[OSM-talk] Google Maps - OSM comparison

[David Earl]

On 28/11/2008 12:02, Bernhard Zwischenbrugger wrote:
> hi
>> and New Delhi is not shown at all
>>
>>   
> There were some bugs with spaces, commas,... (urlencode)
> They are fixed now.
> 
> There are still some problems.
> 
> The capitals come from this list
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_capitals
> 
> The name of the city is given to namefinder.
> The first item namefinder returns is displayed on the map.

I think that's an invalid assumption that the first item is necessarily 
a capital city of that name.

As someone pointed out, capital cities are usually marked as such in the 
tags, and I should take note of that and let you make your search more 
efficient.

However, if we start applying similar techniques to state captials or 
other hierarchies, a search inferred from a loose syntax will not be 
enough and I need to provide a more formal way for mechanical clients to 
constrain their searches. As it stands "city" is ambiguous - it is both 
a category and part of some names (to wit, "Mexico City").

> At the moment there are problems with:
> 
> Paris - wrong Paris found

As I said, they're both cities and at present I have nothing to 
distinguish them.

<aside>I am always irritated by online Yellow Pages which asks me every 
time which Cambridge I want - the big city or the tiny hamlet in 
Gloucestershire. Surely they could give me Cambridge city and say "click 
here for the lesser Cambridge" which almost no one would want</aside>

> London - missing (found an other London)
> Washington, D.C. - not found

The comma is a bit of syntax for namefinder.

Also state abbreviations (OK, DC's it's not a state exactly, but it has 
the same role here) are not stored anywhere in OSM data. I hope to 
improve this in due course, and as I said, is_in tags would help enormously.

But in the end, the name of the place is "Washington", not "Washington, 
D.C." is it not? You don't ask for "Canberra, NSW" do you (sorry if it's 
not in NSW, just a guess)?

> Mexico City - not exact

Cuidad de Mexico? doesn't seem to have a name:en tag. (You could add 
one; ditto Havana).

> N'Djamena (Chad) - found in france

only because there isn't apparently any place on the map with that name, 
and there is a street.

> Honiara - not found
> Kuwait City - not found
> Melekeok (Palau) - not found
> Palikir (Mikronesia) - not found
> Phnom Penh (Cambodia) - not found
> Naypyidaw (Myanmar) - not found
> South Tarawa (Kiribati) - not found
> Sri Jayawardenepura( Sri Lanke) - not found
> Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) - not found
> Yaren (Nauru) -not found

Are these simply because they aren't on the map, or should I look at 
them for problems?

David