List of UK Counties

[+HazelS]

The other two problems would presumably be solved, as has been mentioned before in this thread, by changing UK to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

 

Not necessarily in my case...

 

I don't want caches in Liverpool on my PQ at the moment, as I know I'll go off and do them all in one day (there are few) yet they are not in a different country to me... just across the water from me.

[+minstrelcat]

The other two problems would presumably be solved, as has been mentioned before in this thread, by changing UK to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

 

Country searches wouldn't filter out Essex and London caches, which are my bugbears. A regional search may not either, depending on whether London and Essex count as south east England.

 

A polygon search would be wonderful but that would presumably mean a lot more effort for Groundspeak to implement. It would probably either never happen or take forever going by previous requests for changes - after all, it has taken years for the UK counties request to come near to being implemented!

Edited February 18, 2008 by minstrelcat

[+sTeamTraen]

GSAK does a pretty good job with polygons. If one UK, er, GB, er, British Isles cache per county were to spend an hour or so working out the coordinates for their home area and made it available in a GSAK copy/pasteable format, you'd be most of the way there. It ought to be possible using MapSource and the right intermediate export format (he said, "confidently"...)

[+spannerman]

GSAK does a pretty good job with polygons. If one UK, er, GB, er, British Isles cache per county were to spend an hour or so working out the coordinates for their home area and made it available in a GSAK copy/pasteable format, you'd be most of the way there. It ought to be possible using MapSource and the right intermediate export format (he said, "confidently"...)

 

I have just mapped Devon using MM and tried it out in GSAK and it looks OK to me. If anyone wants it, I'll email the list of co-ordinates. There are 1,591 of them but the list can be pasted into the Arc/Pologon input box in GSAK.

[+Malpas Wanderer]

GSAK does a pretty good job with polygons. If one UK, er, GB, er, British Isles cache per county were to spend an hour or so working out the coordinates for their home area and made it available in a GSAK copy/pasteable format, you'd be most of the way there. It ought to be possible using MapSource and the right intermediate export format (he said, "confidently"...)

 

I have just mapped Devon using MM and tried it out in GSAK and it looks OK to me. If anyone wants it, I'll email the list of co-ordinates. There are 1,591 of them but the list can be pasted into the Arc/Pologon input box in GSAK.

 

It needs to be implemented at Grounspeak level.

 

Whilst many of us use and abide by GSAK there are many who do not use GSAK probably those who also do not frequent these forums.

 

To effect the polygon search you first have to tie up several PQs to get sufficient data for the search.

 

I know many teams subscribe to multiple accounts to download the whole UK list into GSAK and subscribe to further subscriptions to get notifications of the complete list of archived caches.

 

Many of these practices are in breach of your Groundspeak agreement.

 

What puzzles me is in this age of efficient computer techniques it is not possible for the whole review queue to be delivered from Grounspeak at country level with then an internal filter which would send to the appropriate reviewer.

 

I still think the vice counties best fulfilled the need with small search areas, boundaries at coastlines, and some good associated tools.

 

Edited to Ask;

 

Why do the reviewers need to see or action the county data?.

Surely the reviewer queue could be delivered as it is now.

With the County information merely being a means for cachers to get the searches they want solving the cross estuary problem which this thread started out to address.

Edited February 18, 2008 by Malpas Wanderer

[+Jonovich]

I have just mapped Devon using MM and tried it out in GSAK and it looks OK to me. If anyone wants it, I'll email the list of co-ordinates. There are 1,591 of them but the list can be pasted into the Arc/Pologon input box in GSAK.

 

I've just mapped Rutland and it fit's inside like a stocking on a chickens lip

 

J

[+riviouveur]

What puzzles me is in this age of efficient computer techniques it is not possible for the whole review queue to be delivered from Grounspeak at country level with then an internal filter which would send to the appropriate reviewer.

 

The one-word answer is "history" (as is usually the case in the age of "efficient computer techniques" ).

 

The slightly longer answer is that every review territory is different, but typically, there's only one or two reviewers per state/country, so no filtering is required. The most complex territory in terms of reviewer-per-Groundspeak-division-of-the-world used to be Germany (8 or 9 reviewers), but since they got the division into states this is less of an issue for them. Right now, with 3 reviewers, the UK is actually among the most "complex" territories.

