Recent Alaska place= reclassification

Communities United States
21

Even if place=* would always be computable form population alone, there might still be a use for it. It isn’t always easy for a mapper to establish what the population count of a place is. If that is hard to do, you might still be able to determine the approximate order of magnitude. In that case, using a place=* tag can let you convey such an estimate.

That being said, I mostly agree with what I think is your point: that place=* has more value if it isn’t just a function of population.

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22

I know a little bit about this. There was someone who retagged a bunch of villages and towns in Alaska to cities to make them more visible on the map. Classic mistagging for the renderer. See for example changeset 124487745: “Promote North Slope villages to cities so they can be found.”

IIRC diamondarmorsteve updated the place tags after a discussion on Discord.