[tdwg-content] Change of DwC terms stateProvince, county, and municipality?

[Paul J. Morris]

There's been a long history in collections databases of having a field
named PrimaryDivision for top level (US state, Canadian province) level
subdivisions of countries, and a field named SecondaryDivision for next
level down (US county/UK shire/US parish) subdivisions of countries.  

Below that, it can get a lot more complex and potentially overlapping, and municipality (at least in English) covers a lot of the complexity of towns, townships, villages, incorporated places, cities, etc.

-Paul  

On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 23:47:38 +0200
Markus Englund <jan.markus.englund at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have noticed that use of the Darwin Core terms stateProvince,
> county, and municipality sometimes can be quite confusing. This
> confusion may arise when a term name does not reflect the content,
> like when the term stateProvince does not refer to a state or
> province, or when the term county does not refer to a county. Take my
> own country Sweden for example, where the Darwin Core term
> stateProvince refers to the name of a county, the term county refers
> to the name of a municipality, and the term municipality refers to
> the name of a parish...
> 
> As long as everyone stick to the definitions, literal meaning of term
> names doesn't really matters. Unfortunately, however, people
> sometimes tend to focus more on the literal meaning of term names
> than on the actual meaning of defined concepts. To make the Darwin
> Core terminology less confusing, I think words associated with
> geographic ranks should be removed from the term names. I suggest the
> following changes (you may come up with better ones yourself!):
> 
> “stateProvince” --> “countryFirstOrderSubdivision”
> “county” --> “countrySecondOrderSubdivision”
> “municipality” --> “countryThirdOrderSubdivision”
> 
> After having delved into the Darwin Core geography specifications, I
> also feel that these three terms would benefit from more consistent
> and clear-cut definitions. I have included proposed new definitions
> at the end of this mail. My intention is not to alter the meaning of
> any of the existing terms, just to make the definitions more precise.
> Each proposed new definition is also accompanied by a revised comment
> with examples.
> 
> To conclude, here are some questions to think about:
> 
> 1) Would it be desirable to have other names for the terms
> stateProvince, county, and municipality? If so, what names should be
> used instead?
> 
> 2) Are the current definitions of the terms stateProvince, county,
> and municipality sufficiently good? If not, how should they be
> defined? Does the definitions proposed here make things clearer?
> 
> 3) Would more elaborate examples in the comments like the ones
> presented here improve the Darwin Core standard?
> 
> 
> Looking forward to hear of any response!
> 
> 
> Markus Englund
> Department of Biodiversity Informatics
> Swedish Museum of Natural History
> P.O. Box 50007 
> SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden
> 
> --------------------
> 
> SOME RELATED LINKS
> 
> Wikipedia: Table of administrative divisions by country
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_administrative_country_subdivisions_by_country
> 
> UN Second Administrative Level Boundaries
> http://www.unsalb.org
>   
> UN Gazetetteer - a global place name database and search engine
> http://dma.jrc.it/services/gazetteer
> 
> GADM database of Global Administrative Areas
> http://www.gadm.org
> 
> --------------------
> 
> PROPOSED NEW DEFINITIONS AND COMMENTS
> 
> Term Name: countryFirstOrderSubdivision
> 
> Definition: The full, unabbreviated name of the primary
> administrative division below country level in which the Location
> occurs. The named region should be a subdivision of the region
> referred to in the country term.
> 
> Comment: Examples: "Montana" (a federal state in the USA), "Minas
> Gerais" (a federative unit in Brazil), "Neuquén" (a province in
> Argentina), "Hesse" (a federal state in Germany), "Stockholms län" (a
> county in Sweden).
> 
> 
> Term Name: countrySecondOrderSubdivision
> 
> Definition: The full, unabbreviated name of the second-order
> administrative division below country level in which the Location
> occurs. The named region should be a subdivision of the region
> referred to in the countryFirstOrderSubdivision term.
> 
> Comment: Examples: "Missoula" (a county located in the federal state
> Montana, USA), "Los Lagos" (a department located in the province
> Neuquén, Argentina), "Darmstadt" (a government district located in
> the federal state Hesse, Germany), "Sigtuna" (a municipality located
> in the county Stockholms län, Sweden).
> 
> 
> Term Name: countryThirdOrderSubdivision
> 
> Definition: The name of the third-order administrative division below
> country level in which the Location occurs. The named region should
> be a subdivision of the region referred to in the
> countrySecondOrderSubdivision term.
> 
> Comment: Examples: "Hainburg" (a municipality located in the
> government district Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany), "Norrsunda" (a
> parish located in the municipality Sigtuna in Stockholms län, Sweden)
> 
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-- 
Paul J. Morris
Biodiversity Informatics Manager
Harvard University Herbaria/Museum of Comparative Zoölogy
mole at morris.net  AA3SD  PGP public key available