 

Why do the reviewers need to see or action the county data?.

 

They don't. The reviewers have simple tools to cut up the queue by latitude or longitude, and I presume that's what Lactodorum/Eckington/Deceangi are using. It seems to work OK, to judge by the constant praise which they receive in here!

 

Here in France, we don't even cut up the territory at all. The other French reviewer ("overview") and I just publish whatever comes along, in any part of the country. So far this has worked well. In fact, in our geo-world, publication is less problematic to divide up, than the opposite operation (cleanup of dead/dying caches).

[Alan White]

Here in France, we don't even cut up the territory at all. The other French reviewer ("overview") and I just publish whatever comes along, in any part of the country. So far this has worked well.

As it did in the UK until the volume of caches became too great for two reviewers so Deceangi was recruited and shortly after they decided it would work better if split by latitude.

 

Presumably, if you needed to split France then the départements would do quite nicely? The difficulty with the UK is that, countries excepted, we seem to be very good at changing the boundaries and names frequently .

[+riviouveur]

Presumably, if you needed to split France then the départements would do quite nicely? The difficulty with the UK is that, countries excepted, we seem to be very good at changing the boundaries and names frequently .

 

I think we would be more likely to use "régions", of which there are 21 on the mainland, plus Corsica and four others a long way away. There are 100 départements, which is too many. Also, more French people can probably point to a given région on a map than to a given départment.

 

If we need to split up the review territory tomorrow then a line across the country at N47º splits it into two parts with about the same number of caches in each. (I calculated the "centroid" of the French caches the other day and it is quite close to the geographical centre of the country.)

[Alan White]

I think we would be more likely to use "régions", of which there are 21 on the mainland, plus Corsica and four others a long way away. There are 100 départements, which is too many. Also, more French people can probably point to a given région on a map than to a given départment.

Interesting point of view, neatly echoing some of the discussion in a UK context .

[Archangel_UK]

Why not use the roughly regional divisions as per eckingtons list , because everyone knows what is meant by for example Southwest or Midlands or North Wales

After all its just a general guide not definitive and although the boundaries blur, is that a bad thing ?

 

If anyone feels really strongly they can make that point when they list a new cache or if you`re looking just try the region next door

 

OR Could use the BBC television regions

 

personally I think regions would be ideal because as Deceangi says it is a pain for us in N/Wales -Wirral because theres a blinking river between us when use tap in your home postcode for a search

 

Perhaps subdivisions could be worked in at a later date to account for oddities like eg Wirral where we have 2 rivers either side or London ( north & south ? )

 

Regions get the " foot in the door " so to speak

[Archangel_UK]

Presumably, if you needed to split France then the départements would do quite nicely? The difficulty with the UK is that, countries excepted, we seem to be very good at changing the boundaries and names frequently .

 

I think we would be more likely to use "régions", of which there are 21 on the mainland, plus Corsica and four others a long way away. There are 100 départements, which is too many. Also, more French people can probably point to a given région on a map than to a given départment.

 

If we need to split up the review territory tomorrow then a line across the country at N47º splits it into two parts with about the same number of caches in each. (I calculated the "centroid" of the French caches the other day and it is quite close to the geographical centre of the country.)

 

Not only that but speaking personally I am more aware of regions in France as opposed to departements so that sort of division would help international cachers as well. yes ?

[+riviouveur]

Not only that but speaking personally I am more aware of regions in France as opposed to departements so that sort of division would help international cachers as well. yes ?

 

Well, apparently it would help you, anyway.

 

For somebody who is on holiday it's easy to see which département you are in - just look at the car number plates (but this will be changing soon).

 

The régions were invented quite recently, and while some of them (Bretagne, Alsace) are very "natural", others are quite controversial. Normandy is split into two and the région called "Centre" has no identity apart from being in the middle of all the others. But I think 21 is a better number than 94 for dividing mainland France (the "Hexagone", as it's called).

[+Happy Humphrey]

Why not use the roughly regional divisions as per eckingtons list , because everyone knows what is meant by for example Southwest or Midlands or North Wales

After all its just a general guide not definitive and although the boundaries blur, is that a bad thing ?

The big problem with "regions" as a system is that cache owners have to define what region the cache is in. That's fine if the cache is in in Cornwall: it's bound to be South-West England.

