Talk:WikiProject Malta

Roadnames in Malta

I do not live in Malta but my Parents do so I'm there from time to time and might do some mapping when I'm there. My Questions is concerning Roadnames (or names on places etc.). I konw that most roads have an english name and one Maltese name. Are these both offical names? Do all roads have then? And I understand that I can put them both in name:mt resp. name:en. But what name should be in "name="? --Thod 07:58, 4 June 2012 (BST)

"name=" should be Maltese, so name:mt is useless. Other names (like english) can be inserted with "name:en=". --Arlas (talk) 13:22, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Agreed with the above. Official street names are in Maltese, so name:mt is redundant. As for official sources, we can refer to the Street Naming Committee of the Electoral Office (https://electoral.gov.mt/streetnaming2025-en) and/or the Planning Authority's MapServer (https://pamapserver.pa.org.mt/), amongst other sources. --SamuelZammit (talk) 13:23, 10 June 2025 (CEST)

Gozo Towns/Villages survey December 2008

June 2025: Reproducing this table from a previous version of the article for archival purposes.

Place	Mapping status	Notes
Marsalforn	Streets, street names and POIs mapped	2008/12: Surveyed the village by bike. Gubaer 21:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Munxar	Streets, street names and POIs mapped	2008/12: Surveyed the village by bike. Gubaer 21:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Nadur	Streets, street names and POIs mapped	2008/12: Surveyed the village by bike. Gubaer 21:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Sannat	Streets, street names and POIs mapped	2008/12: Surveyed the village by bike. Gubaer 21:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Victoria	Streets, street names and POIs mapped	2008/12: Surveyed the village by bike, added street names and POIs. Mapped the historic castle in more details. Gubaer 21:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Xaghra	Streets, street names and POIs mapped	2008/12: Surveyed the village by bike, added street names and POIs. Missing street names, needs further surveying. Gubaer 21:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Xewkija	Streets, street names and POIs mapped	2008/12: Surveyed the village by bike, added street names and POIs. Gubaer 21:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Xlendi	Streets, street names and POIs mapped	2008/12: Surveyed the village by bike, added street names and POIs. Added a couple of tracks and footways around Xlendi. Gubaer 21:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Żebbuġ	Streets, street names and POIs mapped	2008/12: Surveyed the village by bike, added street names and POIs. Gubaer 21:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Populated place names/areas/units within the local councils

Greetings. I'm curious. Within each and every of the 68 local councils (or in Maltese: kunsilli lokali) that exist within the nation of Malta, do they have smaller sub-local or local level areas/units that can resemble as "populated places" (or in Maltese: "postijiet popolati"), like townlets or villages or localities or settlements or neighbourhoods or communities or quartiers or hamlets or "zones", etc.

Looking forward to hearing from anyone in regard to this matter. Thanks in advance.

P.S.: I believe that a local council functions like a "local government area" [LGA] or "local administrative unit" [LAU] (i.e.: a municipality or a commune) that contains a downtown area (or a city/town centre), alongside a few other towns and/or villages or similar place name areas/units within the territorial borders/boundaries of that local government area or local administrative unit. Jlog3000 (talk) 16:01, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your question. The local councils correspond to the LAU2 level of the European Union NUTS classification and are officially defined. From what I've seen, the official boundaries seem to be correctly mapped on OSM.

Given the nature of Malta (it is a very small and urbanised country that can be compared to a medium-sized city), many of the historical 'villages' have by now formed conurbations, so this distinction does not really exist except perhaps in more rural areas. However, some areas still have names (of neighbourhoods/suburbs) in common use.

As an example, the local council of Rabat, Malta (7510565 7510565) entirely contains the 'village' of Baħrija (12738319122 12738319122) and small hamlets as Landrijiet (1421803481 1421803481). Often, the borders of these are not officially/exactly defined. In practice, it would make sense to map these smaller areas as place=hamlet or place=village, and it would make sense to map neighbourhoods/suburbs within cities as place=neighbourhood, place=locality, place=quarter, etc. (example: 3504369488 3504369488).

As an aside, please note that local councils effectively act as 'city councils', where a total of between 5 and 15 councillors (depending on the population of the locality) are elected to manage local issues. Some of the larger hamlets/villages used to have separate semi-autonomous 'administrative committees' (see this Wikipedia article), but the legislation for this was repealed in 2019. SamuelZammit (talk) 10:22, 13 June 2025 (CET)

Greetings @SamuelZammit. Pardon me for the delayed response. But yeah, I kinda get most of what you have said. But with that being said, does each local council actually contain smaller sub-local areas, even if they are unofficial? Jlog3000 (talk) 19:13, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, there are names in common use (even if no longer 'official'). In OSM, they are mapped as place=hamlet, place=neighbourhood, or place=village, etc. The official smallest subdivisions are the 68 local councils, which are mapped as relations with admin_level=8.

Uninhabited/rural areas with place names (usually relating to geographical/natural features) are often populated with place=locality (example: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/12748079996). Sources for this include local knowledge and the Government's historical survey maps. SamuelZammit (talk) 08:12, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Where may I find such a list (from a perspective of OSM, and aside from OSM)? I assume that the ones under "place=locality" or "place=hamlet" or "place=neighbourhood" or "place=hamlet" etc. are the ones representing a level beneath the "admin_level=8" one, correct? Jlog3000 (talk) 08:26, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, they are beneath admin_level=8 for sure.

Regarding the localities, here is the most comprehensive list I could find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_localities_in_Malta. Most of these would be in common use, but for sure I haven't heard of all of these. I am personally more familiar with the northern half of Malta island (the larger one).

