[Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - Proposed Japan tagging/Places

[Sarah Hoffmann]

On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 08:05:26PM +0900, gyotoku810 wrote:
> > On 18 May 2022, at 09:00, Sarah Hoffmann via Tagging <tagging at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
> > 
> > My main question is: will the proposal only affect city areas or
> > do you also plan to change tagging of place=town/village/hamlet
> > in the countryside?
> 
> This proposal affects all areas in Japan.

I find this problematic. The place=* tagging you
currently have on https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Japan_tagging#Places
works well enough for software that processes OSM data globally.
Your new proposal will break software which is built according to the
global definition.

OSM is a global project and we need to keep a minimal consensus what the
tagging means. Otherwise it will become improssible to create maps,
routers and geocoders that can be used worldwide.

> In Japan, the distinction between "urban" and "rural" areas is impossible or
> extremely subjective. Therefore, it is very difficult to apply the Wiki
> description directly to Japan.

This is the same in every part of the world. What normally happens is
every country looks at their specific situation and creates a recommendation
how to use the tags so that they come closest to the global defintion.

There is a certain distinction between "urban" and "rural" in our
definition of place terms. But this is not black and white. For example,
place=suburb and place=neighbourhood are frequently used for parts of
larger rural villages. Conversely, you find place=village sometimes to
be used for parts of towns, when the town has historically developped
out of a set of close villages.

So there is a lot of freedom in the usage of the tags. Still, they
should be used in a way that they reflect the settlement type, not the
type of administration.

> We understand that the current use of place=* tags in Japan deviates from
> the Wiki description, but we think there is no other way to represent place
> names under municipalities.

Yes, there is. If you feel you need a different tagging, then you need
to invent your own Japan-specific tag. This can then be used in addition
to the globally defined tag without breaking anything.

> It is thought that administrative place names are the identity of a place in
> Japan in many cases and users also need such information.
> 
> If using boundary=administrative, it must be drawn as a way or area, but we
> would like to represent administrative place names by nodes since precise
> boundary information is not yet available.

There is a tag border_type: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:border_type
This is used in some countries exactly for this purpose. The main
place=* tag corresponds to the global definition. The border_type tag is
then added to signal the administrative type of the place. Maybe this
could work for Japan, too?

Kind regards

Sarah