[OSM-talk-be] Boundary admin levels

[Kurt Roeckx]

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 12:40:00AM +0200, Ben Laenen wrote:
> On Thursday 29 May 2008, Kurt Roeckx wrote:
> > > 5: communities (Flemish, French and German community)
> >
> > As far as I know communities are not based on were you live, just
> > what language you speak.  It's based on the person, and not the place
> > he lives.  I don't think you can map it, so I don't see a point.
> 
> Well, from what I know it's like this: communities are based on 
> geographical boundaries where they have certain powers like education. 
> These boundaries are defined by the language areas you refer to below. 
> So we have:
> * Flemish community = Flemish Region and Brussels-Capital Region
> * French community = Walloon Region and Brussels-Capital Region minus 
> the German-speaking Community

So you substract a "community" from a "region".  It's like comparing apples
to oranges.

> * German community
> 
> So, basically only in Brussels-Capital Region there's a "collision", 
> i.e. both Flemish and French communities have powers there (i.e. French 
> and Flemish schools over there).
> 
> But the thing is, people living in Brussels don't "choose" their 
> community, you never sign a paper somewhere saying that you select 
> Community X to be your choice. People living elsewhere in Belgium don't 
> either.
> 
> Strictly speaking, people don't "belong" to communities, but people get 
> services from them

As far as I know, all powers the communities have is related to
the person, not to where they live.

> and these communities have powers in well defined 
> geographical areas. So, a French speaking person living in Liège could 
> go to school in Hasselt for example (thus making use of a service of 
> the Flemish community), and he could take extra education in Sankt Vith 
> as well if he wants to at the same time. The only issue is that he'll 
> have to go to the communities, since the Flemish community can't open a 
> school in Liège for example.

I see no reason why the Flemisch community couldn't open a school in the
Walloon region, or Walloon community a school in the German
language area.  Just like there are all other kinds of schools.

> Anyway, lots of talk just to say that the communities are geographically 
> well defined and not based on the individual people, and thus make 
> sense to map.

I still don't agree.

> > On the other hand, there are 4 language communities, the Dutch, the
> > French, the bilangual Brussels-Capital and the German, and each
> > municipality belongs to one of them.
> 
> > > 9: deelgemeenten/sections de municipalité
> >
> > This can already be difficult to map properly.  When things got split
> > (in 1976/1977?) some parts of the old village got changed to an other
> > municipality.  But you can probaly figure something about based on
> > the old and new borders for the municipalities.
> 
> The difficulty is just getting the boundaries from somewhere, but 
> they're well defined. They're also really needed in Antwerp where the 
> deelgemeenten have district status (yay, extra thing to vote on in 
> elections :-) ).

I guess they could be defined with where the old border was and the
new border is, and that the combination of those borders is the border
of the a new deelgemeente/sections de municipalité that never was
a village of it's own.  But I've actually seen references where it was
just counted as one of the other deelgemeentes.

And it's hard to draw a line where it should be counted as something for
level 9 or for level 10.  And if you say it's belonging to level 10, that
region should probably still get added to some other region at level 9,
and then the question is to which.

I was also thinking that those levels can probably get mapped to the level
of opengeodb.

> > > 10: not used
> > >
> > >
> > > For 10 we could maybe use the quarters of each municipality. I know
> > > the city of Antwerp divides the districts into smaller quarters,
> > > but I don't know if other municipalities do the same, so I haven't
> > > filled that in yet.
> >
> > I think below 9 there can still be different levels, like hamlet and
> > suburb, but I think we lack proper rules on when to use what.  And I
> > think most of them don't really have clearly cut lines.
> 
> Quarters in Antwerp are well defined, see the street lists at 
> http://www.antwerpen.be/eCache/ANT/23/746.html for the Antwerp district 
> for example. But I don't know it for other places, I guess they're 
> quite fuzzy in general...
> 
> 
> > > I've put communities one step lower than regions (even though the
> > > Flemish community is bigger than the Flemish Region, since it
> > > includes Brussels Capital Region) so that may be a discussion
> > > perhaps, but I generally see the communities being less important
> > > than the regions.
> >
> > See my comment above.  It doesn't make sense, the Brussels Capital
> > Region is not part of the Flemish community, but people from both
> > the Dutch and French community live in the Brussels Capital
> > Region.
> 
> As said above, Brussels-Capital Region belongs to both communities.
> 
> But if we take the language areas then, what names would you use for 
> them then? AFAIK they don't have official names, since they're not 
> official country divisions...

They are defined by the constitution:
     * Art. 1
       België is een federale Staat, samengesteld uit de gemeenschappen en
       de gewesten.
     * Art. 2
       België omvat drie gemeenschappen : de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, de
       Franse Gemeenschap en de Duitstalige Gemeenschap.
     * Art. 3
       België omvat drie gewesten : het Vlaamse Gewest, het Waalse Gewest
       en het Brusselse Gewest.
     * Art. 4
       België omvat vier taalgebieden : het Nederlandse taalgebied, het
       Franse taalgebied, het tweetalige gebied Brussel-Hoofdstad en het
       Duitse taalgebied.
       Elke gemeente van het Rijk maakt deel uit van een van deze
       taalgebieden.
[...]
     * Art. 5
       Het Vlaamse Gewest omvat de provincies Antwerpen, Limburg,
       Oost-Vlaanderen, Vlaams-Brabant en West-Vlaanderen. Het Waalse
       Gewest omvat de provincies Henegouwen, Luik, Luxemburg, Namen en
       Waals-Brabant.

But they do not have a government like the communities and regions.


Kurt