[OSM-talk-ie] Definition of Irish towns (was Re: Irish placenames (and hello))

[Thomas Bibby]

>
> Any use?
That's great, thanks.  Will start cleaning up some of the placenames  
in East Limerick so, based on your advice.

> For the distinction between towns and villages I believe there is an
> official definition, but I'm not sure what it is or where we can look
> it up.

I did a bit of digging on Wikipedia.  It seems like there isn't a  
widely-accepted definition at all.  Some useful links:

a) Official list of towns (formerly urban districts) under the Local  
Government act -- which is a bit of a random list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities%2C_boroughs_and_towns_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

b) List of census towns (the CSO use a rather complicated definition  
based on the number of contiguous dwellings, you can read about the  
definition in the link) -- I think this gives too many towns per  
county: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_census_towns_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

c) Any place with a population of 1000 in the last census.  List in  
wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland/2006_Census_Records

I'd tend to go with c) as, for County Limerick anyway, it seems to  
give a reasonable list of places that "feel" like towns.  I've seen  
1,500 used as a population threshold as well, which may work better in  
other counties, but looking at Limerick anyway seems to be a bit too  
restrictive.

In the absence of any official guidance there may never be a simple  
answer to the definition of town, so I'll try and put the population  
in for any placenames that I tag, so that an auto-cleanup might be  
done later, if necessary.

Cheers,

Thomas.