RE: Talk-au Digest, Vol 107, Issue 2 As someone who as spent most of their adult life in regional and rural Queensland, I thought I would add a couple of thoughts. In my travels, the concept of city -> town -> village -> hamlet is not easily adapted to regional and rural Queensland. Basically, urban areas are either Cities or Towns. There is no such concept as village (this would be a European term). My understanding is that any Local Government Area (I stress LG Area here - not urban area) can be classed as a city when its population exceeds 10,000. Examples are Rockhampton, Townsville, Mackay, Bundy etc. A majority of these LG Areas contain both suburbs and separate independent towns. Basically there are only 20 "cities" in Queensland. These are easily defined. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_in_Queensland_by_population for examples.
The concept of Town, is where it gets grey. It is not appropriate to define a town by population or the number of pubs. I have been to towns with several thousand people (Proserpine), to ones with under a hundred (Bluff). A vast majority of towns have 1 hotel, usually named after the town, i.e. Dingo Hotel, Alpha Hotel. I would still consider these places to be towns. I think local knowledge would be the only valid source of data as to how locals refer to the urban area. Another grey area are Homesteads (There are hundreds of these). These are not strictly an urban area or a locality. The term "locality" is used by the Queensland Government to describe an area of land, not a particular place. Hamlet maybe appropriate, as homesteads usually contain several buildings. The place tag, would be placed on the main house. I trust this will assist when making decisions about how to tag urban centres in rural area. On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 12:50 AM, <talk-au-requ...@openstreetmap.org> wrote: > Send Talk-au mailing list submissions to > talk-au@openstreetmap.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > talk-au-requ...@openstreetmap.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > talk-au-ow...@openstreetmap.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Talk-au digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. place=? and oldie but a goodie. (Frank) > 2. place=? An oldie but no past conclusion. (Warin) > 3. Re: place=? An oldie but no past conclusion. (Christopher Barham) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 22:15:40 +1000 > From: Frank <sundowne...@optusnet.com.au> > To: talk-au <talk-au@openstreetmap.org> > Subject: [talk-au] place=? and oldie but a goodie. > Message-ID: <782c9e18-af51-968c-a798-77e123622...@optusnet.com.au> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed" > > Hi, > > I came across Quobba Station and Canarvon where Canarvon is a 'village' > and Quobba Station is a 'town'. I know Canarvon is larger than Quobba > Station! > > So I re-tagged Quobba Station as 'village'. > > But I wondered on it.. so looked up the OSMwiki .. not much help... the > Australian tagging guidelines ... errr not really. > > I then considered getting all the Australian OSM data on places with the > population data, > > got the cities data fine, but the towns data is too large a single bite > and the server objected. Fine, I worked on the city data. > > Some 90 are set as cities... I'll ignore those above 10,000 people and > list the others here so you have an idea of those that maybe > reclassified as > > 'towns' under my proposal. If a place is close to the 10,000 mark and > there are no others around that location then I'd consider it a city, > but other wise a town. > > Charters Towers 8,234 > > Charleville 4,700 > > Caloundra 3,550 > > Winton 1,337 > > I know Winton ... it is smaller than Longreach (both in population and > number of pubs).. yet Longreach is not a city? > > Clearly the relative sizes (and importance) of places is not being > correctly tagged. > > So to further explore the situation I downloaded the 'cities' of > Australia with their populations from the OSM data base... extracted the > data into a .csv file and looked at it... some 90 'cities' ... > > errr Winton, Qld population ~1,300 is a city ... yet a little way down > the road Longreach is not a city? I know both those places ... Longreach > is bigger (population about 3 times... and yes it does have more pubs!). > > Conclusion: there is a significant error in the relative ratings between > places - even ones that are not that far apart! > > The situation with towns and villages is more numerous! > > The server objected to my bulk download ... so I'll do that in bits > later ... unless there is no point - that is if there are strong > objections here? > > Little point in doing the large bit of work if there will be no outcome. > > So below is a small attempt to clarify and simplify the situation in > Australia. > > From the OSM wiki I get the following use of occupied places > > By population. > > city>100,000>town>10,000>village>200>hamlet>100 > > humm looks like present Australian use is roughly > > By population. > > city>10,000>town>1,000>village>100>hamlet>10 > > I think that is reasonable. > > The difference between the two is that Australia has a smaller than > 'average' population density, > > so smaller places have more facilities due to the distance involved to > get to the nearest larger place. > > For example - Australia is about the same size and mainland USA .. but > 1/10 th the population.. > > so it stands to reason that the Australian population density would be > about 1/10th .. so a 'town' would be about 1/10th too. > > Why judge on the population? > > Larger populations get more services - Police, Medical, Education ... > they go hand in hand. > > Populations are usually stated - on the entry signs to towns, villages > .. and collected by the ABS. So verifiable and accessible. > > Yes they do change .. but not by vast amounts quickly. > > Usually the relationship between population centres remains fairly > static .. if one grows so do the surrounding ones. > > Much easier to quickly asses and correctly tag this way. So it satisfies > the KISS principle. > > Problems... > > In large centres like Sydney and Melbourne some parts would be judged > as 'cities' in their own right ... > > not certain if that is a problem or not? Comments? I am more concerned > with the country side, rather than the messy cities. :-) > > Are there any objections/comment/other ideas to the above ? > > --------------------- > > I have read the past posts on this ... > > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2008-December/001079.html > > but I could draw no reasonable conclusion. > > There was a suggestion that the number of pubs be used ... which I think > is quite Australian, > > I use it to judge safety when parked .. less than 3 pubs = safe.. > everyone knows everyone. > > By pubs > > city>20>town>3>village>1>hamlet;-) > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/attachments/20160503/8bbe208b/attachment-0001.html > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 22:22:51 +1000 > From: Warin <61sundow...