[Tagging] New Island

[Christoph Hormann]

On Sunday 07 November 2021, Kyle Hensel wrote:
>
> There is a new island that formed in 2019, however it seems like the
> purple country boundaries haven’t been updated to reflect that this
> island is part of Tonga.
>
> Does anyone know how these boundaries are created?
>
> The OSM feature: https://osm.org/way/746080571
> Background info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metis_Shoal

The territorial water limits are typically either imported from some 
outside data source or generated by buffering the baseline by 12 
nautical miles (real ground units, not mercator units).

Needless to say that these are often non-verifiable.  The decision which 
features have territorial waters indicated in OSM and which don't is 
sometimes fairly arbitrary.  Therefore mapping of maritime boundaries 
in OSM has relatively little real world relevance.  

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