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

[Bob Morris]

As a recovering algebraist, If I had to do solve this problem all
over, I would probably make the model support not just a dynamically
long ordered list of geopolitical objects, but  a \tree/ or perhaps,
better, a poset of such, with the no predetermined names for the types
of the  nodes.  I think that this might meet the needs that both
Markus and you put on the table.

Bob

On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Paul J. Morris <mole at morris.net> wrote:
> 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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>> tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
>> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
>
>
> --
> Paul J. Morris
> Biodiversity Informatics Manager
> Harvard University Herbaria/Museum of Comparative Zoölogy
> mole at morris.net  AA3SD  PGP public key available
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-- 
Robert A. Morris

Emeritus Professor  of Computer Science
UMASS-Boston
100 Morrissey Blvd
Boston, MA 02125-3390

IT Staff
Filtered Push Project
Harvard University Herbaria
Harvard University

email: morris.bob at gmail.com
web: http://efg.cs.umb.edu/
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===
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