Talk:Key:boundary

Relations

I've added this proposal to the relation proposal page Relations/Proposed/Boundaries. Please add your opinion to this proposal

National

Not sure whether national applies to US states such as "Texas" or whether it demarks the US borders. Feel free to clarify if you know. --spaetz 07:20, 11 July 2007 (BST)

I'd say it applies to US borders. The Republic of Texas might be an unusual case. ;-) --Hawke 18:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

City

Should this just be a boundary=city key? Should we use whatever the place is, ie boundary=village/town/city? Or should this just be a generic boundary=place key with a clarification of place=city;name=Munich in addition to it? What do people think? --spaetz 08:42, 12 July 2007 (BST)

boundary=administrative, admin_level=10, border_type=muncipality?

Expanded usage

I thing we should distinguish two roles of boundaries:

• Boundary of an area (circular way) - in this case it's boundary of one thing - which has one name (county, city, etc).
• Linear boundary betwean two areas - in this case it's boundary between two things (counties, regions, etc.).

Clearly we need both of these usages and there are some cases some segments could be reused for both purposes. In either case there are different tags needed. And this is so different that different key might be needed to avoid confusion. AFAIK the original usage of boundary was only for areas. Which might cause problems of course. --Gorn 00:22, 20 July 2007 (BST)

National Park??

Does boundary=national_park really fit here? If the boundary tag is extended beyond political/civil/administrative boundaries, where does it end? Everything has a boundary, if you look at it that way. --inas 06:32, 13 August 2007 (BST)

Certainly, the set of things to be tagged with boundary is small. National parks are, however, political boundaries, often not corresponding to any identifiable features on the ground, even including urban areas, so seem an entirely appropriate thing to tag here. As an example of what I'm talking about, have a look at the google maps version of the Peak District National Park in England: the green bit between Manchester, Sheffield. There's no identifiable line on the ground round the edge of this, the moorland certainly doesn't stop there, so tagging this with some physical feature like natural= will not be appropriate. Morwen 09:11, 13 August 2007 (BST)

So, you are proposing essentially that the landuse (or similar tag) indicate what is actually there, and the boundary tag define the legal boundary. So for example where a state forest exists, I would use the tag forest= to mark the landuse, but if that landuse continued beyond the end of the actual legal forest area, I would use a tag like boundary=forest for define the legal boundary of the forest? Is that the idea? --inas 01:43, 14 August 2007 (BST)

Yes. Morwen 10:57, 14 August 2007 (BST)

I think boundary is adequate, too. Moreover, I'd suggest re-baptizing the tag as boundary=nature_reserve; there are lots of different proctection categories, and "national park" is just one of them. The nature reserve type could then be specified by means of an additional tag, corresponding to the respective local legislation, let's say, Naturschutzgebiet or Landschaftsschutzgebiet in Germany, or reserva extrativista in Brazil. --Ulf Mehlig 19:05, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

What happened to the boundary=national_park definition? Can't find it now. In fact I can't find a revision of this page which mentioned it. -- Harry Wood 12:21, 8 April 2008 (BST)

adding boundaries

Does anyone have an example of where I can look at how this has been done in potlatch? I think parts of my home areas need boundaries added to make the search reasonable, but I can't see any borders marked anywhere. -- Kpalsson -11:16, 21 August 2007

Use of border_types in Germany

I would suggest to use border_type=state for Bundesländer and border_type=province for Landkreise and Stadtkreise. Any comments? --Dr.Nop 10:19, 8 October 2007 (BST)

IMHO it would be good to use Eurostat NUTS terminology, see http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/nuts/basicnuts_regions_en.html and some examples http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/nuts/maps_searchpage_en.cfm , so it would by border_type=nuts1.

I looked at this in the UK. NUTS1 does correspond to real administrative regions, but NUTS2 and NUTS3 refer to arbritrarily grouped counties and districts, and this would not be useful for tagging administrative borders. Morwen 09:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

for Germany NUTS and LAU classification looks good.

NUTS 1 Bundesländer (16) --> level 4

NUTS 2 Regierungsbezirke (39) --> level 5

NUTS 3 Kreise (429) --> level 6

LAU 1 (NUTS 4) Samtgemeinden, Verwaltungsgemeinschaften (1457)

LAU 2 (NUTS 5) Gemeinden (12379)

but should capture the NUTS ans LAU classifiction, but maybe in their own boundary-relations.

