[talk-au] Tagging towns by relative importance, not just population size

[Warin]

On 28/9/23 17:04, Michael Collinson wrote:
>
> TL;DR: We need to get a systematic measure of population density into 
> OSM to act as a guideline for mapping software to vary what goes at 
> what zoom level.
>
Off topic:

On a global scale that does not work due to the population densities 
changing over the world. When adjusted for Europe to have a 'good map' 
then using the same software rules the map goes blank in various places 
like central Australia.

My thinking is the map generating software should fill the map at a zoom 
with data until the map density reaches a certain level and then stop. 
This way the map would not be blank nor over crowed, but what is 
displayed adjusts to suit the data available. There could be limits on 
what detail could be displayed in both directions - minimum data and 
maximum data but what it uses is simply between the two limits and 
adjusted for data/map density ... Of course there is a lot more to this 
.. like the tiles being sized to suit the data density rather than an 
arbitrary lat/long size.