[Talk-GB] Traditional Counties and Vice Counties

Fri Jan 8 17:36:24 UTC 2021

I would agree that generation plays a part.

My formative years were in the 'modern but not current' era, if you see what I mean (1974-200x), so I have always thought of Southampton as in Hampshire (rather than a unitary authority,, as it is now) BUT Bournemouth as in Dorset (even though apparently before 1974 it was in Hampshire. Culturally one could argue Bournemouth as a seaside resort perhaps has more in common with Dorset than Hampshire, but don't want to get into a flame war over this 😉 )

It's not just generation though.. I think if you were brought up in a given area, you relate to the pre-74 counties however old you are. To take an example - the use of 'Avon' to describe the Bristol and Bath area has always seemed natural to me , but someone of my age who studied on my masters' course and was brought up in the Bath area hates it!

Nick

________________________________
From: SK53 <sk53.osm at gmail.com>
Sent: 08 January 2021 17:06
To: Sarah Hoffmann <lonvia at denofr.de>
Cc: talk-gb at openstreetmap.org <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Traditional Counties and Vice Counties

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<mailto: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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> Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org<mailto:Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org>
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