[OSM-talk-be] Fixing administrative borders

Thu Jun 9 08:20:53 UTC 2011

Benoit Leseul wrote:

>On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 20:27, Ben Laenen <benlaenen at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Benoit Leseul wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 11:18, Luc Van den Troost <luc.antw at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>[...]
>>>>Comunities are made up of people, not of area. So putting
>>>>communitie-borders on the map is kind of insane.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>In terms of boundaries, the belgian constitution defines four
>>>linguistic areas ("régions linguistiques"/"taalgebieden") but not
>>>communities as geographical entities.
>>>
>>>See Art. 4 :
>>>http://www.senate.be/doc/const_nl.html#t1
>>>http://www.senate.be/doc/const_fr.html#t1
>>>http://www.senate.be/deutsch/const_de.html#t1
>>>
>>>They are all contained into regional boundaries and are identical to
>>>the regions except for the "deutsche Sprachgebiet".
>>>
>>>I think that's what should be mapped at that level (be it 4 or 5) and
>>>it would solve the overlap problem.
>>>      
>>>
>>The idea was to map the communities according to those language areas. If
>>everyone agrees to map these language areas instead of communities, fine by
>>me, but I just thought it would be odd to see something like "région bilingue
>>de Bruxelles-Capitale - tweetalige gebied Brussel-Hoofdstad" appear on the
>>map,
>>    
>>
>
>Sure it's not pretty, but possibly less odd than overlapping areas and
>bigger sublevels than their upper counterparts.
>Maybe the name could be reduced to something like "Région de
>Bruxelles-Capitale - Brussel-Hoofdstad" since the bilingual aspect can
>be implied by the double name.
>
>  
>
>>and because it then looks like the maps you can find on
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communities,_regions_and_language_areas_of_Belgium
>>which are the maps everyone learns it with at school as well.
>>    
>>
>
>That's probably an oversimplification, the maps are showing competence
>areas, not areas per se.
>Also, I don't know that any OSM renderer shows overlapping areas with
>a hatched texture.
>
>But yeah, "It's complicated" and I'm not sure everyone would agree one
>way or another.
>It will look strange and complex in both cases, but so is reality :)
>
In fact for the governement, there are no overlaps. The administrative 
level for federal, community and region is equal and shared.
However in OSM, we can not share these levels and so we have choosen 
that federal has level 2, region has 4 and community has 5 .
(in the wiki 5 is mentioned as communities/provinces, but I would state 
there simply 'language communnity', because provinces has nothing to do 
with that)
Further on, there are two administrative sublevels, provinces (6) and 
muncipalities (8).
The level between 6 and 8, arrondissement (7) is more a judicial or 
political (voting) level.
I don't know if we realy have to map that as administrative boundary.
(You have also another level between muncipality and arrondissement, not 
yet defined in OSM and that is the kanton)

As for the ordering of the levels, relations can lists others as subareas.

According to the law, Belgium has 3 regions (Vlaanderen, Wallonië en 
Brussel) which are formed by provinces (except Brussels) and 3 
communnities responsible for their part of the 4 language regions which 
are all formed by the muncipalities.
What should we map from this?
- the regions (level 4) as subarea of Belgium (2)
- the provinces (level 6) as subarea of the regions (4)
- the muncipalities (level 8) as subarea of the provinces (6) and 
communities (5) (and eventually the arrondissements (7))
I don't think that it will add anything, but confusion by defining other 
levels as subarea to certain levels as eg communities to Belgium or 
arrondissements to provinces.
Maybe this could also as guidelines be added to the wiki.

I see that the French Community for the moment incorporates the German  
Community (Muncipalities: Amel, Büllingen, Burg-Reuland, Bütgenbach, 
Eupen, Kelmis, Lontzen, Raeren und St.Vith)
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/78967
These muncipalities need some borders as they seems now to be confined 
in Verviers.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/1407211
This is not correct.
Seems also that the German Community itself is not yet defined
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Belgium/Boundaries#Communities_.28Gemeenschappen_.2F_Communaut.C3.A9s_.2F_Gemeinschaften.29

Some communities has language facilities for other language groups, and 
altough the other community may have some competences there as 
organising school, does not mean that this muncipality is also part of 
that community. I don't think there is a mapping of these language 
facilities in OSM or that it should be desirable.

Other levels are the villages (9) which form the muncipalities (8) and 
were independent muncipalities before the reform of 1977
eg Boechout
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/76297
in Boechout
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/76278 
These could be listed as subarea in the relation too.

Level 10 could be used for hamlets, these are small local communities, 
often some residential landuse around a little church or chapel.
They have always been part of a muncipality or village. eg Terlanen in 
Overijse (boundary not yet mapped or defined)
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?minlon=4.5929214859&minlat=50.7602102661&maxlon=4.61292196274&maxlat=50.7802140808
But for some, it will not be evident to know the borders (Atlas?) and 
mosttimes it will stay by only be mapped as place
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/473147300

I guess you could use this level 10 also for districts (as eg in 
Antwerp), or should we use 11, for not conflicting with hamlets?

For clarity, the table of muncipalities should be extended with a column 
to indicate the muncipality of the village (level 9)
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Belgium/Boundaries#Municipalities_and_deelgemeentes 

Also extension to list all is needed eg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_of_the_Flemish_Region

Regards,
Gerard.
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