<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /></head><body style='font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif'>
<p>Hi Adam,</p>
<p>OSM does contain "Ceremonial Counties", i.e. Lieutenancy areas (in England). They are mapped as boundary=ceremonial. Basically they represent the counties as they existed just before the 1974 LGA. The boundaries still change occasionally to keep pace with (minor) changes to administrative boundaries, but that is done by separate legislative changes which are enacted "in sync" with the admin boundary changes.</p>
<div> </div>
<p>They have their own boundary relation in OSM unless they are not coterminous with the administrative county. In those cases, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't have their own relation.</p>
<p>We don't need old OS maps for these boundaries as they are published as part of the OS Boundary-Line data set.</p>
<p>However, if you mean "historical" in the sense of "really old", that's a different discussion, about historical data - i.e. things that no longer exist at all. Most people agree that OSM is not the right place to put things that really don't exist any more. There have been nasty discussions in the past about the trackbeds of abandoned railways...</p>
<p>You mentioned "Yorkshire" and "Sussex" - how far do you have to go back to find these as single entities? We are talking hundreds of years... But it would be very easy to create a new relation to combine East+West Sussex and Brighton&Hove and call it "Sussex", but is that what you mean? Does "Sussex" actually have sharp borders?</p>
<p>I do a lot of work with the UK admin boundaries in OSM - let me know if I can help further.</p>
<p>//colin</p>
<p>On 2017-02-09 23:30, Adam Snape wrote:</p>
<blockquote type="cite" style="padding: 0 0.4em; border-left: #1010ff 2px solid; margin: 0"><!-- html ignored --><!-- head ignored --><!-- meta ignored -->
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Hello,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Apologies for asking two questions in quick succession. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>It has occurred to me that the traditional/historic UK counties aren't mapped in OSM and I wondered if it would be acceptable to add relations for these with the boundary=historic tag.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I know that we have Historical OSM for long vanished historical features, and I would have no desire to see osm filled with antiquities,. but I think that the traditional counties are still relevant to people. People still identify with and talk of themselves as being from "Yorkshire". People might well wish to search a map for "Sussex" etc. <br /><br />We have good sources for the pre-1974 county boundaries in the form of out of copyright OS maps. The boundaries almost entirely follow current administrative boundaries, so wouldn't result in lots of extra clutter on the map.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Obviously it would be a big task and not one I'm volunteering to do in its entirety (if I get round to it at all), but does anybody find the principle of adding of traditional counties objectionable?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Kind regards,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Adam</div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="pre" style="margin: 0; padding: 0; font-family: monospace">_______________________________________________<br /> Talk-GB mailing list<br /> <a href="mailto:Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org">Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org</a><br /> <a href="https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb">https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb</a></div>
</blockquote>
</body></html>