[Talk-us] Merging a GNIS node with a TIGER way - for a town

Paul Norman penorman at mac.com
Wed Jan 29 19:55:30 UTC 2014


> From: Richard Welty [mailto:rwelty at averillpark.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2014 11:32 AM
> To: talk-us at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Merging a GNIS node with a TIGER way - for a town
>
> > On top of it, one of them claims Fortuna, CA is a town, while the
> > other claims it is a city. I suppose this one can be settled with a
> > research through some other online and offline resources - so not a
> > biggie. When I was there it definitely seemed like a town and not a
> > city to me - but I'm not sure what rules are used for this type of
> > classification in the US.
> terms like town and city generally have specific legal meanings in the
> US, and those meanings vary from state to state. this is one where in
> all likelyhood you should leave it to a local mapper, or consult with a
> knowledgeable CA mapper about the situation there. i know the NY
> political/admin boundary situation tolerably well but i would _never_
> assume that i was qualified to tinker with this data in CA based on my
> current knowledge.

You also need to remember that "town" and "city" as it applies to OSM 
tagging are British English terms, not American terms. By American 
definitions, Humboldt County would have 7 cities: Arcata, Blue Lake, 
Eureka, Ferndale, Fortuna, Dio Dell, and Trinidad, but not all of these 
are cities.




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