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List of UK Counties

Deceangi

By Deceangi
in United Kingdom and Ireland

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Happy Humphrey

+Happy Humphrey

Posted
Posted

it's Derry :)

I was careful to have that covered in my list of counties!

 

(...at least, as "covered" as anyone can without calling it "Stroke City" or something).

 

To those inferring that the whole thing is getting out of hand - what's wrong with the list I posted? There's only John Stead's grumble about Merseyside, which (with respect to John) I don't think is going to change.

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Alan White

Alan White

Posted
Posted

get the majority done in 12-18 months

In the meantime the system is useless because most of the caches in a county won't be returned by a query on that county.

 

A better arrangement would be to choose "counties" for which we already have coordinate definitions (Barry?). These could then be passed to Groundspeak who could easily script an update based on the cache location. That way, all caches would be in (more or less) the right county from day one.

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Deceangi

Deceangi

Posted
  • Author
Posted

get the majority done in 12-18 months

In the meantime the system is useless because most of the caches in a county won't be returned by a query on that county.

 

A better arrangement would be to choose "counties" for which we already have coordinate definitions (Barry?). These could then be passed to Groundspeak who could easily script an update based on the cache location. That way, all caches would be in (more or less) the right county from day one.

 

Sorry but not even for the US States does Groundspeak use actual locations to define which state a cache is in. Each owner chooses the State/County and not Groundspeak/GC

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Happy Humphrey

+Happy Humphrey

Posted
Posted (edited)

You miss the point. Of course boundaries matter - that's what defines which county the cache is in :). Setting the county at the time of cache placement is the easy bit. What happens when the boundary moves? What happens when the "county" is renamed? What happens when the cache is moved to the other side of the boundary?

 

All data, just like caches, requires maintenance.

I still don't get the point then. If we're using the "Ceremonial Counties" list then the boundaries and names will remain stable. Should a county Ceremonial name eventually fall into disuse, then it can be replaced: but it's unlikely to happen to a significant extent. You find some other picky objections, but they don't seem to amount to much. :)

 

If you insist that boundaries are constantly changing all over the UK, we COULD attempt to extract the boundary coordinates and press to have the cache descriptions kept up to date based on location. But even if Groundspeak agree to do that (unlikely), we get back to the problem of agreeing the boundaries, and the maintenance of every little amendment to every county would be a nightmare. We'd have to use administrative divisions rather than well-known county names, which would not only be arbitrary but also baffling in some cases.

 

Asking cache owners to select a county for each cache may not be an exercise in scientific precision, but it should get most caches pretty much into the correct selection fairly soon without unrealistic expectations.

 

I'm not surprised that this thread has become such a big debate: remember the fuss about Macedonia - and that was only one country!

Edited by Happy Humphrey
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Jaz666

+Jaz666

Posted
Posted

Rutson's list for me.

 

However, with the news that GCUK is back online, why don't we just use the list that the site has used for years, as it would provide compatibility between the two sites.

 

Here's the list taken from GCUK, I've not taken time to compare it to Rutson's list I'm afraid.

 

Avon

Bedfordshire

Berkshire

Borders Region

Buckinghamshire

Cambridgeshire

Central Region

Cheshire

Cleveland

Clwyd

Co Antrim

Co Down

Co Londonderry

Cornwall

Cumbria

Derbyshire

Devon

Dorset

Dumfries & Galloway

Durham

Dyfed

East Sussex

Essex

Fife Region

Gloucestershire

Grampian Region

Greater London

Greater Manchester

Gwent

Gwynedd

Hampshire

Hereford & Worcester

Hertfordshire

Highland Region

Humberside

Isle of Man

Isle of Wight

Isles of Scilly

Kent

Lancashire

Leicestershire

Lincolnshire

Lothian Region

Merseyside

Mid Glamorgan

Norfolk

North Yorkshire

Northamptonshire

Northumberland

Nottinghamshire

Orkney Isles

Oxfordshire

Powys

Shetland Isles

Shropshire

Somerset

South Glamorgan

South Yorkshire

Staffordshire

Strathclyde Region

Suffolk

Surrey

Tayside Region

Tyne & Wear

Warwickshire

West Glamorgan

West Midlands

West Sussex

West Yorkshire

Western Isles

Wiltshire

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The Flying Boots

+The Flying Boots

Posted
Posted

This is just a personal note. It doesn't matter to me what a bit of land is called by name I will still enjoy walking, being outdoors and geocaching whether it is called Gwent or Monmouthshire, Avon or South Gloucestershire. It's still the same bit of countryside after all.

