[Talk-GB] Traditional Counties and Vice Counties

[Chris Hodges]

The fire services are another example, of another set of counties (not 
counties but similar)! South Wales is one fire service but several local 
authorities and several birding counties (Glamorgan alone is split into 
2 for the latter).

I'm not confident that the fire boundaries line up with modern county 
boundaries.  In theory the data is available at 
https://data.gov.uk/dataset/f6e7b8fa-3a9c-4974-8043-011806ed7d6a/english-and-welsh-fire-and-rescue-authority-boundaries 
but the preview only shows London; downloading the shapefile and 
importing into QGIS (2.18) is no better.



On 08/01/2021 11:29, Ian Caldwell wrote:
> These counties, like Avon, created by Local Government Act 1972  in 
> 1974  seem to still exist for fire services 
> https://www.nationalfirechiefs.org.uk/Fire-and-Rescue-Services as well 
> as used by other oragnisations like the BTO.
>
> I suspect those that have been abolished can be defined as a 
> collection of current councils.  I do not think these should be in 
> OSM. They can be constructed from the current councils.
>
>
>
>
>
> Ian
>
>
> On Fri, 8 Jan 2021 at 11:01, Chris Hodges <chris at c-hodges.co.uk 
> <mailto:chris at c-hodges.co.uk>> wrote:
>
>     Traditional counties (for some value of "traditional", that's not the
>     same as ceremonial) are still used for some niche purposes. This is
>     particularly obvious to me living in Avon, which is neither
>     current nor
>     ceremonial.
>
>     One example is wildlife records - here's the British Trust for
>     Ornithology's list of counties:
>
>     https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/birdtrack/bird-recording/county-bird-recorders
>
>     Whether, and how, we should map these is tricky.  I'm not sure anyone
>     else has. I had hoped to find a bird records county map to
>     demonstrate,
>     but failed to do so
>
>     Chris
>
>     On 08/01/2021 10:34, Andy Townsend wrote:
>     > On 08/01/2021 09:00, Mark Goodge wrote:
>     >>
>     >> Secondly, there's no such thing as "the" traditional county
>     >> boundaries anyway. They were fluid, and subject to change. The
>     >> Victorians, in particular, were inveterate tinkerers with local
>     >> government and were forever tweaking the boundaries, a little here
>     >> and a little there. So any traditional county boundary data can
>     only
>     >> ever be a snapshot of what the boundaries were at any particular
>     >> point in time. And there's no consensus about which is the most
>     >> "correct" snapshot to use. Even the Historic Counties Trust, which
>     >> aims to promote awareness of the traditional counties, offers
>     >> boundary data in different definitions. We can't possibly
>     include all
>     >> of them in OSM, but picking just one of them means making an
>     >> editorial view as to the most appropriate snapshot. In the
>     absence of
>     >> an agreed traditional county standard for OSM, leaving it up to
>     >> individual mappers will inevitably result in inconsistencies.
>     >>
>     > I think (and I'm guessing a bit here) that the "traditional" ones
>     > partly in OSM are the immediately-pre-1974 ones. Modelling the
>     > pre-1974 changes sounds like something best done in
>     OpenHistoricalMap,
>     > and to be honest sounds like a nice lockdown project for someone
>     > interested in such things.
>     >
>     > I can also see where you're coming from about whether the
>     traditional
>     > ones should be in OSM at all.  In some cases the boundary is
>     > signposted (the "traditional East Riding" at Stamford Bridge in
>     > Yorkshire certainly is), and in many cases boundaries will follow
>     > natural features that haven't moved, but in some cases (e.g.
>     Crayke,
>     > formerly a Durham Exclave until some early Victorian tinkering,
>     now in
>     > Yorkshire,
>     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bettss-Crayke-map.png )
>     > I don't think they do.
>     >
>     > Best Regards,
>     >
>     > Andy
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     > _______________________________________________
>     > Talk-GB mailing list
>     > Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org <mailto:Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org>
>     > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Talk-GB mailing list
>     Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org <mailto:Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org>
>     https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
>