Discussion of new LGA zones

[caughtatwork]

As per the announcement, we have created a new set of LGA zones based on the latest information in the Open Street Maps database. We know this data is not perfect, but we use what is free and open

Some anomalies that are present at the moment:

Fort Denison and in Sydney Harbour and Shark Island in the same have no LGA.

The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service acquired management responsibility for Fort Denison in 1992, title in 1994 and incorporated the site into Sydney Harbour National Park in 1995.

In 1975 Shark Island became part of the Sydney Harbour National Park, managed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Technically they are unincorporated and we will see whether there can be a new zone set up for these two areas.

TP5399 - https://geocaching.com.au/cache/tp5399.gmap
Hummock Hill.

Overlooking the eastern end of Whyalla, Hummock Hill was developed by BHP as a gift to the city to commemorate BHPs centenary year and was handed over to the City Council during the 1986 South Australian Jubilee 150 Royal visit.

It's never been merged in to Whyalla from what we can see, so sits as a small enclave. We will look and see whether this should be part of Whyalla or not.

Also https://geocaching.com.au/cache/tp1929

Nhulunby is an enclave in the East Arnhem Region. Permits are needed to enter and leave.

We may need to do something with this area as it does not appear to be East Arnhem. We may need to make a separate zone.

Any other anomalies, please let us know.

[Laighside Legends]

Cockatoo Island also has no LGA (which I think is correct)

The missing bit at Whyalla is weird. It almost looks like each zone came from different datasets that didn't quite line up.

The other bit of weirdness is that LGAs in Queensland and WA seem to include a lot of the ocean.

[caughtatwork]

We do that on purpose.

The offshore islands that are part of the LGA, OSM can include them in the water boundary as a simpler zone or as specific polys with tight fitting lines to each island. We use the simpler zones for performance purposes. i.e. It takes a shorter time to get the data and match whether a point is in a poly if the poly has simpler edges.

Note that this is not consistent across any state. The Gulf of Carpentaria is both detailed and simplified. This is all OSM data dependent.

We are not intending on using the zones as a method of drawing states our countries except where we do for illustrative purposes. i.e. We're not a mapping company. We are trying to see what caches fall into an area managed by an LGA. If there is water in the zone, then that's fine by us. We do accept that some rivers have tight poly boundaries are are excluded from the LGA. That means a multi my mystery in the river is not in the LGA. This is generally done because the LGA does not control the waterway. i.e. It may be managed by a government water body. We are also at the mercy of OSM and we accept the data as being provided "as-is" for our purposes. That could mean our water boundaries also include water that is not managed by the LGA, but we trade one off against the other.

We are intending on including Cockatoo Island, Goat Island, Fort Denison and Shark Island in a new zone called Sydney Harbour. Technically they are Unincorporated, but the Unincorporated zone is a specific zone covered by OSM, so rather than merge the data and not take the data "as-is", we will create a new one.

We know this is not perfect and as we're only playing a game, we do what we think it best to get the data and for the best use of our development time and machine use.

[caughtatwork]

Morning all.

We have loaded the 4 new zones.

Sydney Harbour
https://geocaching.com.au/zone/view/4154/

Hummock Hill
https://geocaching.com.au/zone/view/4151/

Nhulunbuy
https://geocaching.com.au/zone/view/4152/

Solitary Islands
https://geocaching.com.au/zone/view/4153/

We'll give it a few days to settle down and then we have more exiting news to announce regarding LGAs.