@gmail.com> > To: talk-au <talk-au@openstreetmap.org> > Subject: [talk-au] place=? An oldie but no past conclusion. > Message-ID: <a45e10c4-118d-16c7-9c8a-b2f5676f5...@gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed" > > Hi, > > I came across Quobba Station and Canarvon where Canarvon is a 'village' > and Quobba Station is a 'town'. I know Canarvon is larger than Quobba > Station! > > So I re-tagged Quobba Station as 'village'. > > But I wondered on it.. so looked up the OSMwiki .. not much help... the > Australian tagging guidelines ... errr not really. > > I then considered getting all the Australian OSM data on places with the > population data, > > Got the cities data fine, but the towns data is too large a single bite > and the server objected. Fine, I worked on the city data. > > Some 90 are set as cities... I'll ignore those above 10,000 people and > list the others here so you have an idea of those that maybe > reclassified as > > 'towns' under my proposal. If a place is close to the 10,000 mark and > there are no others around that location then I'd consider it a city, > but other wise a town. > > Charters Towers 8,234 > > Charleville 4,700 > > Caloundra 3,550 > > Winton 1,337 > > I know Winton ... it is smaller than Longreach (both in population, > about 3 times, and number of pubs).. yet Longreach is not tagged a city? > > _Conclusion_: there is a significant error in the relative ratings > between places - even ones that are not that far apart! > > The situation with towns and villages is more numerous! > > The server objected to my bulk download ... so I'll do that in bits > later ... unless there is no point - that is if there are strong > objections here? > > Little point in doing the large bit of work if there will be no outcome. > > So below is a small attempt to clarify and simplify the situation in > Australia. > > From the _OSM wiki_ I get the following use of occupied places > > By population. > > city>100,000>town>10,000>village>200>hamlet>100 > > _The present Australian use appears to be roughly _ > > By population. > > city>10,000>town>1,000>village>100>hamlet>10 > > I think that is reasonable. > > The difference between the two is that Australia has a smaller than > 'average' population density, > > so smaller places have more facilities due to the distance involved to > get to the nearest larger place. > > For example - Australia is about the same size and mainland USA .. but > 1/10 th the population.. > > so it stands to reason that the Australian population density would be > about 1/10th .. so a 'town' would be about 1/10th too. > > Why judge on the population? > > Larger populations get more services - Police, Medical, Education ... > they go hand in hand. > > Populations are usually stated - on the entry signs to towns, villages > .. and collected by the ABS. So verifiable and accessible. > > Yes they do change .. but not by vast amounts quickly. > > Usually the relationship between population centres remains fairly > static .. if one grows so do the surrounding ones. > > Much easier to quickly asses and correctly tag this way. So it satisfies > the KISS principle. > > _Problems_... ? > > In large centres like Sydney and Melbourne some parts would be judged > as 'cities' in their own right ... > > not certain if that is a problem or not? Comments? I am more concerned > with the country side, rather than the messy cities. > > Are there any objections/comment/other ideas to the above ? > > --------------------- > > I have read the past posts on this ... > > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2008-December/001079.html > > but I could draw no reasonable conclusion. > > There was a suggestion that the number of pubs be used ... which I think > is quite Australian, > > I use it to judge safety when parked .. less than 3 pubs = safe.. > everyone knows everyone. More than 2 - cover and lock up. > > By pubs > > city>20>town>3>village>1>hamlet > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/attachments/20160503/21423a93/attachment-0001.html > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 16:50:44 +0200 > From: Christopher Barham <cbar...@pobox.com> > To: Warin <61sundow...@gmail.com> > Cc: OSM - Talk-au <talk-au@openstreetmap.org> > Subject: Re: [talk-au] place=? An oldie but no past conclusion. > Message-ID: <f6cb8643-e2dc-4d6f-8a31-ea3f2a542...@pobox.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > > > On 03 May 2016, at 14:22, Warin <61sundow...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > <SNIP> > > > > Why judge on the population? > > Larger populations get more services - Police, Medical, Education ... > they go hand in hand. > > Populations are usually stated - on the entry signs to towns, villages > .. and collected by the ABS. So verifiable and accessible. > > Yes they do change .. but not by vast amounts quickly. > > Usually the relationship between population centres remains fairly > static .. if one grows so do the surrounding ones. > > Much easier to quickly asses and correctly tag this way. So it satisfies > the KISS principle. > </SNIP> > > City is not just a function of population - It’s can also be a political > appointment/status? - e.g. Charters Towers and Redcliffe are cities : > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Australia < > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Australia> > > > C. > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/attachments/20160503/8ff007e7/attachment.html > > > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-au mailing list > Talk-au@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au > > > ------------------------------ > > End of Talk-au Digest, Vol 107, Issue 2 > *************************************** >
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