Cities

Introduction

This forms part of UK Editing Best Practice. Editors are encouraged to follow these guidelines.

As there is only a single field in Waze to label a road with its city it is important to ensure that we apply a consistant scope to the naming of these. For instance Greater London contains many towns, and labelling every road as being in London would lead to confusion when searching for an address.

For discussion on the topic see:

• UK City Names Forum Topic

City and County Naming

The City field in Waze should be completed in the format "town (county)"

Examples
1. "Ware (Herts)"
2. "Islington (London)".

The definition of the town will depend on your local area.

Exceptions: For major towns and cities that are either uniquely named, or commonly recognised by its name, then the suffix is not required. For example: Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle and Preston. Only the smaller towns that share the same name will need to be distinguished. e.g. Preston (Dorset) or Leeds (Kent). The suffix can also be dropped from small towns and villages with long unique names, such as Thorpe Willoughby and Burton upon Trent.

City Suburbs

For very large cities with suburbs, then the suburb should become the name of the town with the city name as the suffix. This is particularly important for generating useful the traffic reports, especially when there are long arterial or ring roads that go through several parts of the city.

Examples
1. "Colton (Leeds)"
2. "Old Trafford (Manchester)"
3. "Kingswood (Bristol)"

County Abbreviations

The following abbreviations should be used for UK Counties:

• Beds
• Berks
• Bucks
• Cambs
• Cheshire
• Cleveland
• Cornwall
• Co Durham
• Cumbria
• Derbs
• Devon
• Dorset
• E Sussex
• Essex
• Glos
• Hants
• Herefs
• Herts
• IOW
• Kent
• Lancs
• Leics
• Lincs
• London
• Manchester
• Merseyside
• Middx
• Norfolk
• N Lincs
• N Yorks
• NE Lincs
• Northants
• Northd
• Notts
• Oxon
• Rutland
• Shrops
• Somerset
• S Yorks
• Staffs
• Suffolk
• Surrey
• Tyne & Wear
• Warks
• W Mids
• W Sussex
• W Yorks
• Wilts
• Worcs

Postal Vs. Actual Addresses

In some areas the postal address does not match the county. This happens frequently in parts of London, e.g. "Enfield (Middx)", "Bromley (Kent)", "Hornchurch (Essex)" which are all part of Greater London and some are Unitary Authorities and so in effect are their own "County".

In these cases the postal address should be used, so "Bromley (Kent)" as opposed to "Bromley (London)".

A possible exception is Middlesex which is no longer a county but some towns still retain their postal addresses. See UK City Names Forum Topic for discussion.

New Naming Guidelines - DRAFT

• Changed following a discussion and vote on the forum: The (County) Suffix - Aug 2012

The City field should be used to specify the city, town or village for all the streets within it. Rural roads that are in-between towns should be be set with no city name.

Where possible, the simplest unique name should be used. In the case where two towns share the same name, the County can be added in brackets afterwards. For example, "Preston (Dorset)" would distinguish it from the city in Lancashire. It is preferable to have the suffix on whichever town is smaller or less well known.

The editor will display the error message "The highlighted road is too far from the city it was added to." when attempting to add a duplicate name. This usually means that a different name will need to be chosen for that town or village.

Notes:

• If a particular town has already been named using the old convention, then continue using it.
  • This applies to naming of new towns. Existing towns will be dealt with over time.
• The 53 Cities in the UK do not require a suffix, even if other towns share the same name.
• For large cities, it may be necessary to split it up into suburbs (see below).

Resources:

• List of cities in the United Kingdom
• List of Towns in England, Scotland and Wales
• List of Post Towns in UK - duplicate names shown in bold