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Lots of smaller towns/cities appear to be missing as PPLs  XML
Forum Index -> FAQ - frequently asked questions
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jordanreiter



Joined: 02/06/2010 19:59:56
Messages: 3
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Menomonie, WI is a city of around 20k.
"City of Menomonie" is listed as an administrative division, but there is no PPL record for Menomonie, WI, instead there is:
Menomonie Junction, WI and
North Menomonie, WI
Both of which are PPLs.

This is not an isolated case. To keep my database reasonable in size I filtered out everything but PPLs and a *lot* of cities and towns aren't present.

This is also true for a number of places called "Town of xyz"; xyz is missing from the list of PPLs even if it has a population!

It seems a bit crazy that Georgetown of Philadelphia, PA, a "condo community" of 270 units is recognized as a PPL but many cities and towns in the US that have the misfortune of also being part of an administrative division known as "Town of xyz" or "City of xyz" are not listed as populated places.

None of these are available in the various "cities.zip" files either.

Is this a known issue? Is the only resolution to import all the administrative divisions as well?
jordanreiter



Joined: 02/06/2010 19:59:56
Messages: 3
Offline

Another example is Wheatfield, NY. It's a town with 15k+ people.

"Township of Wheatfield" is listed as an administrative division. There are "hamlets" within the Township of Wheatfield as well.
marc



Joined: 08/12/2005 07:39:47
Messages: 4412
Offline

Menomonie, WI is here:
http://www.geonames.org/5262634/menominee.html

The us data is from the USGS. The usgs 'civil' type is mapped to the geonames typ ADMD. To cite the usgs faq:

An entry with Feature Class = Populated Place represents a named community with a permanent human population, usually not incorporated and with no legal boundaries, ranging from rural clustered buildings to large cities and every size in between; includes metropolitan areas, housing subdivisions, developments, modular home communities, and named neighborhoods (village, town, settlement, hamlet, trailer park, etc.). The boundaries of most communities classified as Populated Place are subjective and cannot be determined.

A community with Feature Class = Civil represents a political division formed for administrative purposes with legally defined boundaries (borough, county, incorporated place, municipio, parish, town, township).

(The Civil feature class does not include named residential neighborhoods, developments, etc. that are based on ownership of plots of land and therefore will have defined boundaries. These features are not considered political entities; they are classified as Populated Places.)

A small percentage of communities classified as Populated Place will have a corresponding political entity classified as Civil. In these cases, the entry classified as Populated Place represents the perceived metropolitan area usually extending beyond the legal boundaries of the incorporated community classified as Civil.

The feature classified as Populated Place and a corresponding entry classified as Civil are separate and distinct entities, as well as separate records (entries) in the dataset, each with a unique feature identifier. The two records have no direct relationship in the dataset except that they might have the same Census Code.

The two records usually, but not always, will have the same or similar names. The name of the political entity classified as Civil will include generic terms such as “City of…,” “Town of…,” etc. The name of the entry classified as Populated Place will not include such generic terms and is referred to as the short form. Example: Civil Class record = City of Denver, Populated Place = Denver.

Frequently these distinctions are not visible and are not common knowledge locally, and can be confusing, but they are necessary to identify properly and classify such communities for governmental purposes. The question whether one lives “in” a particular community depends on these definitions.

If the reference is to a community classified as Civil, which by definition has legal boundaries, that question can be answered with accuracy. If the reference is to a community classified as Populated Place, which in most cases will not have legal boundaries, the answer is subjective.

(It also is common for some to answer this question based on postal address and zip code, which have no direct relationship to either an entry classified as Civil or an entry classified as Populated Place (except perhaps a common or similar name), and therefore can be deceiving. See FAQ question #27 above concerning ZIP Codes.)

Most communities are not legally incorporated and therefore will have only one entry, which will be classified as Populated Place. Application of various community terms (city, town, village, settlement, hamlet, etc.) is determined by local usage. There are no standard lists of, definitions of, or rules for applying them, and there are no implied hierarchies among the terms: X Town might have a larger population and greater area than Y City.
 

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