Mapping small, special exclaves of symbolic but legal foreign ownership

leheng · 2023-01-11T14:38:41.730Z

Which of these Enclave and exclave - Wikipedia should be represented in OSM? Anyone interested?

( I’m from Singapore, and have tried to map the boundaries for Johor land in Singapore and the Captain Cook Monument at Kealakekua Bay

Just a few of these are more controversial, like The Tomb of Suleyman Shah where Syria doesn’t agree after the tomb was moved.

SimonPoole · 2023-01-11T15:01:48.843Z

We in general don’t map land ownership at all. Naturally we do map proper ex-and enclaves but as the WP article points out the areas you are referring to are neither. If they have a monument or similar artifact on them, obviously that can be mapped.

JeroenvanderGun · 2023-01-11T16:09:28.310Z

The object/parcel can be tagged with Key:owner (with foreign government as value), but it’s probably not an actual exclave/enclave (which would mean it is part of the administrative boundary of the foreign country).

WarpathPeacock · 2023-01-11T16:53:45.274Z

I agreed with a request to move this to Tagging Help and Support, interpreting the first post foremost as a request for help with mapping these objects.

clay_c · 2023-01-25T14:31:04.334Z

Hi @leheng,

Some objections were raised in the OSM-US Slack about this changeset of yours, in which a small British exclave was drawn around the Captain Cook Monument at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaiʻi. To repeat the rationale outlined by the Wikipedia article you linked and others’ messages in this thread, this is a case of one country owning land within another, not an exclave.

One member checked the maps of the Hawaiʻi County Assessor and found that the parcel surrounding the Captain Cook Monument is much larger than 25ft². If the land surrounding the monument really were sovereign UK territory, how do we know which 25ft² is theirs? Not even the tax assessor knows.

I’ve gone ahead and reverted your changes. In the future, I would recommend reading the local guidelines and consulting with the local communities before making edits in foreign countries.

-Clay

SK53 · 2023-01-25T15:03:25.628Z

Agree completely with you here.

Almost none, perhaps none, of these things are sovereign territory of other nations. It’s a common misconception that places which have been given in perpetuity from one nation state to another change sovereignty. Specific examples which are fairly common are war cemeteries, and certain notable national monuments such as the Canadian Vimy Ridge Memorial. These are owned and administered by authorities from the foreign country, and those authorities may have particular rights granted in law by the host country (e.g., making ownership inalienable) over and above those of ordinary ownership, BUT they have not changed sovereignty.

I think an absolutely formidable array of documentation would need to be provided to justify any such edits to create enclaves & exclaves as the OP suggests.

leheng · 2023-01-26T01:13:35.195Z

ah, oof. I asked in the Asia tele chat, and no one seemed to oppose it back then.

My bad, thanks for helping revert it