United States admin level

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Admin level 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
States
DC N/A Neighborhoods tagged as place=suburb
LA N/A Parish[1] Unincorporated communities Towns
Cities
Villages
N/A
AK N/A Borough[2] N/A City N/A
NY New York City Borough N/A
N/A County N/A City N/A
Town Village N/A
City of Sherrill N/A
FL Metropolitan Statistical Area County Reedy Creek Improvement District, FL City N/A N/A
CA N/A County (58 total) N/A[3] Incorporated City
Incorporated Town
N/A
CT N/A County[4]
Region[5]
Town City
Borough
N/A
MI N/A County N/A City[6][7] N/A
Township
Charter Township[8]
Village[9] N/A
MN N/A County [10] Township[11] City[12] N/A Neighborhoods[13]
OH N/A County (details) Township (details) City
Village
N/A "Neighborhood"[14]
VA N/A County N/A Town N/A
N/A City[15] N/A Borough[16] N/A
Other N/A[17] County Civil township or any Minor civil division which is a government. City
Village
(incorporated) Township
(incorporated) Town
N/A
Baltimore, MD
Carson City, NV
St. Louis, MO
N/A

Not everything is administrative

Census Designated Places (CDPs) should be tagged boundary=census, ideally without an admin_level=* tag. CDPs are boundaries maintained by the Census Bureau for statistical purposes. Originally, many CDPs were imported from TIGER as boundary=administrative admin_level=8, but the talk-us mailing list reached a consensus to treat them as non-administrative boundaries.[18] Additionally, the Census Bureau has revised its methodology regarding CDPs since 2009, causing many imported boundaries to fall out of date. There is some degree of support for removing the least relevant CDPs from the database, but note that CDPs are relevant in some parts of the country, such as Alaska.

There is no consensus yet on how to tag Indian reservations.[19] Different reservations have varying levels of interaction with local, state, and federal government agencies. Their borders often cross state lines (in one case, a national border as well). These relationships are perhaps too complex to shoehorn into a hierarchical scheme like admin_level. Therefore, one common approach is to tag reservations with either boundary=aboriginal_lands or boundary=protected_area protect_class=24, omitting the admin_level=* tag in either case.

See also

Notes

  1. Louisiana is divided into 64 parishes in the same way that 48 of the other states of the United States are divided into counties.
  2. Unlike county-equivalents in the other 49 states, Alaska's organized boroughs do not cover the entire land area of the state.
  3. There was a proposal in 2012 to map California's Local Agency Formation Commissions (LAFCOs) as level 5 administrative boundaries.
  4. Connecticut's court jurisdictions still adhere to the county boundaries, except for Fairfield, Hartford and New Haven, which have been further subdivided into several jurisdictions.
  5. In 1960 Connecticut dissolved its county governments creating a vacuum of power at the regional level. In the 1980s established 15 regional councils with authority limited to land use policymaking, infrastructure development, emergency preparedness, and long-term planning.
  6. In Michigan, townships (including charter townships) and cities are mutually exclusive administrative subdivisions under the county level. No part of a township lies within a city and if the entire township is incorported as a city or annexed to a city, the township ceases to exist in every sense.
  7. In Michigan, a city can be part of more than one county. County boundaries are not adjusted according to city boundaries. There are no independent cities or consolidated city-counties.
  8. In Michigan, a charter township is equal to any other township, it is not an incorporated municipality. The charter in its name refers to the exercise of local options for township government provided by state law.
  9. In Michigan, a village is subordinate to a township and can span more than one township. Villages can also span more than one county.
  10. Portions of some counties are "unorganized"--that is, not a township or city--and are governed by the county board. As such, they have no admin boundary of their own, but will be marked as "holes" in other admin boundaries.
  11. Minnesota's townships were formed from the Congressional townships formed by the Public Land Survey, but have often been modified since then. However, they always remain one county. In Minnesota, townships and cities are mutually exclusive administrative subdivisions under the county level. No part of a township lies within a city and if the entire township is incorporated as a city or annexed to a city, the township ceases to exist in every sense. Cities may sometimes detach land back to surrounding townships, or even be entirely dissolved and become part of a township. NOTE: Township boundaries are not currently entered in OSM.
  12. In Minnesota, a city can be part of more than one county. County boundaries are not adjusted according to city boundaries.
  13. Some cities such as Minneapolis have well-defined neighborhood boundaries that are used by neighborhood organizations.
  14. For neighborhood councils in the largest cities. May or may not correspond to voting wards. Use discretion; smaller cities' neighborhoods may be better served by landuse polygons.
  15. Since 1871, all incorporated cities in Virginia have classified as independent cities.
  16. In Virginia when multiple local governments consolidate to form a consolidated city, the consolidated city may be divided into geographical subdivisions called "boroughs", which may be the same as the existing cities, counties, or portions of such counties. Those boroughs are not separate local governments.
  17. There was a proposal in 2012 to map councils of governments (COGs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and Primary Statistical Areas (PSAs), etc. as level 5 administrative boundaries.
  18. See threads beginning at: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
  19. See threads beginning at: [8] [9] [10] [11]