[OSM-talk] Fwd: DWG policy on Crimea

[Christoph Hormann]

On Tuesday 23 October 2018, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>
> Agreed. I would be tempted to say, however, that if a country
> requires a certain boundary depiction by law, like e.g. India and
> China do, then that's the same level of verifiability like that
> country's internal boundaries for which we also rely on what the
> "official" take is. At least the current laws regarding the Indian
> border are much more than "an opinion of a political faction".

A territorial claim that does not represent de facto administration is 
usually inherently non-verifiable because the claiming authority is by 
definition the only source of the information (this is why it is called 
a claim).

Unless a territorial claim coicides with a de facto administrative 
division its geometry is usually not independently verifiable.  India 
would certainly remove any boundary markers indicating the limits of a 
Chinese claim on territory they control.

Boundaries of de facto administration OTOH can normally be independently 
verified even at the higher admin levels if they are demarcated or if 
they coicide with physically observable features.  The fact that much 
of the administrative boundary data in OSM is imported and never has 
actually been verified on the ground is a different matter.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/