 

But what about areas that are borderline? As there's no exact boundaries, how would you know (for instance), that your cache is in "Northern England" or "The Midlands" if it's somewhere near Buxton? We'd just get random choices all around the borders. Trying to give exact definitions for borders would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

 

After initially supporting the "Rutson List" I would now go for splitting the UK into its four major internal principalities / countries and leave it at that. Those that want to use county or geographical boundaries already have the tools to do so, and can decide what areas are most useful.

 

In the longer term it would be worth lobbying for a "caches within a polygon" shared-data facility so that pocket queries can easily be generated for your chosen area.

 

Deceangi: have you given Groundspeak any reply about this yet?

[+goldpot]

While this debate has been going on and on, Kosovo have declared itself as an independent country purely so that it gets its own Geocaching listing - isn't that what we should doing with all our counties - I'll be President of London...

[Deceangi]

Deceangi: have you given Groundspeak any reply about this yet?

 

The 3 UK Reviewers have between us taken a executive and informed decision over this. But before posting anything final. We're finalising things with Croaghan as to the situation regarding Northern Ireland, due to the fact that the selection there will be listed under both the UK & Ireland.

 

And before someone jumps in and states NI is part of the UK, we are aware of this fact. But please remember NI is unique in that caches can be listed either under the UK or Ireland. Please no comments about this situation, Groundspeak agreed to this after discussions with members of the geocaching community actually living there.

 

Once that has been resolved, we will then jointly with Croaghan pass over the list for both the UK and for Ireland at the same time. We will also be providing a link to a Google Earth Overlay, which will allow users to define where their cache or New cache submission is located.

[Archangel_UK]

Not only that but speaking personally I am more aware of regions in France as opposed to departements so that sort of division would help international cachers as well. yes ?

 

Well, apparently it would help you, anyway.

 

For somebody who is on holiday it's easy to see which département you are in - just look at the car number plates (but this will be changing soon).

 

The régions were invented quite recently, and while some of them (Bretagne, Alsace) are very "natural", others are quite controversial. Normandy is split into two and the région called "Centre" has no identity apart from being in the middle of all the others. But I think 21 is a better number than 94 for dividing mainland France (the "Hexagone", as it's called).

 

So Brittany, Dordogne , Loire-Atlantique etc are "departments" ??

 

I thought they were regions

[+riviouveur]

So Brittany, Dordogne , Loire-Atlantique etc are "departments" ??

 

I thought they were regions

 

Brittany ("Bretagne") is an official administrative région, and also a historical region. The boundaries of the two are not quite the same (there is always a discussion over whether the city Nantes is part of "Bretagne"; historically it is, but not according to the administrative région boundaries).

 

Dordogne is a département (24) in the administrative région called Aquitaine. But what many British visitors think of as "the Dordogne" is the traditional region of Périgord.

 

Loire-Atlantique is a département (44) in the administrative région called Pays-de-la-Loire. Incidentally, it contains the city of Nantes.

 

A majority of the départements are named completely or partly after a river. Of course, many rivers cross multiple départements, and there is not always the same logic as to which part of the river gets to name a département. For example, the département called "Loire" is at the other end of the country from the famous Loire Valley. And if you've ever wondered why Paris is 75, which is out of alphabetical order, it's because it used to be called "Seine".

Edited February 21, 2008 by riviouveur

[+Guanajuato]

And if you've ever wondered why Paris is 75, which is out of alphabetical order, it's because it used to be called "Seine".

I Must resist...

I Must resist...

I Must resist...

 

I can't resist...

 

So that makes all parisiens 'in seine'

[+Simply Paul]

I see gc.com lets you split the county up into tiny areas called post codes to help you search for caches

 

[+FollowMeChaps]

I see gc.com lets you split the county up into tiny areas called post codes to help you search for caches

 

LINK

This got my juices flowing but I cannot seem to get the Postcode search to work by just giving the first 2 charecters - do you know something I don't?

