[Tagging] International and UN names

[Michael Montani]

Possible use cases also involve UN entities willing to use OSM data for their map production and willing to stay consistent with UN naming. In this case, OSM would be a great facilitator to share this information among UN entities, considering all the disclaimers above.

The UN has a specific working group related to geographical names https://unstats.un.org/unsd/ungegn, in which location names get decided after approval of Member States. This mainly covers the 6 UN official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) and are used by the UN as commonly agreed, unbiased names.

We recently received a note verbale from the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations about the mispelling of some names we were taking from OSM. Citing some examples:

  *    The French spelling of Kyiv (name:fr in OSM) should be Kyïv according to the note (which could be name:fr-UN=Kyïv , possibly different from common usage for a francophone user)
  *   The English spelling of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (name:en in OSM) should be Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant according to the note (which could be name:en-UN=Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant)

I believe these spellings may be not coinciding with the commonly used ones in some languages (not to mention dialects and regional differences), but I wouldn't feel comfortable in changing the main name:en=* because the UN authoritative one doesn't coincide.

The reason of having those in OSM would be to give other UN entities the possibility to easily select and prioritize UN authoritative naming when accessing OSM data.

Let me know if I can help further,
Michael, UN Mappers<https://mappers.un.org/>



________________________________
From: Marc_marc <marc_marc at mailo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2022 3:00 PM
To: tagging at openstreetmap.org <tagging at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Tagging] International and UN names

Hello,

Le 15.03.22 à 11:43, Minh Nguyen a écrit :
> Vào lúc 02:09 2022-03-15, Jeroen Hoek đã viết:
>> Are there any cases where the UN names are missing from the name,
>> int_name, alt_name, official_name tags and their language specific
>> variants (e.g., name:en)?

> int_name=* is frequently used for multiple purposes:
>
> * A UN/ISO 3166-1 country name in English, especially where it differs
> from the common English name, as in "Czechia" or "Viet Nam". This isn't
> limited to countries; there are ISO names for subnational divisions too.

imho it's wrong. like name, int_name isn't "name in English"

> * The English name of a multinational brand, such as Starbucks or
> 7-Eleven. name:en would be more correct for this purpose.

In a french-speaking area, a Starbucks shop is called Starbucks
it isn't a int_name nor a name either, it's a brand=Starbucks
int_name=Starbucks is a tagging mistake

> * For world-famous cities and landmarks, an internationally recognizable
> name for the feature in the same language as name, by analogy with
> nat_name, reg_name, and loc_name.

unneeded but not wrong

> UN/ISO names would be useful for data consumers that want to avoid the
> appearance of bias in a disputed area. (Whoever has de facto,
> on-the-ground control in a dispute usually isn't a neutral party.)

the language used in the name tag is not about the language of the
invader. if a Chinese took over the eiffel tower, it would still be
name=Tour Effeil until the language of the invader is sufficiently
imposed to consider that the name has changed

the 2 worries I see with name:UN is first that it breaks the logics of
the tag (name:language) and then it's that it's unlimited. after UN,
why not the name according to the arab league ? the orthodox church ?
the sect of the sun god ?

do you have an example where name:UN:xx differs from name:xx (apart from
tag errors of course) ?

Regards,
Marc



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