[Tagging] Admin_level=2 for non-independent countries

[Christoph Hormann]

On Saturday 08 October 2016, Joachim wrote:
> While editing capital=yes I came across capitals of non-independent
> countries which have their national border tagged with admin_level=2
> (I just did a browser site search in
> https://osm.wno-edv-service.de/boundaries/).
>
> Wikipedia was used to assemble the list
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_capitals_in_alphabeti
>cal_order)
>
> The countries fall into the categories:
> - Realm of New Zealand (only Tokelau)
> - British Overseas Territories with Bermudas, Gibraltar, Turks and
> Caicos Islands and others
> - Crown Dependencies with Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey (quite
> independent) - Danish Realm with Greenland and Faroe Islands
>
> The following are grouped below their respective states:
> - French overseas departments and territories
> - United States Territories
> - Australian External Territories
> - Kingdom of the Netherlands (Dutch Caribbean)

Yes, this has been highly inconsistent for a long time.  

There are essentially three classes of entities - without clear 
boundaries between them of course:

1. non-self-governing territories
2. internally self-governing territories
3. fully independent entities

The third type should usually be an admin_level=2 entity, the other two 
higher level admin units within their respective national entity - 
without a clear way to distinguish between 1. and 2.

In reality tagging is quite arbitrary however - the US and French 
territories for example are higher level admin units:

US:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/4422604
http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2177187

France:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3407643
http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6063085

while the British ones are separate level 2 entities 

http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1993208
http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1983628

Of course the whole matter is politically sensitive, see also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_list_of_Non-Self-Governing_Territories

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/