[OSM-talk] voting ended? - population

Sven Grüner sven at schunterscouts.de
Wed Jan 16 12:38:41 GMT 2008


Martin Trautmann schrieb:
> Thus I feel it is not possible to add a pouplation tag directly to a
> place.  Apart from node, way and area this would require yet another  data
> primitive, such as data

Why not KISS (keep it stupid simple)? Like David I've been using this on
dozens of places just by instinct.

Accuracy:
The numbers I've put into OSM are what I would have said in personal
conversation, like 260,000 instead of 263,814. When looking on a map
stating the population (many German Topo-maps do so) I don't see why
someone would want to know it down to the person. It's just to get an
idea of the place.

Being up-to-date:
When rounding the numbers as shown above you're still quite close when
the population changes to say 255,000. And even when ten years pass and
it drops to 220,000 I (as map user) would not bother about the offset.
But surely the tag would've been updated many times, remember that
people here are even willing to tag construction sites. And BTW
population changes on a daily basis and even the local administration
won't know the exact figures with better that a few percent accuracy.

So I will keep on tagging rounded population figures, because I consider
them useful.

regards, Sven




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