[+Simply Paul]

Err, no. Sorry. You have to use a full post code; that's why I said tiny areas. The map is interesting though, as it would solve the 'other side of the water' issues which seems to be the most obvious reason to subdivide the UK and NI into smaller packets. Perhaps an arbitrary system based on watercourses plus longitude and latitude would work? That way everything south of the Severn and west of Bristol would be 'England: South West'... I'll come up with a map if anyone thinks its an idea that could work

[+Bear and Ragged]

I refer you to my post of several posts ago

 

South Warwickshire -CV Coventry- actually has parts that have a B Birmingham postcode...

(That are well south of Brum and Coventry!)

 

G

[Deceangi]

After much discussions and taking into account all opinions expressed on the Issue. The 3 UK Reviewers Eckington, Lactodorum and myself along with Croaghan the Reviewer for Ireland have taken a executive decision and proposed to Groundspeak that the following list be applied to the United Kingdom and to Ireland.

 

United Kingdom Areas

 

Scotland North

Scotland South

North East England

North West England

Yorkshire and Humber

East Midlands

West Midlands

North Wales

South Wales

East of England

London

South of England

South West of England

South East of England

 

Ulster [covering caches in Northern Ireland listed as being in the UK]

 

Ireland

 

Ulster [Covering part of the RoI and caches in Northern Ireland listed as being in Ireland]

Munster

Dublin

Connact

Leinster

 

Whilst we are aware that this will not satisfy everyone, it is we believe the most workable solution.

 

Please Note this is not a complete image of the boundary's as those for Dublin are not showing. We will be arranging for hosting of the Google Earth Overlay ASAP. Which should help avoid confusion over which area a cache is located in.

 

 

 

Deceangi Volunteer Reviewer United Kingdom

Eckington Volunteer Reviewer United Kingdom

Lactodorum Volunteer Reviewer United Kingdom

Croaghan Volunteer Reviewer Ireland

[Izzy and the Lizard King]

Alas! Poor Salop. Gone forever?

 

And Wessex? Where is our beloved Wessex?

 

Dear Thomas would turn in his grave to know that Wessex wasn't included.

 

That's progress for you!

 

P

[Master Mariner]

After much discussions and taking into account all opinions expressed on the Issue. The 3 UK Reviewers Eckington, Lactodorum and myself along with Croaghan the Reviewer for Ireland have taken a executive decision and proposed to Groundspeak that the following list be applied to the United Kingdom and to Ireland.

 

United Kingdom Areas

 

Scotland North

Scotland South

North East England

North West England

Yorkshire and Humber

East Midlands

West Midlands

North Wales

South Wales

East of England

London

South of England

South West of England

South East of England

 

Ulster [covering caches in Northern Ireland listed as being in the UK]

 

Ireland

 

Ulster [Covering part of the RoI and caches in Northern Ireland listed as being in Ireland]

Munster

Dublin

Connact

Leinster

 

Whilst we are aware that this will not satisfy everyone, it is we believe the most workable solution.

 

Please Note this is not a complete image of the boundary's as those for Dublin are not showing. We will be arranging for hosting of the Google Earth Overlay ASAP. Which should help avoid confusion over which area a cache is located in.

 

 

 

Deceangi Volunteer Reviewer United Kingdom

Eckington Volunteer Reviewer United Kingdom

Lactodorum Volunteer Reviewer United Kingdom

Croaghan Volunteer Reviewer Ireland

 

Well done guys. It won't please everyone but appears to be an acceptable solution to a very difficult problem.

[+Jaz666]

Looks good, the person who created that image must be a genius

[Lactodorum]

<snip> It won't please everyone but appears to be an acceptable solution to a very difficult problem.

It certainly won't please everyone but we hope it strikes an acceptable balance between adding an additional level of classification and being over detailed and cumbersome.

 

I'd like to offer my thanks to Deceangi for his (sometimes thankless!) efforts in leading this debate. I'd also like to congratulate the "genius" who came up with the lovely Google Earth overlay

Edited February 23, 2008 by Lactodorum

[+PopUpPirate]

Good solution - more than happy with it

[+mongoose39uk]

Looks a reasonable solution to me

[+Jonovich]

Looks a reasonable solution to me

 

NO!!! That's totally unreasonable....

 

I wanted East Anglia to be Purple

 

J

[Deceangi]

Before any one from Yorkshire starts bearing Arms with the intention of coming after me as Yorkshire and Humber is not named on the screen shot it is there I promise if it had been included it would have made the picture too big.

