Hi. Is there any defined tagging scheme for districts?
The naming schema is inconsistent. For example,
This inconsistency leads to unsearchable entries in Nominatim.
cc Perhaps @lonvia has some pointers on this?
cc @arjunaraoc referring to changeset 146174270
Hi. Is there any defined tagging scheme for districts?
The naming schema is inconsistent. For example,
there are some ways to solve it, e.g. you could have official_name:en=Narmadapuram District
name:en=Narmadapuram
or use short_name, alt_name, nat_name, etc.
there is also admin_title
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/admin_title#values
Normally the district names in India are âXyz Districtâ. In Andhra Pradesh and a few other cases âDistrictâ is missing.
I think, it is the best to make corrections to the cases in APâŠ
Unfortunately, itâs a rejected proposal - Proposal:Admin title
Done; all name tags of districts now have as name âXyz Districtâ.
Unfortunately, itâs a rejected proposal - Proposal:Admin title
it doesnât matter, in hindsight Iâd probably vote yes 
anyway, name tag variants are common
Done; all name tags of districts now have as name âXyz Districtâ.
from a practical point of view, it may be better to have a shorter name and add the long version as official_name (if this is also common usage), or otherwise add the shorter version as short_name
The name tag is important and it should be used unique in whole India.
Lets take the example âGunturâ:
Searching for this name, it is unclear whether you mean the district or the subdistrict or the town.
Possible solutions:
name=Guntur District and short_name=Guntur
name=Guntur and official_name=Guntur District
I do not know exactly how Nominatim calculates the results.
Sorry arjunaraoc ; I made the corrections and later saw your changes in AP.
I hope we find a good solution.
I do not know exactly how Nominatim calculates the results.
I think youâll find it in Nominatim both ways, but most maps will display ânameâ, and some might fall back to short_name if there isnât enough space for name, some might also show official_name, but naturally, in official_name there should only go official names 
I would the two names are in addition to the place=district tag.
Search results will show all variants such as place, county, district, if we select âload moreâ option and user can navigate to the desired one.
I prefer short version for name and longer version for official_name, as the default map rendering of label on the outline of boundary will make the default map less cluttered.
Your opinion is my solution 2.
We have 785 districts in India. Before making corrections, I think more posts are helpful.
I posted on OSM India. Telegram: Contact @OSMIndia
It is little confusing when zooming into admin boundaries and finding 3 or 4 names. without the âmandalâ, âdistrictâ or âvillageâ suffix. How do we determine which one is which if we donât have their suffixes? right click and query features is a solution but I want a simpler way to identify different type of boundaries.
I checked the mapping of districts and subdistricts.
1) districts : all are mapped like âXyz Districtâ
2) subdistricts :
all with suffix: Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana
rest of India : suffix in some cases
3) villages : villages, town, cities do not have suffix in OSM
As OSM default map rendering is for contributors to do a quality assurance of their edits, such people can easily find out by querying ( clicking query button(arrow ) on the website menu) or looking at the detailed search results. Also I think more searches would be for places or habitations rather than administrative entities.
When standard maps are made, the geometries of areas are rendered differently with either change in thickness or style of dashed lines with a legend to show whether the line is a district, sub-district or a city boundary etc. In such cases the full name can be used if preferred by use of official_name.
Worldwide the tag âshort_nameâ is used for abbreviations and not for administrative units.
The government in India do not use the suffix âDistrictâ in the district names.
I did not find any case in India, where officially there is the use of an âofficial_nameâ
Using overpass queries for boundaries, I do not need a suffix.
Worldwide I found only a few examples (USA,Japan), where a suffix for boundaries names are consequently used.
So what shall we do??
Response from Vonter on OSM India telegram at Telegram: Contact @OSMIndia I quote " Is this more of a renderer issue though? In an ideal situation, a different admin_level would render the text differently enough to make it clear. Manually adding a name suffix could work, but maybe not if someone doesnât have local knowledge of what a mandal is. For example, if I were looking at Japan on the map and suffixes were used, I may see the word prefecture or shichĆ, but would not know which comes above which."
I agree short name should not be used in the current context. As far as I know, Government of Andhra Pradesh uses the âdistrictâ suffix on their official websites. (Example for East Godavari district). So I feel the second option name with out suffix for ânameâ tag and name with suffix for Official_name is the preferred approach for India.
Yes, if you look for the web-page of a single district, then the suffix âDistrictâ is used.
But in all sumary lists there is no suffix.
So I would prefer my 2. solution : name=Guntur and official_name=Guntur District
Searches with Nominatim will be fine; Guntur and also Guntur District will be found.
And as I already said, for overpass queries the suffix is not important.
And this should be used in whole India.
Subdistricts:
a more complicated case because the suffices differ in India from state to state.
I wouldnt make here corrections.