NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum

I can use some help understanding the different German boundaries.

We want to index the streetnames per city. So you can do a search for country -> city/town/village -> street -> housenumber.

In most countries, all cities, towns and villages have boundaries with admin_level=8 or 9. So if those are indexed, all cities and towns are indexed, and no other administrative divisions.

But In Germany, there seem to be Stadtstaaten (with admin_ level=4), Kreisfreie Städte (with admin_ level=6) and Amtsfreie Gemeinden (with admin_level=7).

Is it true that, when f.e. for a Stadtstaat with a boundary with admin_level=4, there will be no other boundary added with admin_level=8, to follow the very generally adopted convention that 8 and 9 are used for cities?

I wonder why this system was chosen. And how we could possibly make a difference between a Kreisfreie Stadt and a Kreis when indexing the streets.

Or is there some better place where I could ask this (I don't know which communication channels are most actively used in Germany)

asked 18 Aug '12, 09:56

Sanderd17's gravatar image

Sanderd17
1.1k51637
accept rate: 31%

edited 18 Aug '12, 19:36

scai's gravatar image

scai ♦
33.3k21309459


"Kreisfreie Stadt" and "Kreis" is the same for most intents and purposes. (In some parts of Germany, a "Kreisfreie Stadt" will be called "Stadtkreis" and a normal "Kreis" will be called "Landkreis", for example where I live there's a "Stadtkreis Karlsruhe" that sits in a donut hole inside the "Landkreis Karlsruhe" and both are different entities on admin level 6.

As you correctly note, a "Stadtstaat" is something different and we have three of them on admin level 4, namely Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin. It is possible that people have not created adminlevel 6 and 8 boundaries for these because it looks silly to have three different, identical boundaries (although, without having checked on OSM, Bremen consists of two level-8 entities, Bremen and Bremerhaven).

You will find myriad idiosyncracies like that in other countries as well.

permanent link

answered 18 Aug '12, 15:24

Frederik%20Ramm's gravatar image

Frederik Ramm ♦
82.5k927201273
accept rate: 23%

Do you mean that in fact, the Kreisen have also to be divided into admin_level=8 boundaries? So it would be correct to surround Köln with a boundary of admin_level=8 of the same shape as the current level 6 boundary.

I want to edit that data, but I need to know what data is considered "correct" according to the Germans.

(18 Aug '12, 15:33) Sanderd17

Dear Sanderd, You made two questions Stadtstaat and boundary levels. Stadstaat (Wiki) is a very old definition of a area with certain rules and laws. Theres IMHO no problem if in such a boundary the outer lines get more levels then one fi 4 and 8. Praktical since theres no problem with other areas and it only used if neccesary.

permanent link

answered 18 Aug '12, 15:09

Hendrikklaas's gravatar image

Hendrikklaas
9.3k207238387
accept rate: 5%

Take f.e. Köln. That has a boundary with admin_level=6 (because it's a Kreisfrei Stadt). But there is no other boundary of Keulen.

Now, if we want to index the streets of all cities, how do we make a difference between indexing those cities as Köln and general Kreisen, which we don't want to index?

(18 Aug '12, 15:17) Sanderd17
Your answer
toggle preview

Follow this question

By Email:

Once you sign in you will be able to subscribe for any updates here

By RSS:

Answers

Answers and Comments

Markdown Basics

  • *italic* or _italic_
  • **bold** or __bold__
  • link:[text](http://url.com/ "title")
  • image?![alt text](/path/img.jpg "title")
  • numbered list: 1. Foo 2. Bar
  • to add a line break simply add two spaces to where you would like the new line to be.
  • basic HTML tags are also supported

Question tags:

×129
×63
×20
×17

question asked: 18 Aug '12, 09:56

question was seen: 5,742 times

last updated: 18 Aug '12, 19:36

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum