UK Counties in GSAK's FSG macro

[Matthew 7:7 Too]

Like many GAGB members I use GSAK and FSG to display my found caches on a UK map. But having now found a cache in Worcestershire, I have realised that GSAK still believes there to be a county called "Hereford and Worcester"! (This county reverted to Herefordshire and Worcestershire back in 1998.)

I have posted this problem in the GSAK forum, and been asked to suggest an up to date polygon map instead of the one presently being used. Has anyone else found a replacement UK County map that has up to date counties??

Chris

[agentmancuso]

GSAK still uses Scottish regions that were abolished in 1996. I looked for a better parameter set but couldn't find one. T:UK uses old data too, so maybe an up-to-date version just isn't readily available.

[colonel&crew]

So what's to be done?

I posted a question on the GSAK forum and was told that (in essence) it's up to the UK Geocaching community to sort it out.

Firstly... we need to agree that the issue is worthy of being dealt with... Changes will apply to everyone.

Next... "someone" needs to create the new polygons... Erm. I don't know how to do this!

Then... "someone" needs to update the UK map to reflect the new polygons... Clyde at GSAK says he'll give advice if we get that far!

Then... we email the new info to Clyde and lignumaqua at GSAK...

Then... GSAK issues them...

And finally they appear on your FSG thingy.

Simples.

From my viewpoint, I'd like the map to be right. But mapping's a funny old game. Boundaries move all the time so where do we draw the line? (Pun intended!)

I've noticed these issues...

Hereford and Worcester is two counties, not one.
The City of London is a separate ceremonial county.
The City of Bristol is a separate ceremonial county.
Rutland exists again.
Avon doesn't exist.

What do you lot think???

Mark (the colonel)

[g0akh]

Having tried to deal with creation/deletion/changing boundaries for another organisation that was based on geographical areas, we eventually decided that the whole thing was becoming far too cumbersome to keep up to date and removed all references to the 'county/unitary authority/metropolitan borough' altogether, and just used the Countries of the UK.

As has been discussed before, it also depends which definition of a County you use - there are several. Boundaries can be changed at the whim of Government, so it is potentially an ongoing problem over time. Whilst the current counties may not be correct any more, they are consistent.

As for the Regions (or States as Groundspeak like to refer to them), that's another can of worms to be opened!

[colonel&crew]

I take your point about county boundaries changing and also agree that actually defining what a county is can be more than a little tricky!
That said, I still feel that including counties that radically changed 15 years ago is simply wrong!

My personal opinion is that we should include "ceremonial" counties - the boundaries of which are (mostly) static and I think are what most people would consider to be "counties" as opposed to "unitary authorities", "boroughs" or whatever.

What I'm trying to do here is gauge the opinion of as many cachers as possible to see if anyone actually gives a monkey's!! Or is just me being a bit OCD about it?

[Brenin Tegeingl]

The reason we ended up with "UK Regions" on GC, was due to the fact that a consensus amongst the community could not be reached, as to which County List to use

Historic
Ceremonial
Political (which is the current version used today)

part of the argument being that anyone born 1990 onwards, will only know the modern political counties. those born post 1974, but pre 1990 will remember the Unitary Counties created in 1974, and their dissolution in 1994.
Those born pre 1970 will be aware of the Historic Counties, as well as the post 1974 and 1994 changes.

But how many know the actual Ceremonial Counties?

My 2 aged 22 & 21 were born in Manchester Greater Manchester, which at the time was a Unitary Authority, I was born 2 miles away in Manchester Lancashire. My 2 do not have a clue about Manchester being in Lancashire.

We now live in Flintshire (a Unitary Authority), 1974-1994 we would have lived in Clwyd Unitary Authority (and in fact same businesses still believe we do). Pre 1974 Flintshire a Historic County, was actually in 2 parts, one small part being on the far side, of Modern Wrexham.

2010 and Cheshire was split into 2 Unitary Authorities.

So I wish you luck in finding County Boundaries everyone can agree on.

Deci

[colonel&crew]

Fair enough then!

I'll put my OCD away and go and find some generic plastic containers!

Mark