[Talk-GB] Traditional Counties and Vice Counties

[SK53]

Hi Sarah,

I would hope people look for Yr Wyddgrug! Or at least that's what my
cousins who grew up in the area would do.

I think for people of my age, whose formative exposure to British
geography, in and out of school, was prior to the 1974 reorganisation will
relate more to the traditional counties, whereas for younger people the
situation maybe different, unless they follow cricket. The more-or-less
complete disconnect between postal addresses and both traditional counties
& current local authorities really doesn't help matters. On top of that
administrative boundaries often do not encompass logical urban areas
(Nottingham is particularly egregious in this respect, with potentially 5
additional LAs covering the contiguous urban fabric), but Leicester has
Oadby & Wigston, and parts of Charnwood & Blaby. There are plenty of places
like Barnoldswick, which was in Yorkshire for hundreds of years and is now
in the administrative county of Lancashire (which, of course, does not
cover the major cities and towns of Lancashire).

Traditional county names are still very useful for disambiguating places
with identical names, even though, unlike Switzerland, there is no formal
mechanism to do so: for instance, Hayes, Middlesex & Hayes, Kent are both
in Greater London.

The modern introduction of city regions makes things even worse: Liverpool
City Region is not coincident with the former metropolitan county of
Merseyside (Halton aka Runcorn & Widnes was not in the latter). For some
Liverpudlian's many of the inhabitants of this new area are 'woolies'
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/woolly_back> not scousers. Historically,
towns like Birkenhead & Wallasey had their own distinctive identities and
valued independence. Somehow I doubt that the inhabitants of Hoylake like
being described as living in Birkenhead (as Google Maps suggests).

Ultimately, this all ends up being "Am I in Dalston now?".
<https://sites.google.com/view/tifd/home> The continually shifting
boundaries, creation of new administrative entities & the suppression of
many places in postal addresses just mean that identification with places
can be highly individual (e.g., youth gangs often use postcode areas),
which really doesn't help your task. In Northern Ireland, as in the rest of
the island, traditional counties are very much alive & well for many
purposes.

Jerry

-- born in Lancashire to parents who lived in Yorkshire (West Riding), paid
water rates to Derbyshire & some other bill to Cheshire. Needless to say
this house is now in Greater Manchester.

On Fri, 8 Jan 2021 at 16:18, Sarah Hoffmann <lonvia at denofr.de> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've stumbled upon these different boundary types while researching
> how to improve geocoding in the UK. I was wondering if, even if they
> are not in active use, some are a useful frame of reference for
> geocoding. Often there are equivalent administrative boundaries
> but there are enough cases where the traditional counties have
> vanished completely.
>
> Note that I am not referring to official addresses here. It's more
> a question is somebody would type e.g. 'Mold, Flintshire' to distinguish
> their village/area. Administrative areas in the UK are only of limited
> use as your government seems to re(de)organise the country every
> decade or so. I could imagine that the traditional counties are something
> that corresponds better to local views on geography.
>
> Sarah
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 07, 2021 at 11:14:56PM +0000, Andy Townsend wrote:
> > I'm just writing this just as a "for info" in case anyone is interested,
> not
> > as a "someone must fix this now!" kind of thing.
> >
> > I recently noticed a few problems with National Parks and AONBs in the UK
> > and patched them up (see
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/SomeoneElse/diary/395232 ).  It then
> > occurred to me that there may be similar issues with other
> > less-often-visualised areas like traditional and ceremonial counties, so
> I
> > used the same method as in that diary entry to check those.  The same
> > ceremonial counties are found both via Overpass and as polygons in a
> > rendering database, so there are no problems there.  Traditional counties
> > were a different issue though - I had to patch up a couple of minor
> > problems, but the following issues remain:
> >
> > Brecknock
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/8743576
> > A never-completed "boundary=traditional"
> >
> > Denbighshire
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/8748215
> > Another never-completed "boundary=traditional".  However, there also is:
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/363513
> > "boundary=historic_county"
> >
> > Flintshire
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/8766027
> > Another never-completed "boundary=traditional".  However, there also is:
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/363512
> > "boundary=historic_county"
> >
> > Monmouthshire
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/8510619
> > Another never-completed "boundary=traditional".  However, there also is:
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/358021
> > which is the modern admin_level=6 area with that name - I've no idea
> whether
> > it matches the old traditional area.
> >
> > Montgomeryshire
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/8748104
> > Another never-completed "boundary=traditional".
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/327867517
> > is a boundary way, which is a member of:
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2699713
> > (ceremonial Powys)
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/134324
> > (admin Powys)
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/298880
> > ("VC47 Montgomeryshire")
> >
> > Radnorshire
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/8743599
> > Another never-completed "boundary=traditional".  However, there also is:
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/359950
> > is "VC43 Radnorshire" - but I've no idea whether it matches the old
> > traditional area.
> >
> > Also missing are the rest of the Welsh ones, any Scottish or Irish ones,
> and
> > the Ridings of Yorkshire, though the Parts of Lincolnshire have been
> mapped:
> > https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/128s .
> >
> > As for Vice Counties (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice-county for
> what
> > they actually are - I'd never heard of them pre-OSM), apart from a minor
> > patch to Pembrokeshire, the UK ones that were present were mostly OK
> (many
> > are missing).  The exception is "vice county 67 South Northumberland":
> >
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2391798
> > It appears to be oddly named and, like the Welsh trad counties present;
> > incomplete.
> >
> > Best Regards,
> >
> > Andy
> >
> >
> >
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>
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