User:Jared.Campbell/CreateTownshipBoundary

Prior to creating new political boundaries please read the following articles:

• https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relation:boundary
• https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States/Boundaries#Civil_townships
• https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Ohio/Boundaries/Townships

These links provide good background information on boundaries and townships and some basic steps.

This page is intended to be more of a step-by-step guide or how-to for mapping township boundaries in OpenStreetMap, regardless of your OSM editor of choice.

Source Data

• Find authoritative, public use source data

• County engineer is a good start

Existing Boundaries

If a township boundary currently exist, then it is likely from TIGER and/or USGS topographical maps. These sources have been found to be good starts, but can be inaccurate at high resolutions. If a township shares a boundary with a county and/or city then this part of the boundary can be used, but the ways may need to be split to be included in the township boundary relationship.

• Complete boundary from TIGER/USGS data

• Retrace boundary from authoritative data

• Partial boundary from county/city boundaries

• Split ways to be used by township boundaries

Non-Existing Boundaries

• Use authoritative data to trace

• Preferably shapefiles from county/township

Tag Ways

1. admin_level = 7
2. border_type = township
3. boundary = administrative
4. source = <name of government office and a link to the website/data>

   Example: Allen Co Engineer http://gis.allencountyohio.com/GIS/downloads.html (update 2018-01-01)

Create Boundary Relationship

Note: Very dependent on software being used. This is a general process

1. Select ways in boundary
2. Add to relationship
   • admin_level = 7
   • boundary = administrative
   • name = <Township Name>
   • source = <name of government office and a link to the website/data>

     Example: Allen Co Engineer http://gis.allencountyohio.com/GIS/downloads.html (update 2018-01-01)

   • type = boundary
   • wikidata = <unique Q identifier from https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page>
   • wikipedia = <page name from https://www.wikipedia.org/>
3. Tag relationship role as outer
4. Ensure relationship is complete

Enclave Towns Within Townships

Generally, town boundaries already exist and are properly tagged. BUT this boundary location may need to be updated similarly to township boundaries created from TIGER/USGS data. This should be done while creating/updating the township boundary as any enclave town boundaries are part of the township boundary. This is a good opportunity to also ensure that the boundaries of towns within a township exist and are properly tagged.

1. Add/update boundaries

   Note: This process is similar to adding/updating township boundaries

2. Add as an "inner" role to the township relationship

   Note: See [Relation:boundary#Examples|Relation:boundary Examples] to for help with enclave vs exclave and inner vs outer relationships. Generally speaking, if a town is entirely inside a township then it is an enclave and should be added to the township relationship as an inner role.

Checking Your Work

After saving (don't forget to save, including source information), go to OpenStreetMap and search for the township. You might have to include the name of the county and state to get the correct township. Click the link for the correct search result and compare the orange, highlighted boundary with the source boundary. These two should be essentially the same.

Township House

• admin_level = 7
• building = public
• government = administrative (requires office = government)
• name = <Township Name> Township House
• office = government