespace>
-<namespace key="205" case="first-letter">ES talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="206" case="first-letter">IT</namespace>
-<namespace key="207" case="first-letter">IT talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="208" case="first-letter">NL</namespace>
-<namespace key="209" case="first-letter">NL talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="210" case="first-letter">RU</namespace>
-<namespace key="211" case="first-letter">RU talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="212" case="first-letter">JA</namespace>
-<namespace key="213" case="first-letter">JA talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="710" case="first-letter">TimedText</namespace>
-<namespace key="711" case="first-letter">TimedText talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="828" case="first-letter">Module</namespace>
-<namespace key="829" case="first-letter">Module talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="2300" case="first-letter">Gadget</namespace>
-<namespace key="2301" case="first-letter">Gadget talk</namespace>
-<namespace key="2302" case="case-sensitive">Gadget definition</namespace>
-<namespace key="2303" case="case-sensitive">Gadget definition talk</namespace>
-</namespaces>
-</siteinfo>
-<page>
-<title>Nominatim/Special Phrases/EN</title>
-<ns>0</ns>
-<id>67365</id>
-<revision>
-<id>2100424</id>
-<parentid>2100422</parentid>
-<timestamp>2021-01-27T20:29:53Z</timestamp>
-<contributor>
-<username>Violaine Do</username>
-<id>88152</id>
-</contributor>
-<minor/>
-<comment>/* en */ add coworking amenity</comment>
-<origin>2100424</origin>
-<model>wikitext</model>
-<format>text/x-wiki</format>
-<text bytes="158218" sha1="cst5x7tt58izti1pxzgljf27tx8qjcj" xml:space="preserve">
-== en == {| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! Word / Phrase !! Key !! Value !! Operator !! Plural |- | Zip Line || aerialway || zip_line || - || N |- | Zip Lines || aerialway || zip_line || - || Y |- | Zip Line in || aerialway || zip_line || in || N |- | Zip Lines in || aerialway || zip_line || in || Y |- | Zip Line near || aerialway || zip_line || near || N |- | Animal shelter || amenity || animal_shelter || - || N |- | Animal shelters || amenity || animal_shelter || - || Y |- | Animal shelter in || amenity || animal_shelter || in || N |- | Animal shelters in || amenity || animal_shelter || in || Y |- | Animal shelter near || amenity || animal_shelter || near|| N |- | Animal shelters near || amenity || animal_shelter || NEAR|| Y |- | Drinking Water near || amenity || drinking_water || near || N |- | Water || amenity || drinking_water || - || N |- | Water in || amenity || drinking_water || In || N |- | Water near || amenity || drinking_water || near || N |- | Embassy || amenity || embassy || - || N |- | Embassys || amenity || "embassy" || - || Y |- | Embassies || amenity || embassy || - || Y |- |Coworkings near |amenity |coworking_space |near |Y |} [[Category:Word list]]
-</text>
-<sha1>cst5x7tt58izti1pxzgljf27tx8qjcj</sha1>
-</revision>
-</page>
+<mediawiki xmlns="http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.11/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.11/ http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.11.xsd" version="0.11" xml:lang="en">
+  <siteinfo>
+    <sitename>OpenStreetMap Wiki</sitename>
+    <dbname>wiki</dbname>
+    <base>https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Main_Page</base>
+    <generator>MediaWiki 1.43.5</generator>
+    <case>first-letter</case>
+    <namespaces>
+      <namespace key="-2" case="first-letter">Media</namespace>
+      <namespace key="-1" case="first-letter">Special</namespace>
+      <namespace key="0" case="first-letter"/>
+      <namespace key="1" case="first-letter">Talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="2" case="first-letter">User</namespace>
+      <namespace key="3" case="first-letter">User talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="4" case="first-letter">Wiki</namespace>
+      <namespace key="5" case="first-letter">Wiki talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="6" case="first-letter">File</namespace>
+      <namespace key="7" case="first-letter">File talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="8" case="first-letter">MediaWiki</namespace>