Whatever method is used to divide the country up for the purpose of a filtered search by Groundspeak will only help as I've missed that particular facility made available by GeocacheUK.

 

I'll be happy with whatever :) .

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Alan White

Alan White

Posted
Posted

Sorry but not even for the US States does Groundspeak use actual locations to define which state a cache is in. Each owner chooses the State/County and not Groundspeak/GC

And I wasn't suggesting that should be done for us either at the time of placing the cache. What I am suggesting is that we, and the technology, are perfectly capable of updating all the existing caches so that counties are useful immediately. Leaving it to cache owners to update their caches just isn't to work, and even it did it really shouldn't be necessary to manually update 20k+ records :)
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Alan White

Alan White

Posted
Posted

You find some other picky objections, but they don't seem to amount to much. :)

I'm sorry you find my comments "picky". I (used to) work with data management for a living and I can assure you that the exercise we're discussing here is never as simple as some people would have you believe. The questions I posed need answers, because otherwise cachers will be asking why their cache isn't being found or why a particular cache doesn't appear in a PQ. No data is static. Sorry if that doesn't suit, but that's just way it is.

 

remember the fuss about Macedonia - and that was only one country!

No. Is that an English county?
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L8HNB

+L8HNB

Posted
Posted

Now we understand the reason behind the requirement we're not too bothered what happens, when we go caching we plan where we're going so estuarys and county borders don't come into it.

 

We only log a new county when we are clearly well within the boundary, of course you only record a county once. We haven't included Essex as bagged on our personal list, as the cache was on the Essex Suffolk border, for that reason.

 

If I understood the statement correctly caches may need to be reviewed, over 12 - 18 months. Won't it create a raft of work for some poor soul to do, and it seems a little pointless adding this info for the majority of caches that are well away from the so called boundaries, where ever they end up?

 

I assume there will be an extra box on the cache creation page with a pull down list to restrict the county the cache is in for new ones.

 

Just a final thought, if the county were to be put in the cache title some of the more mischevious of our community might also start being very creative with cache titles, Events with titles as the Shrops. would only add to the confusion.

 

I'll get me coat........

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adrianjohn

adrianjohn

Posted
Posted

So where is Humberside, Cleveland???? Looks like you are running 2 systems for county boundaries. You really need one or the other

 

There is no Humberside, but there is a Lincolnshire which includes unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. Also the people of East Yorkshire would also be annoyed, as I am if any one should bring back that foul construct of Humberside which thankfully has been dead for more than ten years!

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Stuey

+Stuey

Posted
Posted (edited)

my address is in Middlesex, not London, yet Middlesex is not on either list...

Middlesex isn't on any modern list because it hasn't existed since 1974. Royal Mail were the last bastion of the use of Middlesex and even they've dropped it now.

 

Royal Mail.... the last bastion? What about these guys? Middlesex County Cricket Club :laughing::laughing:

 

p.s. The list that Rutson posted gets my vote

Edited by Stuey
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Happy Humphrey

+Happy Humphrey

Posted
Posted

remember the fuss about Macedonia - and that was only one country!

No. Is that an English county?

See three pages of argument about Macedonia. Just to compare with our problems with Merseyside, Humberside etc. - it's hard to even put together a list of countries without offending people, so not surprising that a definitive list of counties is proving more controversial than some might expect.

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garyhoney

+garyhoney

Posted
Posted

I have read through this thread (Taken some time) and can't find any reference to vice-counties.

 

These are used in many walks of life, from hobbies (birdwatching in particular) to academia. Their one big advantage is that the are a standard with each area about the same size which would be excellent for filtering. Also because they are a standard there are many utilities such as this one that are excellent.

 

I stand back to be flamed as I know it is late in the day but I only saw this at lunchtime. Go on you know it makes sense , plus they are numbered - I like numbers :D

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Dobunnis

+Dobunnis

Posted
Posted (edited)

I have read through this thread (Taken some time) and can't find any reference to vice-counties.

 

Personally I like this idea. Some of the main problems with the usual counties list, as pointed out previously, are the change in boundaries over time, the arguments over what constitutes a county and the difference in size. This would lead to a fair comparison of cache rich areas, the names are sufficiently descriptive to be recognisable and there is an easy way to find out in which area a cache is when placed, even if it is done by the owner.

 

The only issue I guess is that there are 112 of them compared to the shorter lists but that would still be an average of 200 caches per region if they were equally "filled". It would be interesting to see maps with the number of caches in each county and a counties cached in with this set too :D

 

Helen

Edited by T-girls
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pklong

+pklong

Posted
Posted

I have read through this thread (Taken some time) and can't find any reference to vice-counties.