As for official government sources, you can find data here (but not sure about the copyright/licence status of these):

1. Planning Authority MapServer: https://pamapserver.pa.org.mt/ (includes 1968 survey sheet under the 'basemaps' menu)
2. Malta GeoHub: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/4d0a5da4f6f24e71808f19825d3ef47f/ (includes older survey sheets under the 'mapping and imagery' menu).

SamuelZammit (talk) 08:34, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

On the link from the Wikipedia page, I have checked that one. However, when I tried to compare that with any government related source, like as if it's invalid. I even tried contacting to each local council, but to no avail. Jlog3000 (talk) 09:39, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

In my experience, the 1968 survey map on the Planning Authority MapServer (link 1 above) contains most of the locality names (especially in rural areas). For the names in common use, there are usually road signs with the area names on them. For example, on page 2 of this document (https://cbdmalta.org/assets/docs/Zone%20update%20%20Newsletter%2030th%20-September-2023.pdf) the names "Valletta", "San Ġiljan", "Ħ'Attard" etc. are local councils (admin_level=8) but "L-Imrieħel", "Ta' Qali", etc. are smaller subdivisions/areas.

Right now contacting the local councils probably won't get you a response - it's election season in Malta right now. And I'm not sure if they would reply at all to these kinds of queries in general.

Last month I tried myself contacting the government's Address Management Unit (https://address.gov.mt/) to see if they were willing to provide building/address data but didn't receive a reply either. SamuelZammit (talk) 10:09, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

a.) I see what you mean. I'll go check out those sample links, just to get an idea. Also, based on those experiences you have, does Malta have a proper generalized term or name to classify those smaller subdivisions/areas/units that correspond within the local councils' territorial borders? Like here in Puerto Rico, where I'm from, we have a term for such to describe our populated places. That generalized term is called "sectores" (which is in Spanish, that means sectors in English). They are the smaller subdivisions/areas/units within the sub-municipal areas/units/zones of the municipalities (or "municipios" in Spanish) in P.R.; which are called "barrios" (which is in Spanish, that means neighbourhoods in English, but not in a sense of such, these sub-municipal areas are like an equivalent to a sub-municipal area/unit/zone within British-based local government unit, such as a "ward" or a "borough"). In P.R., there are 78 "municipios", with each of them combined subdividing into 901 "barrios", with each of them combined subdividing into the populated places we call them as "sectores" (and there are various types to classify aside from "sector", like "urbanizacion", "residencial", "condominio", "parcela", "ejida", "barriada", etc.).

b.) I can understand that it will be a busy year within Malta due to election campaigning, etc. But to my defense, I have tried contacting each and every local council since years ago, like about over a decade, in regards to this part or aspect within my research request; and so far I have failed bit-by-bit. Also, about the Address Manegement Unit, is it like responsible for address data that can contain geographic names of the sub-areas for each local council?

Looking forward to hearing from you. Keep in touch. Jlog3000 (talk) 20:56, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

a) The divisions of Malta are in line with the European Union's NUTS/LAU system, with 6 regions at NUTS 1 level and 68 local councils (municipalities) at NUTS 2 level. As far as I know there is no official sub-division below the local councils. The Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_councils_of_Malta states that some of the larger hamlets had 'administrative committees' with elections in 2010 and 2014, but the legislation for this was repealed in 2019 (https://legislation.mt/DownloadDocument.aspx?app=lom&itemid=8833&l=1). The subdivisions may be called (unofficially) by various terms: 'area', 'hamlet', 'zone', 'housing estate', etc.

b) The election campaign period here is short (5 weeks only!), with the election date next Saturday. Personally I gave up on trying to contact official sources since queries are often left unanswered - unless you're complaining about parking or something :-)

The address management unit was newly set up in late 2025 and takes care of geospatial data/registers, including buildings and addresses. The law setting up this entity states that data is to be made available, but does not specify where this is available for download (beyond viewing it at https://address.gov.mt/locate-a-street-search/) or under which licence this is to be made available. Personally I use it for reference when adding buildings or updating street names and combine this information with survey or local knowledge. On this page, the 'locality' usually responds to the local council, but in some cases the hamlets are under a separate 'locality' (e.g. "Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, in-Naxxar" is separated from "In-Naxxar" proper). But this is not consistent, since addresses in "Magħtab" (a suburb/hamlet of Naxxar) are not listed under their own 'locality' in this page. SamuelZammit (talk) 12:25, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I guess you're right on that, with the local councils being the official local government units/areas (i.e.: municipalities, etc.) within Malta. But I just wish there is a reliable source or link or site that each of those local councils have their internal yet unofficial smaller areas or zones or hamlets within them, etc. And about the Address Management Unit, I'll go try contacting them as well as checking out based on the samples you have shared, and to see if those are actually close to the list of "localities" and/or similar populated places being posted in Wikipedia. Jlog3000 (talk) 16:49, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Address/building/locality data is probably handled more at the national level (address management unit / planning authority) than on the local-council level. For the areas/hamlets, the best source is probably the 1968 survey sheets available on the Planning Authority MapServer (https://pamapserver.pa.org.mt/) - in many cases, even when previously rural areas are built up, they keep the same name.

Please do let me know if you manage to get any more information on this or if you manage to make contact with official entities. SamuelZammit (talk) 13:24, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

I'll take those as mental notes, and I'll let you know if somehow those entities do contact me back in a way. Thanks for the concern. Jlog3000 (talk) 16:23, 28 May 2026 (UTC)