+      <namespace key="9" case="first-letter">MediaWiki talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="10" case="first-letter">Template</namespace>
+      <namespace key="11" case="first-letter">Template talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="12" case="first-letter">Help</namespace>
+      <namespace key="13" case="first-letter">Help talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="14" case="first-letter">Category</namespace>
+      <namespace key="15" case="first-letter">Category talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="120" case="first-letter">Item</namespace>
+      <namespace key="121" case="first-letter">Item talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="122" case="first-letter">Property</namespace>
+      <namespace key="123" case="first-letter">Property talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="200" case="first-letter">DE</namespace>
+      <namespace key="201" case="first-letter">DE talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="202" case="first-letter">FR</namespace>
+      <namespace key="203" case="first-letter">FR talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="204" case="first-letter">ES</namespace>
+      <namespace key="205" case="first-letter">ES talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="206" case="first-letter">IT</namespace>
+      <namespace key="207" case="first-letter">IT talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="208" case="first-letter">NL</namespace>
+      <namespace key="209" case="first-letter">NL talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="210" case="first-letter">RU</namespace>
+      <namespace key="211" case="first-letter">RU talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="212" case="first-letter">JA</namespace>
+      <namespace key="213" case="first-letter">JA talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="710" case="first-letter">TimedText</namespace>
+      <namespace key="711" case="first-letter">TimedText talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="828" case="first-letter">Module</namespace>
+      <namespace key="829" case="first-letter">Module talk</namespace>
+      <namespace key="3000" case="first-letter">Proposal</namespace>
+      <namespace key="3001" case="first-letter">Proposal talk</namespace>
+    </namespaces>
+  </siteinfo>
+  <page>
+    <title>Nominatim/Special Phrases/EN</title>
+    <ns>0</ns>
+    <id>67365</id>
+    <revision>
+      <id>2861977</id>
+      <parentid>2634159</parentid>
+      <timestamp>2025-06-02T14:00:52Z</timestamp>
+      <contributor>
+        <username>Lonvia</username>
+        <id>17191</id>
+      </contributor>
+      <comment>overgeneralized entry removed, phrases need to chosen so that all results with the given tag can be described with that phrase</comment>
+      <origin>2861977</origin>
+      <model>wikitext</model>
+      <format>text/x-wiki</format>
+      <text bytes="160765" sha1="0zlpuvnjs4io9e006rntbxm5b84kgst" xml:space="preserve">== en ==
+{| class="wikitable sortable"
+|-
+! Word / Phrase !! Key !! Value !! Operator !! Plural
+|-
+| Zip Line || aerialway || zip_line || - || N
+|-
+| Zip Lines || aerialway || zip_line || - || Y
+|-
+| Zip Line in || aerialway || zip_line || in || N
+|-
+| Zip Lines in || aerialway || zip_line || in || Y
+|-
+| Zip Line near || aerialway || zip_line || near || N
+|-
+| Animal shelter || amenity || animal_shelter || - || N
+|-
+| Animal shelters || amenity || animal_shelter || - || Y
+|-
+| Animal shelter in || amenity || animal_shelter || in || N
+|-
+| Animal shelters in || amenity || animal_shelter || in || Y
+|-
+| Animal shelter near || amenity || animal_shelter || near|| N
+|-
+| Animal shelters near || amenity || animal_shelter || NEAR|| Y
+|-
+| Drinking Water near || amenity || drinking_water || near || N
+|-
+| Water || amenity || drinking_water || - || N
+|-
+| Water in || amenity || drinking_water || In || N
+|-
+| Water near || amenity || drinking_water || near || N
+|-
+| Embassy || amenity || embassy || - || N
+|-
+| Embassys || amenity || "embassy" || - || Y
+|-
+| Embassies || amenity || embassy || - || Y
+|-
+| Coworkings near
+| amenity
+| coworking_space
+| near
+| Y
+|}
+[[Category:Word list]]</text>
+      <sha1>0zlpuvnjs4io9e006rntbxm5b84kgst</sha1>
+    </revision>
+  </page>
 </mediawiki>