County Boundaries for Caching Purposes

[+PopUpPirate]

Here's the definitive list of counties...

 

 

It'd be simple if we could all agree to use the 1889-1974 list, and all would be clear. Maybe Groundspeak can simplify the areas used in the listings to reflect this?

[+Happy Humphrey]

What do the green tick marks mean? And what brought on this question?

I'm not sure that I can define a "county" but I know one when I see one (more to the point, I know a contrived administrative area masquerading as a "county" when I see one!).

[Alan White]

Here's the definitive list of counties...

I really hesitate to join in here because any thread of this nature usually turns into a long one expressing strongly-held views on all sides of the debate.

 

Nevertheless, I must point out that there is no such thing as a "definitive list of counties". The political entities one chooses to place in such a list depend principally on a point in time, it's true, but which? For caching, why choose a set which existed long before caching did?

 

The pre-1974 counties are ideally suited to, for example, genealogy but if you use them for caching then many caches in what is today known as southern Oxfordshire will be in Berkshire, to pick just one of many differences that will seem to be confusing anomalies to cachers.

 

And didn't we have this discussion a few years back...?

[+Team Clova]

Have I missed something? Are you suggesting converting the 10 English regions into somewhere between 60 and 70 different ones and totally miss out the unimportant bits like Scotland, Wales and Ireland?

 

If it aint broke you dont try and fix it...

[Deceangi]

It'd be simple if we could all agree to use the 1889-1974 list, and all would be clear. Maybe Groundspeak can simplify the areas used in the listings to reflect this?

 

As someone Born in Manchester Lancashire, but in 1974 having the indignity of being relocated in to Manchester Greater Manchester. And having 2 children born in 1990 &1991, in Manchester Greater Manchester, and whose Grandmother lives in Oldham Greater Manchester. They and anyone born in Manchester/Oldham and any other of the cities located in Greater Manchester. would not have a clue about the old boundaries.

 

Which is one of the reasons we went for Regions and not Counties.

 

And if you changed England, would not Scottish and Welsh cachers, also want counties. Which again opens up a hair trigger minefield

 

I live in Flintshire, note that is the modern Flintshire. And not the Historic one in existence before 1974 (which had a non contiguous part, the other side of Wrexham). In between the 2 in the Time line is Clwyd. Which incorporated a number of Welsh Counties. Amazingly some Businesses still believe I live in Clwyd

 

As can be seen, anyone born after 1974 is used to the Modern Counties, in the case of the younger adults amongst us (those around 20/21) and teenagers will only have experience of the "Modern" Counties. Which are at the whim of Politicians (Cheshire in 2010 being split in to 2 separate counties )

 

The Regions were a one shot go, as they are "Locked" into the system. But at least they are not majorly at the whim of politicians, nor is there any confusion about which boundary for any of the Counties should be used

 

If you live in the North West, your caches are in the North West Region, no arguments about which county they are in (unless your one of those die hards, who believes Cheshire and Merseyside are not in the North West )

 

UK Regions were the lesser evil of 5 separate evils Ceremonial/ Pre 1974/ 1974-1996/ 1996 to date (excluding Cheshire)/ GC UK Regions

 

Deci

 

PS: I'll always be a Lancashire Lad, but my children can never claim that.

PPS: Would yo like to explain to our Merseyside Cachers, that they have caches in Lancashire . It's bad enough that Wirral cachers moan that their caches are in Merseyside, and not Cheshire (oh wait, they'd get their wish, and be in Cheshire )

[+Simply Paul]

I suspect the problem turns up when someone places a cache close to, or on the border of two regions. A NW cacher would indeed know they were setting caches in the NW, but how far east can you go before NW is really NE? I've never understood the oddly shaped regions. Given every cache is defined by its Lat and Long, why wasn't the country broken-up into straight-edged boxes? The system could automatically assign a region by the co-ords given for the final that way, with no arguments or confusion, and no old caches without a region either (for ancient multis and puzzles without a Final hidden waypoint, it could default to the given co-ords. In 99.9% of cases it'd work fine.) - but alas, this didn't happen. Too late to worry about it now I suppose.

[+Dave's Piglings]

I'm part of a group of cachers local to Milton Keynes who are currently setting a series of caches around the Milton Keynes boundary walk. The caches can be any ofne of three regions: East Midlands - Northamptonshire, Southern England - Bucks and Eastern England - Beds. One of us has all three regions in one 6 mile section of the walk When different regions means different reviewers that makes things even more complicated.

 

I suspect wherever the regions were placed there would be someone who wasn't happy with them!

[Langy]

I suspect wherever the regions were placed there would be someone who wasn't happy with them!

 

That has to be life in general, someone is always unhappy about something else someone has done however good or bad it is.

 

I'm gathering from some of the posts this is something that was brought up long before my time on here and there is no way anything is ever going to change.

I hadn't realised that these boundries changed so much. What ever happened to common sense of keeping places in the same county etc. I beleieve even postcode areas also change.

 

Not any easy topic to set to please everyone.

 

Langy

[+Happy Humphrey]

I thought that this was a question about counties, not regions? Although I'm still not sure what the question is.

[+PopUpPirate]

Well, the question is, do the regions accurately reflect the counties? Is Berkshire in the SE or SW? Is Derbyshire really in the West Midlands? What counties would you expect folk to standardise on when aiming to complete their county grid?

[+castagnari]

Is Berkshire in the SE or SW?

Neither. It is (as far as Geocaching.com regions are concerned) in "Southern England"

 

Is Derbyshire really in the West Midlands?

Nope. t is (as far as Geocaching.com regions are concerned) in "East Midlands"

 

These regions have been the subject of many threads and has been explained many times