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Names of China and Taiwan seems not to be matching the documentation. As I understand it, the name=* is supposed to be the default (common?) name while the official_name=* should be the fully qualified name.

Here's the difference between what I think should be mapped (according to the OSM Wiki documentation and Wikipedia articles) and what is currently mapped:

China Proposal
from Wikipedia
Existing
relation object
Existing
node object
name=
name:en=
中国
China
中国
China
中华人民共和国
People's Republic of China
official_name=
official_name:en=
中华人民共和国
People's Republic of China
中华人民共和国
People's Republic of China
中华人民共和国
People's Republic of China
Taiwan Proposal
from Wikipedia
Existing
relation object
Existing
node object
name=
name:en=
臺灣
Taiwan
中華民國
Republic of China
中華民國
Republic of China
official_name=
official_name:en=
中華民國
Republic of China
中華民國
Republic of China
[null]


I'm really tempted to modify the data straight away but I thought it might be better to have an agreement with the community as it is about country names which I consider to be quite an important data.

Thanks to Supaplex, I am now aware of an edit war going on between using “Taiwan” or “Republic of China” in the name tag of the relation object. Here are my thoughts (in favor of “Taiwan”):

  • The OpenStreetMap wiki clearly mention to use the common name. IMHO Taiwan is the common name used both in Taiwan and the rest of the world (except in China maybe? but then what is the common name there?). I never heard of “Republic of China” until I became more interested about the subject. A quick Google query will clearly proves it.
  • In case of disputes the OpenStreetMap wiki indicates to use ground information which I believe is very easy for identifying a city or street name but where do you look on the ground for a country name? Maybe the documentation isn’t precise enough in this case. Any advice appreciated.
  • The same dispute as been going on in the Wikipedia article where pages and pages of vigorous discussion were written. Their policy defines using non-neutral but common names. The edit war seems to have been solved by semi-protecting the article and using Taiwan as name of the article.
  • All the other major concurrent maps I can think of are displaying Taiwan. The Natural Earth data set (http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/110m-cultural-vectors/110m-admin-0-countries/) also use Taiwan in its default/first name.
  • The “Republic of China (Taiwan)” and similar other combined names often used in official documentations isn’t relevant to me, as written in the documentationif there are two common versions of a place name, the "name" tag could contain them both” but only one name is common here: “Taiwan”.

Thanks for your feedback!

asked 10 Jan '16, 11:46

freayd's gravatar image

freayd
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accept rate: 0%

edited 16 Jan '16, 10:28

1

did you try to contact the mappers that have set the current names ?

(12 Jan '16, 06:06) escada

That's actually a good idea. I haven't, it's a bit messy with lots of changesets, I'll try to get in touch with the mappers. Interestingly, the China relation have been named to what I consider correct by a Chinese mapper on this changeset.

(12 Jan '16, 13:56) freayd

Are you actually a local?

(16 Jan '16, 13:21) SimonPoole ♦

No I'm not, I only traveled a few month in both countries. I guess it'll be more interesting to have other Chinese and Taiwanese joining the discussion (even thought it might imply an endless semi-political debate).

(16 Jan '16, 22:58) freayd

It looks like this has been fixed now, name=Taiwan, official_name=Republic of China.

(29 Aug '18, 12:09) aharvey

In support of free & Open principles, it would be best to stick with Taiwan imo

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answered 12 Apr '19, 22:38

greyim's gravatar image

greyim
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accept rate: 0%

I had raised the issue on Taiwan OpenStreetMap Facebook Group, but few response. And the users response said they prefer using the much commonly use Taiwan in name tag.

It's been a long time we discuss the issue. So I change to origin name of Taiwan. I'm open-mind about other option like 臺灣(中華民國) Taiwan(Repulbic of China), or 臺灣/中華民國 Taiwan/Republic of China.

