GeoNames Forum

When viewing St Kitts & Nevis in geonames.org, it's two subdivisions (states) are shown as expected: https://www.geonames.org/KN/administrative-division-st-kitts-&-nevis.html

However, when requesting the /children of this country via the Webservice, only the parishes are returned. The states are not:
http://api.geonames.org/children?geonameId=3575174&username=demo

When requesting the /hierarchy of any of the parishes, the state is also not shown.

I noticed that this behaviour is different in other countries, such as Italy. In there, the direct subdivisions of the country (the regions) are returned with /children.

What might cause this inconsistency in behaviour? Thank you very much for your assistance!

Hi

iso calls the two islands 'states', however, I cannot find information about them serving as admin divisions.
Do you suggest to downgrade the parishes to ADM2 and use the two islands as ADM1?

Best Regards

Marc

marc wrote:

iso calls the two islands 'states', however, I cannot find information about them serving as admin divisions.
Do you suggest to downgrade the parishes to ADM2 and use the two islands as ADM1?

According to ISO, the islands are admin divisions, as far as I can tell (see ISO online browsing platform). Based on this, I would suggest exactly that: to downgrade the parishes to ADM2 and use the two islands as ADM1.

The Commonwealth Local Government Forum states:

Saint Kitts is divided into nine parishes, which serve as administrative units. Nevis has a single island authority37.3d with a high degree of autonomy which is a local government within the federation, and it also has five parishes which serve as administrative units.

(src: THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT SYSTEM IN SAINT kITTS AND NEVIS: COUNTRY PROFILE 2019)

I would interpret this as supporting my case.

Do you believe this is enough evidence to make a change in the Geonames DB?

Bump @marc. I'm hoping for your input as a more experienced contributor. Thanks!