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New Zealand: Chatham Islands vs Bay of Islands  XML
Forum Index -> Discussion of GeoNames Toponyms
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geonameguy



Joined: 18/04/2008 19:59:11
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I have no personal knowledge of the Island regions of New Zealand, but the following was brought to my attention:

In Geonames, under "Oceania > New Zealand", one child is listed as "Chatham Islands." Still further, underneath that, is "Bay of Islands."

I don't know if there is a political reason, but there seems to be no geographic basis for this decision. A quick query of Google Maps shows that Chatham Islands are on the northeast coast of New Zealand, while Bay of Islands are on the other side of New Zealand proper, far off the eastern coast.

Some people living in Bay of Islands claim that this is totally wrong, and should be corrected. Perhaps they need to be listed side-by-side instead of one as a child of the other -- I don't know, and could not find any Wikipedia entry or other information to verify. I only found one case where "Bay of Islands" is below "Chatham Islands" but I think they are using your data.

Can you confirm?
marc



Joined: 08/12/2005 07:39:47
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I don't see where on GeoNames 'Bay of Islands' is a child of 'Chatham Islands'. Where did you see this?

marc

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geonameguy



Joined: 18/04/2008 19:59:11
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According to my retrieval of the hierarchical data for GeonameID: 2189493, Chatham Islands is the direct parent of Bay of Islands.

Furthermore, Bay of Islands is not a direct child of New Zealand.

See:

http://ws.geonames.org/hierarchy?geonameId=2189493
marc



Joined: 08/12/2005 07:39:47
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oh, I see the hierarchy service on this server did not have the newest data.


Marc

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geonameguy



Joined: 18/04/2008 19:59:11
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Thank you! That indeed solves one part of the problem.

However, "Bay of Islands" still cannot be found directly under (as a child of) "New Zealand," even though now the parent issue is fixed for Bay of Islands directly.

Shouldn't it be added as a child of New Zealand too?
geonameguy



Joined: 18/04/2008 19:59:11
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A further problem:

Chatham Islands itself now no longer appears to show any children at all (where once it had many, including Bay of Islands):

http://ws.geonames.org/children?geonameId=4033013
marc



Joined: 08/12/2005 07:39:47
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I don't think 'Bay of Islands' is a top level region of New Zealand, and therefore it should not be a direct child of New Zealand.

you can help adding missing information yourself:
http://www.geonames.org/manual.html

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geonameguy



Joined: 18/04/2008 19:59:11
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I will be glad to add some information, if I can.

However, I request clarification on this point:

If "Bay of Islands" is not a direct child of New Zealand, what is it a child of? Is the aim for geographic subdivision (as with placing Turkey under Europe) or is it for political subdivision?

I don't see how to navigate to "Bay of Islands" if its parent is listed as New Zealand, but somehow it is not a child of New Zealand. This makes no sense to me.

I am happy to do some updates for Geonames but I don't want to proceed in a state of confusion about this point.
geonameguy



Joined: 18/04/2008 19:59:11
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marc wrote:
I don't think 'Bay of Islands' is a top level region of New Zealand, and therefore it should not be a direct child of New Zealand.

you can help adding missing information yourself:
http://www.geonames.org/manual.html 


Although it is not a top level region, it is given by the New Zealand census bureau as a district that is listed parallel to the top level regions. Perhaps, as it associates a group of islands, it is not geographically large enough to constitute a political region but, as a geographic association, it is not a subset of a particular region and therefore should be a direct child of New Zealand.

This would tend to follow your precedent of grouping by geographic block rather than cultural or political association (as in the case of Turkey); it is also tacitly endorsed by the New Zealand official bureau of Statistics. See:

http://www.stats.govt.nz/census/2001-census-data/territorial-authority-leaflets-by-region.htm

I will see what I can do to correct this issue within the Geonames data, but this is my first attempt at making corrections so I will let you know what I do, in this thread, after I complete the changes.

Thanks!
geonameguy



Joined: 18/04/2008 19:59:11
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I have found what appears, unless I am confused about something here, to be a very serious split between two sets of data. I have taken a screen shot (attached) showing the two views of New Zealand (both of which are substantially wrong, although for different reasons).

Here is the top-level region/subdivision list that the Statistics bureau of New Zealand uses:

Auckland Region
Bay of Plenty Region
Canterbury Region
Chatham Islands District
Gisborne Region
Hawke's Bay Region (misspelled as Hawkes Bay under NZ: 2186224)
Manawatu-Wanganui Region (misspelled as Wanganui under NZ: 2186224)
Marlborough Region
Nelson Region
Northland Region (missing under NZ: 2186224, present under 218597
Otago Region
Southland Region
Taranaki Region
Tasman Region (missing under NZ: 2186224)
Waikato Region
Wellington Region
West Coast Region
?? Whangarei (improperly placed as a region under NZ 2186224, but it is actually a District under the non-present "Northland" region)
?? Te Anau Downs (incorrectly attached directly under 2185978, but it is actually within the Southland region of New Zealand)

I would enter these if I knew how, but right now it looks like the data is already a bit mixed up in Geonames, and until I become more familiar with editing and re-parenting data, I don't want to mess up something if I'm not really familiar with it.

I will be glad to help though, if you could just direct me how to deal with this situation.
geonameguy



Joined: 18/04/2008 19:59:11
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I was able to make some corrections in individual records, but attempts to change parentage failed, producing the following error(s):

"error while saving: no changes"

(example: after successfully changing the name "Wanganui" to "Manawatu-Wanganui," attempting to change the 1st order administrative region in the crumb trail for this record from "Wanganui" to "Manawatu-Wanganui" failed with the above error.
geonameguy



Joined: 18/04/2008 19:59:11
Messages: 35
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Another clear example where I cannot determine how to fix the data by editing directly...

1. Go to "Bay of Islands" (county)
2. Edit the data
3. Attempt to change the 1st administrative region (below "New Zealand") from unassigned, to the correct region ("Northland")
4. Click Save

This fails with the error "error while saving: no changes"

Tried in Safari and Firefox, same results in both cases.
marc



Joined: 08/12/2005 07:39:47
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"Bay of Islands" is not a top level region, it is a child of Northland. When information is missing as in this case then the hierarchy service returns the next known ancestor.

Admin divisions need an admin code for the assignment to work. The admin code for a admin division cannot be modified with the interface. If no code is present the assignment will add the code for 'undefined' to a code that was already 'undefined' and thus the error message.
I have added the FIPS code 'F6' to Northland. Tasman does not have a FIPS code and I have added the geonameid as it's code.

Marc

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geonameguy



Joined: 18/04/2008 19:59:11
Messages: 35
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marc wrote:
"Bay of Islands" is not a top level region, it is a child of Northland. When information is missing as in this case then the hierarchy service returns the next known ancestor.

Admin divisions need an admin code for the assignment to work. The admin code for a admin division cannot be modified with the interface. If no code is present the assignment will add the code for 'undefined' to a code that was already 'undefined' and thus the error message.
I have added the FIPS code 'F6' to Northland. Tasman does not have a FIPS code and I have added the geonameid as it's code.

Marc 


Okay, but every change you've made here seems to be making things much, much worse. For example now, there is only one child under Northland (previously although Northland was missing under New Zealand, it contained many toponyms).

I don't really understand how to fix this as New Zealand is really getting into very bad shape now...
marc



Joined: 08/12/2005 07:39:47
Messages: 4412
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"Whangarei" was having the admin1 code "F6" as the capital of Northland it was standing for Northland itself. Northland was not a adm1 and did not have a adm1 code, if it had one then it was the one it was previously assigned to as parent.

Marc

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