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<p>On 2019-10-29 01:21, Paul Allen wrote:</p>
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<div>I have an innate dislike of such countrification on a global map. It's better than</div>
<div>hijacking tags without adding a country code ("The rest of the world uses X=Y to mean</div>
<div>Z but in my country X=Y means W"), but only marginally so. The problem comes when</div>
<div>we add X:de=* and then find it also applies to France, and Italy, so have to then either</div>
<div>add X:fr and X:it which are synonyms of X:de or persuade mappers in France and Italy</div>
<div>to use X:de.</div>
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<div>I suspect that the similarities of meaning between countries are more by coincidence than by design, unless they are defined by some supranational body like the EU or UN. If X:de, X:it and X:fr appear to mean the same thing, it doesn't mean there aren't subtleties which would be lost for ever if the tagging was conflated.</div>
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<div>From a very brief examination of what kreisfreie Städte are they seem to bear some</div>
<div>similarities to the UK's unitary authorities. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_authority" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_authority</a></div>
<div>If the concepts are substantially the same, then we end up adding border_type:uk or </div>
<div>using border_type:de in the UK.</div>
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<div>In the UK a combination of admin_level and designation is adequate. The UK local government system is not always hierarchical, however. At the parish level much is unparished, and concepts like "lands common" don't fit a perfect hierarchy. There are also Combined Authorities.</div>
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<div>The UK system of local government means there is a wider-than-usual gap between local authority areas and "places" (which I define to be the answer given by a local to "where do you live"). The admin boundary system and "place" demarcation (where that is possible) are completely orthogonal.</div>
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<div>I'd prefer a way of handling these that doesn't require country codes.</div>
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<div>Country-specific concepts require country-specific tagging, and there is nothing more country-specific than local government. The only way to avoid country-specific tagging is to agree on a common definition for the whole world. This is OSM... Good luck with that....</div>
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