Making new area boundaries?

Hi there,

I’m looking at Glasgow, and I can see that the outline of the Glasgow area has been mapped. I want to know if it’s possible to then make smaller boundaries of mapped areas within it to represent Police boundaries?

So for example, Glasgow consists of eight policing sub-divisions, each with their own boundaries. Is it possible to accurately map this and could it then be saved and exported?

Sorry if it’s a daft question, I’ve looked around but there’s so much info on here I’m having trouble wading through it all.

Thanks!

K

It is possible, given certain conditions. An example is http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6650495 (Dublin Police).

There doesn’t seem to be a standardised name for this sort of boundary, so you probably want to use taginfo to select the best de facto name.

The condition is, that to provide an accurate boundary, the Glasgow police need to have published that boundary under the Open Government Licence, or a similar licence, acceptable to OSM. Mapping, even approximately, without such a release may be impossible, because police boundaries aren’t generally signposted on the ground.

The Dublin boundary was mapped based on maps form 1880, which are long out of copyright. If the boundary, in Glasgow, has changed since 1966, you may have problems.