I set out the neat arrangement for admin_level=* admin tags for BoundaryLines in a recent post on Nottingham Civil Parishes. I thought that I had discovered a discrepancy when I hit the bureaucratic inventions of Yorkshire and the Humber + North Lincolnshire, but maybe not.

Here is the relevant snippet:

Admin Tags for Nottinghamshire:

type=boundary
boundary=administrative: (on way and/or on relation grouping those ways)

admin_level=1: n/a
admin_level=2: (Border, external (with Irish Republic))
admin_level=3: n/a
admin_level=4: (Border, internal (with Wales/Scotland))
admin_level=5: Region is “East Midlands”
admin_level=6: Unitary_Authority/County is “City of Nottingham/Nottinghamshire”
admin_level=7: n/a
admin_level=8: Borough/District (eg Rushcliffe District)
admin_level=9: n/a
admin_level=10: Parish (eg Alverton CP)

The heart of the issue for OSM was that North Lincolnshire was originally listed as a County (admin_level=6), whereas it’s modern designation is as a Unitary Authority Area. I’ve changed it’s admin_level to ‘8’, although I fully understand why the previous author would have put it as a county, but it is not.

2016-Aug-16: Correction to above; although the OS provide Unitary Authority .shape files together with Borough and District .shape files, the UA is listed under OSM as admin_level=6. My bad.

The ancient arrangement (current in my youth) was that Yorkshire was divided into 3 Ridings: North, West & East. The East Riding was bounded by the Humber in the south, whilst Lincolnshire was bounded by the Humber in the North. Thus, both counties were separated by a mighty river, and both parties were most pleased by that fact. Then, in 1974, bureaucratic barbarians decided to take an axe to the country’s ancient counties and imposed Humberside upon both parties + built a bridge to connect them. Hmm. Humberside lasted until 1992 and we ended up with the current arrangement.

It got worse. The first time that I met the name “South Yorkshire” was as a TV program in the 1970s (I think) & everyone thought it very novel. Then it got adopted by the bureaucrats as a reality for the country. Oh bugger.

Full disclosure: I was born & brought up in Hull, East Yorkshire and am therefore a Yorkshireman.

I cannot describe the way my skin crawled when Hull became part of “Humberside”. I now live in Nottingham; If I open the attic window late in the summer nights I can just hear the gentle sound of old men in Doncaster alternately laughing & weeping into their pints of beer at having to live in the invented county of “South Yorkshire”, whilst men & women in North Lincolnshire glower silently out of their windows at having to live in Yorkshire. No wonder we wanted to leave Europe!

PS
The reason for making sure that the local parish is accurately located & fully fitted with all necessary is_in:*=* tags is that they are essential to unlocking the power of the OSM location & search facilities. I was able to witness that for myself every day after sorting out my locality.