 

These are used in many walks of life, from hobbies (birdwatching in particular) to academia. Their one big advantage is that the are a standard with each area about the same size which would be excellent for filtering. Also because they are a standard there are many utilities such as this one that are excellent.

 

I stand back to be flamed as I know it is late in the day but I only saw this at lunchtime. Go on you know it makes sense , plus they are numbered - I like numbers :D

 

As someone who hails from North Devon originally I like this list and particularly the North Devon / South Devon split. It looks like a very workable idea even if not a proper county. Only things I can find against it is the number of them, the confusion of looking for a county in the list e.g. Devon and not finding it, and they have lumped Scilly in with West Cornwall. All minor problems. Thumbs up from me.

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Moote

+Moote

Posted
Posted

I have rested and thought about this, for it to be any use we all need to be batting in the same ball park, often people say things such as "I don't live in Greater Manchester; Stockport is in Cheshire", but equally some people might be happy to accept the reverse, therefore caches which are clearly near each other might not appear in a PQ purely because we have no real yardstick in our hands.

 

I have looked at the 2 main suggestions (Rutson's and nearby.org) and there are clearly problems with both, one has no real yardstick; and the other has vast errors, including towns which are 30+ miles outside of a county listed as in a county. There are yardsticks though which we can use and can not be argued with this comes in the form of OS mapping data. If we were to use the boundaries which the Ordnance Survey map, then there would be a clear and accurate yardstick to operate with.

 

The point here is that without a yardstick there is clearly no point in progressing this exercise, so we need to find a more scientific way of setting the boundary lines, and not the method that could and will places caches in either county.

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Edgemaster

Edgemaster

Posted
Posted

I have read through this thread (Taken some time) and can't find any reference to vice-counties.

 

These are used in many walks of life, from hobbies (birdwatching in particular) to academia. Their one big advantage is that the are a standard with each area about the same size which would be excellent for filtering. Also because they are a standard there are many utilities such as this one that are excellent.

 

I stand back to be flamed as I know it is late in the day but I only saw this at lunchtime. Go on you know it makes sense , plus they are numbered - I like numbers :D

I think I'll bookmark this, there's likely to be a Surrey puzzle cache about them...

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Malpas Wanderer

+Malpas Wanderer

Posted
Posted

I have read through this thread (Taken some time) and can't find any reference to vice-counties.

 

These are used in many walks of life, from hobbies (birdwatching in particular) to academia. Their one big advantage is that the are a standard with each area about the same size which would be excellent for filtering. Also because they are a standard there are many utilities such as this one that are excellent.

 

I stand back to be flamed as I know it is late in the day but I only saw this at lunchtime. Go on you know it makes sense , plus they are numbered - I like numbers :)

 

 

Looks very much like the best suggestion yet. :D

 

The conversion tools look good too. :D

 

Once set up will give an absolute, not affected by parliamentary change. :lol:

 

Search criteria could be the VC code i.e. 2-5 digits less if you drop the VC. :huh:

 

 

Is it possible to set up a poll on these Groundspeak forums, or is it more appropriate to move such to one of the "area" forums where polls are possible once all choices are explored. it would be much more indicative of overall trends than reading every post. :D

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pklong

+pklong

Posted
Posted

Which list falls in with the Postcodes ?

 

Thats obviously the way to go because as was mentioned the Post Office (bless their cotton socks ) have not changed hugely for a while apart from things like Wirral postcodes back to original CH :D

 

Sorry this is a completely unworkable suggestion. Our office is clearly in Leicestershire yet the postcode is CV10 and the post town is Nuneaton in Warwickshire. All too confusing.

 

Philip

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Birdman-of-liskatraz

+Birdman-of-liskatraz

Posted
Posted

Which list falls in with the Postcodes ?

 

Thats obviously the way to go because as was mentioned the Post Office (bless their cotton socks ) have not changed hugely for a while apart from things like Wirral postcodes back to original CH :D

 

Sorry this is a completely unworkable suggestion. Our office is clearly in Leicestershire yet the postcode is CV10 and the post town is Nuneaton in Warwickshire. All too confusing.

 

Philip

 

And our Postcode is PL - Plymouth in Devon - Yet we're in COrnwall *Mutters muchly*

 

YET - I feel we need to draw to a conclusion quicklyish or we'll miss the opportunity to have the Counties option at all.

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