[Talk-GB] Traditional Counties and Vice Counties

Tue Jan 12 09:49:59 UTC 2021

On 11/01/2021 12:09, Chris Hodges wrote:
> The problem is each application uses a subtly (or not so subtly) 
> different set.
>
>
> While it would be nice to have the boundaries in the data, it would be 
> a huge effort to get them in bearing in mind the need to cross 
> reference the boundaries that were in force when each use was set up.  
> And that's on top of the complexity of how to represent the data, 
> without too many duplicates: is the birding county of Avon exactly  
> the same as the old postal county of Avon? Probably not because postal 
> counties were odd.  Then there's the cricketing county of 
> Gloucestershire, with the ground in Bristol - which was in 
> Gloucestershire when the club was founded, before Avon existed.
>
This would be a big undertaking and frankly not that useful (IMHO). In 
practice I think the boundaries are a bit fuzzy. Refer the honourable 
gentleman to the discussion that postal counties where never quite the 
same as admin one!

A (non) management/ geeky summary is that concepts like Kent, Middlesex 
exist in multiple namespaces of similar concepts... This has come up in 
other areas of my interest - local history research.

A very quick stab at the "onion layers" of London is here 
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1UPYKGlzNAgZOO7yUqBZP4tWK7c0vzRuxcZNkdf5WOvc/edit 
The ones in Red are the concepts that I think cause problems - former 
postal counties in bits of London where peple are in denial about living 
in london (Kent actually!). I am going to have a got at redrawing this 
with a time basis...

>
>
> On 11/01/2021 11:31, Andrew Black wrote:
>>
>> 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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