Thanks stevea for the considered reply. Much appreciated. In Australia (and specifically Victoria from my experience), unincorporated areas are not "surrounded by" a local government area implying the local government overlays them, though they do sometimes abut one or more neighbouring local government areas. They are state Crown land.
I realise an easy observation for people is to say any unincorporated land is nothing or otherwise not declared, however there is some complexity in how they are individually administered by the state departments and statutory authorities: alpine resorts by ARV, French Island by DTP, Gabo Island by Parks, etc. These various agencies administer the day-to-day council-like roads, rates, and rubbish services of their respective unincorporated areas in the state, thus the suggestion of admin_level=6 to match neighbouring local government areas for consistency. On Mon, 17 Jun 2024 at 09:23, stevea <stevea...@softworkers.com> wrote: > I absolutely realize that my experience is with the USA and not Australia, > but (in a VERY broad-brush way) the logical mappings between how federal=2, > state=4 and admin_level=6 is almost always the "sub-state / local-ish" > government authorities (in the USA it is almost always what we call a > "county," meaning a subdivision of the state, but counties often provide > much "more local" government services) in both countries is quite similar. > Importantly, for "unincorporated" parts of counties, these "fall under" an > admin_level=6 "area" at the level of the entirety of the county itself, not > with any specific smaller "boundary" (as these don't exist for > unincorporated areas) WITHIN the county. Usually / often, a node specifies > these unincorporated area, tagged place=* (and the value is often something > smaller, like hamlet or village). Please do not add an admin_level=6 tag > here, that's redundant tagging. > > Given the decade+ I've been facilitating admin_level in the USA (in wiki, > in discussions, in the map data...) I would say you are on the right track > with this "local government authorities get admin_level=6." This is true > for unincorporated areas (within counties in the USA): they are > "surrounded by" In the USA, for (usually incorporated) cities, these are > something else, and it is our convention to use admin_level=8 for such > cities (cities DO subordinate to the counties they are in, but in an > independent way, usually), which is to say that they "more directly" > subordinate to the state (at admin_level=4); a city that is an 8 is > geographically located in a county (6), but a city can also correctly be > said to subordinate more directly to a state (4) by virtue of it being the > state constitution and state statutes (the "California Government Code" in > my state) which crafts the legal framework for what a city "is" (within any > given state) and how it is chartered / gains its independence (as a > usually-incorporated entity independent of the state/county which it is > inside of). It seems Oz uses 9 for "locality borders," different than USA > uses 8 for cities (or towns which are incorporated), that's a minor quibble > that is a bit off-topic here. > > So, with unincorporated areas, they don't really get a boundary=* polygon > tagged with an admin_level, rather they are tagged with a place=* tag > (appropriate to population, amenities and/or relative hierarchy in the > region), but no specific admin_level tag, as they are simply "found inside > of" a polygon which is already (usually) tagged admin_level=6, and that is > what makes THEM 6, as well. These shouldn't get an additional polygon or > tag which tags them with admin_level=6, as that would be redundant with > their "county." Or whatever the word is in Australia, I think you call > them "Shire / Council" boundaries. > > If a shire / council boundary is tagged with admin_level=6 (and these are > found within Australian states tagged admin_level=4, which are in turn > found within the country-level boundary of Oz which is tagged > admin_level=2)...you've got it and are largely done. Unincorporated areas > don't really need to have their admin_level specified, as these areas are > quite likely very "unspecific" (and unincorporated) and their "surrounding > 6" (shire / council) already captures this semantic — nothing really to add > beyond that. If there ARE "locality borders" inside of a 6, tag them with > 9 and be done. But please don't tag "unincorporated, unspecified > boundaries" with anything, as it seems you really can't. The surrounding > shire / council already specifies the 6 you seem to be thinking of. Adding > a place=* node for an unincorporated community? Sure, we do that (in the > USA), too. But we don't add admin_level tags to those, as it isn't correct > to do so. > > I hope this helps! > > > On Jun 16, 2024, at 3:51 PM, Brendan Barnes <brenbar...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi all, just seeing if there's consensus on what administration level > unincorporated areas should have in Australia? > > > > In Victoria (and potentially other states), the unincorporated areas are > administered by state-level statutory authorities and departments, so I'm > thinking admin_level=6 to match equivalent local government authorities. > > > > ACT is an exception obviously, with the unincorporated area matching the > territory border, so it takes on the higher order admin_level=4. > > > > > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Australian_Tagging_Guidelines/Land_and_boundaries#Administration_Levels > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_Australia#Unincorporated_areas > >
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