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answered 12 Jun '16, 17:09

Supaplex's gravatar image

Supaplex
13015
accept rate: 0%

edited 13 Jun '16, 06:30

1

s/中華國民/中華民國/

(12 Jun '16, 18:22) kcwu

where do you look on the ground for a country name?

Many ways:

  • Go to the country, and start asking people "What country is this?".
  • What do people/companies/organisations in it, use to refer to the country? e.g. is there is a tourist information association? What do they used to refer to it? Does a newspaper claim "The best selling newspaper in ....".
  • Are there organisations/companies that include a country name, which do they use? Is there a "National Farmers Association of ..." group? Trade union groups? Business owner groups.

You can use official goverment sources or documents/bodies (i.e. what does it say on the passport, what does the state owned TV stations use, etc), however that is good for getting the official_name, which might be different from the name. In the event of a naming dispute, government bodies will often doggedly stick to the official government position, so this is often not a good way to find the name.

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answered 28 Apr '16, 14:38

rorym's gravatar image

rorym
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accept rate: 11%

edited 28 Apr '16, 15:21

SK53's gravatar image

SK53 ♦
28.1k48268433

Does changing the name to "Taiwan" confuse people looking for Kinmen and Matsu? Does anyone from Kinmen or Matsu know how you would answer "what country is this?"

(07 Jul '16, 17:25) miklcct

A new Chinese Mapper (I think) change Taiwan name to their prefer name "台湾省"(Taiwan Province)

https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/38946725

The Taiwanese mapper have already change back the edit.

I think its time to determine if we choose the more common use common name "臺灣" for Taiwan

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answered 28 Apr '16, 14:07

Supaplex's gravatar image

Supaplex
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accept rate: 0%

edited 29 Apr '16, 05:24

I'm a Taiwanese mapper too. I agree with Wikipedia way to map it. We usually call ourselves as Taiwan, only in official document will name as Republic of China.

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answered 17 Jan '16, 12:13

Vintagejhan's gravatar image

Vintagejhan
412
accept rate: 0%

Perfect, thank you for your help!

(17 Jan '16, 13:22) freayd

I'm a Taiwanese mapper, you can see my user name of one of the history version related to Taiwan relation.

I commented on changeset for the one who use "中華民國" (Republic of China) as name, set "臺灣" (Taiwan) as alt_name, but he didn't response. Afraiding of editing war I didn't change back immediately, and start a discussion on Hackpad (in Chinese). Unfortunately there's few one response.

I think using Taiwan as common name is common sense, as a citizen we use the official national name few. Some of my mapper friends think it as well. The local mappers community in Taiwan is aware of this situation, but we're mainly focus on more local stuff like drawing missing roads.

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answered 16 Jan '16, 04:49

Supaplex's gravatar image

Supaplex
13015
accept rate: 0%

edited 16 Jan '16, 04:49

Thanks both for your feedback with local knowledge and efforts on trying to solve the issue. I agree with you and edited my question in order to reflect my arguments. I think we need to find a consensus before editing anything else. Hopefully more people will get involved into the discussion.

This is more on the side of the main debate but I think alt_name should contain 台灣.

(16 Jan '16, 10:41) freayd

A collection for this point (next to the "Names" article) is created in the OSM wiki about Multilingual_names, and there we even have an example for China.

Without having dived into details myself, maybe you can find hints there:

Is the OSM data correct, or really needs an update?

Or is the documentation in the OSM wiki out-of-date, and the wiki needs a detailes update there?

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answered 11 Jan '16, 17:24

stephan75's gravatar image

stephan75
12.6k556210
accept rate: 6%

Thanks for your answer but I think we are misunderstanding. I know the multilingual documentation, there's no problem with it, it's up to date. The problem is really about the data which, IMHO, needs to be updated to match what the documentation says about name vs official_name. I've updated my question to include the existing values hoping it's now more obvious.

(12 Jan '16, 13:41) freayd
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question asked: 10 Jan '16, 11:46

question was seen: 9,496 times

last updated: 12 Apr '19, 22:38

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