I propose to use the admin_level as follows:

• admin_level=2 international borders (Land)
  
  
• admin_level=4 federal state / province borders (Bundesland)
  
• admin_level=5 state-districts / province-districts (Regierungsbezirke)
  
• admin_level=6 county / district-free cities (Landkreis/kreisfreie Städte)
  
• admin_level=7 county-districts / district_free cities districts (Bezirke)
• admin_level=8 city/municipal (Städte/Gemeinden)
  
  
• admin_level=10 suburbs (Stadtteile)
  

Some "Bundesländer"/federal states (not all...) have "Regierungsbezirke" between "Bundesland"/fed. state and "Landkreis"/county: admin_level=5??? see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regierungsbezirk

In some "Bundesländer"/federal states (again: not all... and sometimes not the same ones...) the "Gemeinden"/municipales might be organized in "Samtgemeinden", "Verbandsgemeinden" or "Ämter" between county and municipal: admin_level=7??? see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinde_%28Deutschland%29

a little bit complicate... :-) --Mueck 16:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

you're right. so I added admin_level=7 and admin_level=5 for the administrative province-districts (Regierungsbezirke) and the local-admin-districts (Bezirke in einem Landkreis) in my example. --Cbm 12:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe better that way?

admin_level for Germany
Tag	Description	NUTS/LAU
admin_level=1	n/a
admin_level=2	international borders (Land)
admin_level=3	n/a
admin_level=4	federal state / province borders (Bundesland)	NUTS 1
admin_level=5	state-districts / province-districts (Regierungsbezirke)	NUTS 2
admin_level=6	countys / 'district-free cities' (Landkreis/kreisfreie Städte)	NUTS 3
admin_level=7	county- / 'district-free city'-districts (Bezirke)
admin_level=8	amt [1] (Samtgemeinden, Verwaltungsgemeinschaften)	LAU 1
admin_level=9	city/municipal (Städte/Gemeinden)	LAU 2
admin_level=10	suburbs (Stadtteile)

further expansion

Right, this is going well in the UK so far. However, there is weirdness in that parish and county borders are shown at the same weight and on the same zoomlevels. Because I don't want to hardcode the names 'parish' and 'county', I'm instead going with a system to indicate significance by a number.

I'm presently modifying the t@h stylesheets to do this.

so the system is, in the UK

• admin_level=6 on county borders;
• admin_level=8 on district borders;
• admin_level=10 on parish borders

i've left gaps so we can infill if needed. this is intended as only a temporary solution until such time as we get per-country stylesheets, which are Quite Hard, so I appreciate this might end up lasting longer than hoped for. Morwen 21:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Where do UK unitary authorities fit in this? Are they counties (I guess so), but many are effectively cities Chillly 11:41, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

admin_level 6, I would say. Morwen 12:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Very local use

I've used boundary=college and admin_level=10 for local use, which is likely to help a custom rendering that I might do. See [Durham#New_tagging_system], I hope it won't horribly interfere. - LastGrape 14:26, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, how about amenity=university? --Hawke 22:55, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

left:X right:X

Wouldn't it make more sense to use the same digits for left:X and right:X than the admin_leve rather than names that might not be appropriate in some places. Currently:

left:parish, left:district, left:region, left:province, left:state

But how do these work in countries with departments, cantons, arrondissements, deelgemeenten, prefectures, etc. ? Why no just use something like

left:4, left:6, left:8, left:10

with the same scale system as admin_level? --Moyogo 00:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Currently, nothing is done with these tags, but it would seem logical to use this system for naming what is either side of the border. --Edgemaster 20:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Admin_level values for specific countries

Discussion of existing admin_level values should go here, as should new countries, where there is doubt about which level to use for a boundary

Austria

Similar to Germany I'd like to propose:

• admin_level=2 - National border (Staatsgrenze)
• admin_level=4 - Federal states border (Landesgrenzen)
• admin_level=6 - County borders (Bezirksgrenzen bzw. Städte mit eigenem Statut)
• admin_level=7 - Special Divisions in county of Liezen, Styria (Politische Exposituren im Bezirk Liezen)
• admin_level=8 - Municipalities (Gemeindegrenzen)
• admin_level=9 - Divisions of cities (Stadtbezirke)
• admin_level=10 - (Katastralgemeinden)

Belgium

The following is proposed:

• admin_level=2 for the border around Belgium
• admin_level=4 Region border
• admin_level=5 Community border
• admin_level=6 Province border
• admin_level=7 Administrative arrondissement border
• admin_level=8 Municipal border
• admin_level=10 Suburb and Locality border
• -or-
• admin_level=10 part-municipalities (=deelgemeentes(nl); section/ancienne commune/sous-commune(fr))

Greece

Second proposal (by AiNikolas

• admin_level=2 - National border (Εθνικά Σύνορα)
• admin_level=3 - no current use
• admin_level=4 - Periphery border (Περιφέρεια)
• admin_level=5 - no current use
• admin_level=6 - Prefecture border (Νομός)
• admin_level=7 - Municipality border (Δήμος)
• admin_level=8 - Municipality district border (Δημοτικό Διαμέρισμα)
• admin_level=9 - Village, settlement +/- neighborhood (Χωριό, οικισμός +/- συνοικία)
• admin_level=10 - Neighborhood ("Συνοικία"), (if not implemented in level 9)

United States

How to handle:

• school districts
• postal codes
• telephone area codes
• PLSS divisions

• Sections
• half-sections
• Quarter-sections
• Half-quarter-sections
• Quarter-quarter-sections

Church boundaries

Well Church of England anyway....

Very basic and there are some exceptions to this model (for example Gibraltar and The Falkland Isles) boundary=episcopal; denomination=anglican

• admin_level=4 - Primacy (Province of the Anglican Communion) (Not synonmous with countries)
• admin_level=5 - Eclesiatical Province (for example York or Cantebury)
• admin_level=6 - Archdeaconry
• admin_level=9 - Deanery
• admin_level=10, Episcopal parish

Anyone care to comment on what the equivalent structuring for other churches is? ShakespeareFan00 00:20, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Why not use admin_level=8 for Deanery? --Hawke 16:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Elections..

boundary=constituency

Proposed UK schema

• European Parliament
• UK (Westminster Parliament)
• Scottish Parliament/Welsh Assembly/NI Assembly
• County/Unitary authority members
• District Council seats
• Parish/Town council seats - Are the equivalent to individual wards..?

ShakespeareFan00 17:32, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

If feasible, it would be nice to have this in a manner which could mesh with the US system(s), but that might be difficult unless we have someone very familiar with both, and several states in the US.

US:

• Congressional districts (435)
• State Senate districts (Legislature, for Nebraska, which has a unicameral legislature)
• State House (or Assembly) districts
• City Council (Aldermanic) districts

Hawke 18:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

In the UK, the noted levels already duplicate the existing admin_level values that exist - the areas map directly to each other. admin_level would probably be extended to 11 to cover wards - although the boundaries for wards change often and the datasources are nearly impossible to get freely. (This idea has been trashed about on the mailing lists several times in the past) --Edgemaster 18:46, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_England#Elections says "The area which a council covers is divided into one or more electoral divisions - known in district and parish councils as 'wards', and in county councils as 'electoral divisions'. Each ward can return one or more members - multi-member wards are quite common."

I believe these "electoral divisions" and "wards" do not map to the existing admin_level values...a ward for electing a particular seat of the council has no bearing on how the council governs, and is exclusively for election purposes (and therefore not really an administrative boundary). However, I am not in the UK and therefore not really qualified to comment on it, beyond what I can find in Wikipedia. --Hawke 21:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Postcode...

Proposed schema - boundary=postal

In order of descendign mangnatitude..

• Province
• Postal Area
• Postal Area Subdivision
• Postal District
• Postal Sector
• Postal Unit

Any comments? In particular I'D like to know how this coudl be mapped to a hireachy. ShakespeareFan00 17:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

First Nations

In Canada some areas of land are designated as Indian Reserves, held in trust for First Nation bands. Some of these lands cross provincial borders and even cross the U.S. border (see Akwesasne )

Suggestion: First Nations and Indian Reservations should be boundary=administrative; admin_level=1; border_type=first_nation; as they are international.

Should borders like this really be administrative? Certainly using admin_level=1 for this just looks wrong to me... --Eimai 17:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Eimai. If they are international borders, they should be treated as admin_level=2 just like other international borders. --Hawke 05:48, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

no use for admin_level=3

• Is there any need for level 3? I don't see any helpful difference here. Even where it is applied, it could be shifted one level down there, compared to other countries. I'd recommend to move everything else one level up. What was the purpose of this level? --traut 16:35, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

• Why bother? It can be useful, as for whatever reason a government would come with yet another administrative level. That why level 1 is not used either. One day the EU might become a real "country", that day we just start using level=1 instead of mass changing everything. Furhter more it saves the people who make the stylesheets for mapnik/osmarender/kosmos/whatever, time. --Skywave 16:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• It's actually all country specific. In Greece admin_level 3 was abolished, but I guess it's now replaced again as admin_level 3, by municipalities. We have 10 levels I think, and it gives enough room for all decisions various governments make. Logictheo 10:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Brazil

In Brazil the following have been used, and I am continuing that use:

• 4: State, e.g. between Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo
• 8: Manincupal, e.g. around Bela Horizonte

Shared boundry

How shall we tag a boundary that is used for many levels? E.g. a level-6 border that is also a part of a level-3 border? Should relations be used for this, or can we cope with it by using keys?

• We should, perhaps, have used a numbering scheme that allows adding the levels together:

100000= national; 10000 = state; 1000 = district ...

Then the levels could be added and still make sense: 111000 is a shared national, state and district border. We could use a smaller radix, but binary codes for such things might be too easy to make mistakes. Chillly 14:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I was under the impression, that the reason for the admin_levels is, that lower numbers of borders are automatically also borders for all numbers higher than that. E.g. a level-2-border is also a border for level 3,4,5...; a level-7-border is automatically also a level-8-, level-9- and level-10-border. -- A uller 17:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

No, there are several places where this isn't the case, I think a few were mentioned somewhere in the mailing list some time ago. --Eimai 17:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Instead of coming up with binary representations, using relations to combine all boundary pieces around one administrative area together seems more logical to me. Then you just need to look at the relations a boundary is a part of. --Eimai 17:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmmm, a relation the size of The Russian Federation ...

That's no problem. The solution for this are relations as members of relations. (JOSM can easily handle this procedure) --Cbm 06:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)