It came to my attention recently that another mapper added some townships around Iowa, and we have differing opinions about how and weather they should be mapped. He says that there’s no guidance over townships in Iowa and there were a few mapped before meaning they are fair game, but I’m not too sure about whether they should be mapped at all, or at least not as an admin_level=7.
Here’s my reasoning to map townships in Iowa with something more along the lines of ‘boundary=historic’+‘border_type=township’
The wiki does not list Iowa as one of the states including townships to be mapped, citing the census bureau.
The only governmental powers of townships are to levy taxes a small amount to maintain its property, which mainly includes cemeteries. A few may have a fire department, however a vast majority rely on a nearby town’s services.
A majority of the time townships receive their funding not from levied taxes, but from allocated funds from the county.
The vast majority of the time there is no indication of entering, exiting, or being inside of a township, and most of the residents barely if at all know about its existence.
Wikipedia lists Iowa as a state with former townships now only existing as a vestigial form.
I’m sure there are a few townships that exhibit some governmental power, and those I do think are good to map, however I don’t think marking them as admin_level=7 is correct, as in the current state they have almost no power or importance to the people inside and only add to visual clutter of the map.
The Census Bureau recognizes Iowa as one of 29 states that have minor civil divisions, a category that includes townships because townships completely partition a county. The wiki page you referred to somewhat overstates the importance of a jurisdiction having a government of its own. Even though Iowa townships generally don’t have their own governments, the Census Bureau apparently finds that county agencies are organized by township enough that they see no need to define their own census county divisions for Iowa.
For the purpose of mapping admin_level=7 boundaries in OSM, what matters more is whether one can reasonably describe a city as being located within a township within a county – that is, whether it belongs in the administrative boundary hierarchy, as opposed to being tagged as some other kind of boundary.
The vestigial nature of these townships may mean that the technically correct answer is too pedantic to appear on a map and in search results aimed at the general public. In that case, boundary=historic might be another option, but that seems a tad too aggressive in the other direction if the townships continue to exist on paper.
Yeah, my understanding is that the level of control you describe for townships in Iowa is consistent with the level of authority towns/townships have in other Upper Midwest states, some of which have all their towns/townships mapped in OSM. I assumed (and continue to assume) that the reason townships in Iowa haven’t been widely mapped is just because it’s time consuming, not because they don’t deserve to be.
The civil townships in Iowa are distinct geographical areas. The board of supervisors may divide the county into townships. An elected or appointed board of trustees governs each township. The trustees are often elected, but may be appointed by the county board of supervisors if authorized by voters after a referendum. Township trustees also serve as fence viewers and may resolve conflicts upon request. Iowa townships may provide fire protection, emergency medical services, cemeteries, community centers, playgrounds, and, upon voter approval, public halls. Although Iowa townships may levy taxes, the county board of supervisors issues anticipatory bonds on behalf of the township and the compensation of township trustees (other than fees) is paid by the county government. For this reason, townships in Iowa are classified as administrative subdivisions of the counties and are not counted as separate governments in census statistics on governments.
This sounds like admin_level=7 to me but this is based on a single paragraph. I think you @RobertTBS should work with other Iowa locals to come to a consensus on how to tag townships there, then add that consensus to the US Admin level Wiki. You clearly have local knowledge on how important they really are. In other states, similar agreements have been made around nuances in how incorporated places are define, e.g., New York City’s unique admin_level=5. Feel free to use this thread for that. Ask that other user to come here and discuss.
So I don’t think I’m the other user in the dispute (unless I’ve been replying to changeset comments in my sleep), but I bet I was the one who did “the few mapped before” as I added 5 or 6 townships in far northwest IA last year when I started adding them in SD.
In my opinion, they’re perfectly fine to add as admin_level=7; they’re shown on official maps (e.g. this Iowa DOT map of Lyon County) and I don’t think they clutter the map up too much (but I admit that’s subjective).
Yeah, I’ve been focusing on SD first and getting all of those in (finished the southern half of East River last week, working on Kingsbury County next). Maybe if/when I ever finish SD, I’d help out in Iowa but I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.
Based on all the discussion above, I would also agree with tagging these admin_level=7 and continuing to map them, consistent with other midwestern states.