Some types of county are alive and well, others are pretty much defunct.
There are at five types of thing called "county" that I know of in England: 1) Non-metropolitan county 2) Metropolitan county 3) Ceremonial county 4) Postal county 5) Vice County 1) Is a "normal" county, with a county council. 2) No longer has a council (except for London; Manchester may be getting theirs back though) and only limited roles, for example in coordinating emergency services 3) Has no role in local government. Includes Unitary Authority areas which were formerly part of that county. Has a "sheriff" as representative of the Crown. 4) Formerly for the benefit of Royal Mail, now no longer used (much), based on long-defunct boundaries 5) Only used for nature-related statistics When it comes to roads maintenance, the Highway Authority is usually a (non-)metropolitan county or a Unitary Authority, which is not a county. Also, there are funny cases like Rutland and Hereford, which call themselves counties but are strictly speaking actually unitaries based on non-metropolitan districts (i.e. they are not county councils). //colin On 2015-06-08 11:18, Wittle, Paul wrote: > Hi, > > It is interesting that people often say UK counties are defunct because the > post office no longer use them; you could argue that postal addressing was > not really the purpose of counties in the first place. The point of counties > being more about governmental practices than delivering post. > > I would point out the following page > http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/geography/beginner-s-guide/administrative/england/counties--non-metropolitan-districts-and-unitary-authorities/index.html > [1] > > This page contains a link to a PDF Map which can be obtained from > http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/external-links/about-statistics/geography/map-of-all-uk-local-authority-districts-and-counties.html > [2] > > It is clear that far from being a fictional concept they are in fact a very > real and very much defined dataset to this day. It is clear that the > residents will be aware of the boundaries (at least in part) as they define > who is responsible for key public services like road maintenance, bins etc. I > think I would personally sit on the side of saying they do still have a role > to play and I would point out that predicting postcodes is much harder than > the rest of the address. It is all very well to say just record the house > number and postcode but if you are digitising an area it is easier to put in > the house number, street, town/city and county as these are defined in > publically accessible forms. > > Is there an easy tool in the editor to lookup the postcode as royal mail > limit the number of searchs per day? > > I note some of the responses suggest that the county is better placed in the > addr:place tag/ > > Paul > "This e-mail is intended for the named addressee(s) only and may contain > information about individuals or other sensitive information and should be > handled accordingly. Unless you are the named addressee (or authorised to > receive it for the addressee) you may not copy or use it, or disclose it to > anyone else. If you have received this email in error, kindly disregard the > content of the message and notify the sender immediately. Please be aware > that all email may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance > with relevant legislation." > _______________________________________________ > Talk-GB mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb [3] Links: ------ [1] http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/geography/beginner-s-guide/administrative/england/counties--non-metropolitan-districts-and-unitary-authorities/index.html [2] http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/external-links/about-statistics/geography/map-of-all-uk-local-authority-districts-and-counties.html [3] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
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