[Talk-GB] Traditional Counties and Vice Counties

[Andrew Black]

On 11/01/2021 00:33, Robert Skedgell via Talk-GB wrote:
> Another example of a niche use of traditional counties is sport. For
> athletics purposes. I was born in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands and
> live in Stratford, London, but can compete in county championships in
> Warwickshire or Essex.

I think there are loads of similar instances.  I have just joined the 
ramblers (just before LD3!). The Bromley branch is in Kent not  London.

I think there are a number of issues in different parts of country

1. "Middle aged counties" like Avon and Cleveland that have gone but the 
old regime has not  quite been reinstated.

2. Areas in london that were never part of the London postal district 
but are now in greater london,  I have given up arguing that Bromley is 
not in Kent.

3. Possibly similar  issues in metropolitan counties in W midlands, G 
Manchester, former yorkshire....

Not sure there is any easy answer to this.  I recall a discussion about 
it during August a few years back (remember reading it whilst on 
holiday!). Can't remember the details



> On 08/01/2021 10:59, Chris Hodges 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
>>>
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