I have no idea what is “correct” here (actually, I suspect that there are multiple values of “correct” for different things) - I just happened to notice this because associated with the database behind map.atownsend.org.uk there are things that check for certain classes of objects disappearing. Typically that’d be something like a townland geometry changing (townland corners on bridges are always a challenge) but here it noticed the Six Counties “disappear”
I have no idea if @MCDA or @mod22 are regulars in the forum, but suspect that the discussion should perhaps be a bit wider than just one changeset discussion. I believe that it’s already been mentioned in the “OpenStreetMap Ireland” Telegram channel.
– Andy (a member of the DWG, but posting here in an entirely personal capacity)
I can’t say what is “correct” here either. My quick read through wikipedia somewhat left the impression that they are in active use but it’s really something the Northern Irland community needs to sort out.
What I can say from the Nominatim side: currently any boundary with boundary=administrative or place=county will show up in the address results and mean that places are searchable through the county name. If you remove place=county and leave boundary=history then the county name will disappear from the result presentation but also will stop searching by county from working (e.g. searching for “Feeny, Londonderry”.). If that is what you want but want to keep the place=county tag, we could in theory add an exception in Nominatim. In practise it might be tricky because exceptions only work on country level. So any changes for Northern Ireland will apply to all of the UK. Either way, I’d like to see a community decision on that, preferably documented in the wiki.
One final reminder: Nominatim does not return official addresses when you search. It returns a location description that reflects somewhat the terms you can use to narrow down your search when looking for a place. See also the response here.
I can’t reply exhaustively right now as I’m currently about 12k into today’s 27k hike in the Mournes but I think the change set discussion captures things right -
It seems very misguided to remove 'place=county" from NI county boundaries - they are and they remain counties! Since 1972 they have not been used for many administrative purposes, and Royal Mail does not require them to be in postal addresses. But neither does Royal Mail require the current (2105) loval govt Councils to be in postal addresses, and they NEVER are (whereas Counties not infrequently are).
The 2015 Councils do very little except empty bins, take years to process planning applications, and run the odd cemetary and leisure centre. They certainly have not superceded countries as the principle geographical subdivision of Northern Ireland.
I would strongly recommend putting the place=county tag back.
Someone’s just raised a DWG ticket about this so with a DWG hat on I’ll have a look. If anyone else wants to say anything that they don’t want to say here, please email data@openstreetmap.org with a subject line of “[Ticket#2025091310000181] Northern Ireland county vs new council boundaries”.
I have not yet done anything with https://openstreetmap.org/changeset/152654047 - that’s the one that changed e.g. the Fermanagh relation from boundary=administrative to boundary=historic (but left place=county on them). That’s the one that’s a but more open to debate, since the administrative entity in e.g. Fermanagh and Omagh is now FODC rather than for former county councils. Also, I’d like to give Nominatim chance to catch up with the pre-170696838 state. Given that we didn’t get complaints earlier, I suspect that that might actually be the “least worst outcome”. I actually believe that what was reported at https://github.com/osm-search/Nominatim/issues/3814 was “correct” in that County Down is both a county in really life and a place=county in OSM. What it doesn’t seem to have** is an administrative function.
For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not trying to “make Nominatim say something different” here (even though many of the arguments presented have been based on what Nominatim output they see) - I’m trying to make the data in OSM match the situation on the ground. In NI (as in the rest of the UK, actually) the “place” hierarchy and the “administration” hierarchy used to broadly match pre the early 1970s but now no longer do (see https://github.com/osm-search/Nominatim/issues/3814#issuecomment-3238470293 for an English example). I don’t think that it’s possible for Nominatim to meet all expectations of users at osm.org even just from the UK because some will fundamentally contradict each other - some people who are still unsatisfied with what they see may need to investigate other options. In a sense it’s not Nominatim that is “wrong” here, it’s UK admin structure that doesn’t map onto people’s “sense of place”.
Everything is being centralised. Nothing is done locally any more. The roads are apparently fixed and maintained by DfI Roads who report to the local council - Fermanagh and Omagh District Council. The Land and Property Service (LPS) are administered from Belfast, with a local office in Omagh, these are the lovely people who make demands of money for local services aka Rates Bills what GB people would call Council Tax.
This is a photo of my last rates bill, which clearly has my County on it. I would prefer it to say “Co Fermanagh” because it is my County! I’m getting sick and tired of people changing where I live because of some random thing they read on the internet or wiki page somewhere!
These change sets have made nominatim spue out garbage! I get a feed of changes in my area and regularly see total rubbish, like this one:
Ballymagowan, Clogher, Mid-Ulster District Council, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
The Council area has absolutely no business being in an address and people should not be removing/changing tags just to force Nominatim to display what they consider is a correct address!
There are numerous administrative functions that require that you provide your County, so the arguments that it is historic are just not true, especially in this part of the world. Maybe in Belfast where it straddles two counties the locals would be fine with it being omitted, but here in Co Fermanagh and Co Tyrone, counties are very much alive and in use everyday! I would therefore ask that the historic tagging be reverted for these two counties, at the very least.
For info the rendering database check on my server detected the counties reappearing:
1,2c1,2
< osm_id | name
< ----------+------------------
---
> osm_id | name
> ----------+--------------------
12a13
> -1959598 | County Londonderry
13a15,19
> -1119535 | County Armagh
> -1119534 | County Antrim
> -1119533 | County Down
> -1118085 | County Fermanagh
> -1117773 | County Tyrone
44c50
< (41 rows)
---
> (47 rows)
OSM’s Nominatim hasn’t updated (yet) - I’ve no idea on what timescale it will do that (or even if it will automatically, until some other change occurs).
Entirely separately to this (and most definitely without a DWG hat on) I’m looking at whether Nominatim (or some other search) could return anything sensible from the place hierarchy while ignoring the admin hierarchy altogether.
but I think the change set discussion captures things right -
