[tdwg-content] dwc: city to county
"Markus Döring (GBIF)"
mdoering at gbif.org
Wed Aug 26 16:16:05 CEST 2009
I just realized that there is dwc:higherGeographyID already that fits
perfectly to hold the city gazeteer ID:
http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#higherGeographyID
so for a location within the city of san francisco we can use:
dwc:higherGeographyID =tgn: 7014456
Markus
On Aug 26, 2009, at 15:41, Markus Döring (GBIF) wrote:
>>>> Darwin Core is able to transmit Gazetteer IDs for the kind of
>>>> objects
>>>> you are talking about (generally called "features" or "named
>>>> places")
>>>> that are present in gazetteers. Not only that, gazetteers can have
>>>> detailed information (georeferences with uncertainties) about
>>>> places
>>>> with complex descriptions as well as simple named places. BioGeoBIF
>>>> does this, and a Locality service I have long wanted to build has
>>>> exactly this intention. What Darwin Core can't do is give a
>>>> gazetteer
>>>> id for some part of the Location, only for the whole. In other
>>>> words,
>>>> it can't do what you want it to do. I don't think Darwin Core
>>>> should.
>>>> I think the far better solution is to use universal terms - the
>>>> spatial data - for the use case you are proposing.
>>>
>>> There is a big difference between city being S. Francisco and the
>>> location being detail inside of it, and city being S. Francisco and
>>> the location being 200 km S of it.
>>
>> Yes, I agree. They are very different. Assuming there was a "city"
>> term in DwC, I would not want someone to put San Francisco as the
>> city
>> if the Location was outside of the city. In other words, no
>> geographic
>> term is to be used to represent a "nearest named place", instead,
>> they
>> are to be used only to designate containment of the specific place.
>>
>>> So for the use case where the the detailed location is inside the
>>> boundaries defined by a gazeetter ID, I am still assuming that DWC
>>> can
>>> transmit the data ONLY if no more detailed data are given. Or this a
>>> misunderstanding?
>>
>> You understand correctly. Darwin Core can transmit all of the detail
>> about the place, no matter how specific, but it cannot transmit any
>> gazetteer id that does not correspond to the whole Location in all
>> its
>> detail.
>
> Would it hurt to put the gazateer ID into a higher geographic term?
>
> for the county of san francisco:
> dwc:county=TGN:1002859
>
> for the city one could use the locality is there is no finer
> description of the exact place:
> dwc:locality=tgn: 7014456
>
>
> Remarkably the getty thesaurus also uses similar terms for the
> geographic hierarchy:
> http://www.getty.edu/vow/TGNFullDisplay?find=san+francisco&place=city&nation=&prev_page=1&english=Y&subjectid=7014456
> North and Central America (continent)
> United States (nation)
> California (state)
> San Francisco (county)
> San Francisco (inhabited place)
>
> Well, for a German town this is slightly different:
> Europe (continent)
> Germany (nation)
> Lower Saxony (state)
> Hannover (national district)
> Holzminden (inhabited place)
>
>
>
> If all it takes is to add a dwc:city or dwc:inhabitedPlace term, I
> think I would second that.
>
> Alternatively the most relevant bit apart from the locationID and
> exact locality is the next higher region that contains the exact
> location - no matter what rank.
> Something like a dwc:namedArea
>
>
> Markus
>
>
>
>
>
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