I don't have a problem with subjective and I think maybe we should use some of
Liz's criteria. One of the great things about OSM is that it doesn't just
reflect what the government believes should be the situation as do the maps
from PSMA. I think there is merit in basing the significance of a place on
subjective criteria which should be openly stated but may never be agreed to by
100% of the mapping population. For example one of these remote places with a
population of 200 may be signposted from a distance of several hundred
kilometers, have a clearly defined centre, a library, many shops even a bank as
it may serve a much larger rural population. I'd probably classify this as a
town. Whereas there are places with 200 people 20k or so outside of urban
areas that are virtually impossible to spot. I've been tagging these as
hamlets even though there doesn't seem to be a centre at all, just two signs
one at either end of a stretch of road with a few
roofs poking through the trees.
Regards
Neil
From: Liz [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: talk-au@openstreetmap.org
Sent: Wednesday, 3 December, 2008 9:11:31 PM
Subject: Re: [talk-au] place
On Wed, 3 Dec 2008, Sam Couter wrote:
Population count is reality, and it's objective and hard to argue with.
Not exactly, its a moving target, and subject to collection errors.
I've had one of those quick looks with my usual search engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town#Australia
In Australia, the status of a town is formally applied in only a few states.
Most states do define cities, and towns are commonly understood to be those
centres of population not formally declared to be cities and usually with a
population in excess of about 250 people.
http://www.dictionary.net/village
Village \Village\ (?; 48), n. [F., fr. L. villaticus belonging to a country
house or villa. See Villa, and cf. Villatic.]
A small assemblage of houses in the country, less than a town or city.
Village cart, a kind of two-wheeled pleasure carriage without a top.
Syn: Village, Hamlet, Town, City.
Usage: In England, a hamlet denotes a collection of houses, too small to have
a parish church. A village has a church, but no market. A town has both a
market and a church or churches. A city is, in the legal sense, an
incorporated borough town, which is, or has been, the place of a bishop's
see. In the United States these distinctions do not hold.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070915103226AALZGhW
What is the difference between a village, town, and city?
The place I live considers itself a village. It's not under populated or that
highly populated. There are about 35,000 people here. What determines if it
is a town, village, or city?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
Population for each actually varries depending on where you are. Here is some
information that might help.
A hamlet is a small settlement, too small to be considered a village. The
name comes from the diminutive of a Germanic word for an enclosed piece of
land or pasture.
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet,
A town is a community of people ranging from a few hundred to several
thousands, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan
areas. Usually, a town is thought of as larger than a village but smaller
than a city. The words city and village came into English from Latin
via French. Town and borough (also burrow, burgh, bury, etc.) are
of native Germanic origin, from Old English burg, a fortified settlement, and
tūn, an enclosed piece of land
A city is an urban settlement with a particularly important status which
differentiates it from a town.
City is primarily used to designate an urban settlement with a large
population. However, city may also indicate a special administrative, legal,
or historical status.
In the United States, city is primarily a legal term meaning an urban area
with a degree of autonomy (i.e. a township), rather than meaning an entire
large settlement (metropolitan area). Outside the United States, city
implies an entire settlement or metropolitan area, although there are notable
exceptions, e.g. the term City of London. In the UK, a city is a settlement
with a charter (letters patent) from the crown.
http://www.npsp.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=1360
mentions Kent Town Village in the City of Norwood Payneham St Peters
http://phorums.com.au/showthread.php?t=193110
wHAT THE?!??! The smallest city/town/village/hamlet in the
world ?!?!?!?
discusses some of the very small towns and villages.
The problem exists because the Poms have one set of definitions and we don't
have identical definitions in the remainder of (or the majority of) the
English-speaking world.
The English definitions of
place_with_no_church=hamlet
place_with_church_and_no_market=village
place_with_church_and_market=town
