[OSM-talk] US county import

[Alex Mauer]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> I haven't a clue. I don't know how important county borders are and 
> whether it would be possible to find a more reliable source for them.

I would say the borders in TIGER are probably fairly accurate.  In this
particular case, it's even possible that that oval of land is outside
the county for some reason.

> Problem I'm seeing is that it might be difficult for mappers to correct 
> these borders because they are not visible on the ground (or are there 
> signposts along a road saying "you are leaving county X/welcome to 
> county Y"?).

There often (usually?) are signposts.  Where there aren't, you can
sometimes tell where the border is anyway because there's a change in
the paving of the road, either to a different composition, different
age, different surface entirely, maybe even an unpaved gap in the road
in some cases.  It helps to know approximately where the county border
is beforehand, of course.  Counties generally have straight borders too,
except when they follow some natural feature such as a river (which is
pretty easy to see).

-Alex Mauer "hawke"

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