On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 at 12:09, Warin <61sundow...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 24/01/19 12:50, Joseph Eisenberg wrote: > > It’s not possible to have “town” level services with less than 1000 > people. A town has a major market (retail area) serving the surrounding > area, as well as basic educational, cultural and government facilities. > > That is the usual interpretation (& certainly matches the Western Europe / US definition) but here is an example of what I'm talking about: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/-17.1494/144.5257
Chillagoe has a population, according to the 2016 census, of 251 people, so it "should" only be a =hamlet. However, it has a school, police station, general store, hardware store, post office, 2 pub's, 2 museums, hospital, bitumen airfield &, as it's a tourist destination in it's own right, about 6 caravan parks / camping grounds! Dimbulah is ~100k to the east & is a bit bigger, but doesn't have a hospital, & only an unsealed airstrip. The next major town west is Normanton, which is ~700k away! There are another half a dozen other small/er settlements within ~150k of Chillagoe for which it is "town". > In your area of the world I agree. You have a 'good' population density. > In some places the nearest neighbour can be 400 km away. The population > 'centre' may have much less than 1,000 people in the local residential area > .. but may service 1,000s of square kilometres. > Necessity makes this population centre very important for the few people > living in that area. > Yep! Have just started a discussion on the Australia list concerning this very point, after taking to somebody who lives in this area, & who made the comment that OSM is a bit useless, because when you open it, all you see is a massive blankness :-( & this, by no means, is an isolated example - Australia would have literally hundreds of similar towns. I would think the same would probably apply in places like Canada, Alaska, SW US, South Africa & a number of other civilised but empty countries? Thanks Graeme
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