 

I'd like to echo my colleague and thank the "genius" who came up with the lovely Google Earth overlay it has not only made the process a lot easier [well has for us, the genius had a few revisions to make ] and will aid the whole community once it goes live

[+Haggis Hunter]

I think that is as fair a solution as you can get. Well done to everyone involved.

[+studlyone]

Good compromise, it makes sense and the google map certainly will help clarify things.

[+Eckington]

<snip> It won't please everyone but appears to be an acceptable solution to a very difficult problem.

 

I'd like to offer my thanks to Deceangi for his (sometimes thankless!) efforts in leading this debate. I'd also like to congratulate the "genius" who came up with the lovely Google Earth overlay

 

I would like to add my thanks to all involved as well.

 

I have been copied on all the e-mails and and messages this has generated in the UK and Ireland reviewing community - and added my own 2 pennorth from time to time - and, remembering what Alan White said in another thread about the number of caches reviewed in a week and wondering how the reviewers found time to do it, I can assure one and all that, during the last weeks reviewing has probably been the least time consuming of Deceangi's activities.

 

Many thanks, Dave, for everything from South of 51* 40.000 (or should I say South West England, South East England, London and bits of South Wales, South of England and east of England )

 

 

......not forgetting the overlay genious

[+*mouse*]

I know that I will find this very useful - thanks to all the reviewers for all your efforts!

[+Us 4 and Jess]

Excuse me..............

 

Wheres Durham

 

M

[dodgydaved]

Excuse me..............

 

Wheres Durham

 

M

 

 

....isn't it a suburb of North Watford or East Newcastle?????????

[+Eckington]

Excuse me..............

 

Wheres Durham

 

M

 

 

....isn't it a suburb of North Watford or East Newcastle?????????

 

 

I am so sorry Mandy, just ignore him, I know I do

[+Us 4 and Jess]

 

OMG now I don't know if I am a Northerner or a Southerner

 

M

[+Us 4 and Jess]

Excuse me..............

 

Wheres Durham

 

M

 

 

....isn't it a suburb of North Watford or East Newcastle?????????

 

 

I am so sorry Mandy, just ignore him, I know I do

 

[+minstrelcat]

I'm happy - it gets London and Essex out of my patch!

[+Bill D (wwh)]

This looks to me to be as good a solution as we were ever going to get - it may not please everyone, but then nothing was ever going to!

 

Speaking selfishly, it's ideal for me, as some proposed solutions were going to put me on or near a boundary, but this one puts me bang in the middle of an area...!

 

Just one question, and for me an academic one as it doesn't affect me personally, are the three UK reviewers going to continue to use the latitude lines they've been using to divide the UK into three reviewer areas, or will they adjust their boundaries to relate to the new map?

[+Happy Humphrey]

Looks like a decent compromise: good work!

[Lactodorum]

Just one question, and for me an academic one as it doesn't affect me personally, are the three UK reviewers going to continue to use the latitude lines they've been using to divide the UK into three reviewer areas, or will they adjust their boundaries to relate to the new map?

Dunno yet! We haven't really discussed it in depth yet but we'll make it public when we do.

[+Gushoneybun]

I have been keeping my head down as it seems I started it!

 

 

This looks like a good compromise well done to all It well make it easier to ensure pocket queries only show the areas you want.

[+Happy Humphrey]

Just a tiny point, and not wishing to open up the discussion again so please ignore if irrelevant, but if it's not too late wouldn't the Scotland split be better if it used the term "Highlands and Islands" rather than "North"? Or is that something that the Scots would dislike?

[+Dizzley]

 

OMG now I don't know if I am a Northerner or a Southerner

 

M

That's easy

- do you eat tea in the evenings? -> Northerner

- do you eat dinner in the evenings? -> Southerner

[Archangel_UK]

I think its a very sensible solution and leaves the open to subdivide at a later date if need be

 

SO subdivide Wirral from Northwest now and the Wirralites will quite happy

Edited February 23, 2008 by Archangel_UK

[+Us 4 and Jess]

 

OMG now I don't know if I am a Northerner or a Southerner

 

M

That's easy

- do you eat tea in the evenings? -> Northerner

- do you eat dinner in the evenings? -> Southerner

 

Phew I am a Northerner

 

Doesn't everyone have dinner at dinner time and tea at tea time

 

M