Understanding OpenStreetMap, auto-fill API and saving cities (locationss)

Hi, I’m using Firefox and I saw this and asked myself if you get another response as the long string in your development environment. After spending some hours reading about Nominatim API and the German state Baden-Württemberg and testing different locations I know now better about the right name resolving.

OK, so the long string is in the JSON attribute display_name and the others attributes are splitted under the address attribute. And the other attributes are not for each OSM API call consistent. So the attribute city_district is actually never in the JSON response, and you will have its value just in the display_name.

Here are all locations for Baden-Württemberg, here the params for the Nominatim API search call, here is the proper country address format for Germany (street house_number, postalcode place).

1. In my opinion you should fill the listing form fields just with values like:
Listing Address Field: road house_number, city|town|village
Listing City/Location Field: city|town|village

and nothing more. Like that you will have the address as the German norm. So please do not fill the fields with suburbs or neighborhoods of little villages and do not use that part of the display_address field like ‘Verwaltungsgemeinschaft X’ or ‘Verwaltungsverband X’. These are 2 administrative levels (maybe as the city_district) just in some German states and they are not consistent, so X can be also a region name instead a city name, see the example 6 below. Do never use them for anything.

Here are some examples, to better understand the API response in this German state:

Example 1: village near big city Lahr/Schwarzwald, with its administration in Lahr/Schwarzwald (the data for this village is in OSM not updated, in this case use always the village)

searching for: ‘Luisenstraße 5, Kippenheimweiler′

OSM will suggest the address: ’5, Luisenstraße, Kippenheimweiler, Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Lahr/Schwarzwald…’
and the autofill for address: ’5, Luisenstraße, Kippenheimweiler, Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Lahr/Schwarzwald’
it should be: ‘Luisenstraße 5, Lahr/Schwarzwald’
can be: ‘Luisenstraße 5, Kippenweiler’

and the autofill value for the City field: ‘Kippenweiler′
it should be: ‘Lahr/Schwrzwald′
can be: ‘Kippenweiler’

{"display_name":"5, Luisenstraße, Kippenheimweiler, Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Lahr\/Schwarzwald, Ortenaukreis, Regierungsbezirk Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, 77933, Deutschland",
      "class":"highway",
      "type":"residential",
      "importance":0.245,
      "address":{
         "house_number": "5",
         "road":"Luisenstraße",
         "village":"Kippenheimweiler",
         "county":"Ortenaukreis",
         "state_district":"Regierungsbezirk Freiburg",
         "state":"Baden-Württemberg",
         "postcode":"77933",
         "country":"Deutschland",
         "country_code":"de"
      }
   }

Example 2: another village as in example 1

searching for: ‘Ruländerstraße 5, Durbach′

OSM will suggest the address: ‘5, Ruländerstraße, Durbach, St. Anton, Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Offenburg…’
and the autofill for address: ‘5, Ruländerstraße, Durbach, St. Anton, Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Offenburg’
it should be:’Ruländerstraße 5, Durbach’

and the autofill value for the City field: ‘Durbach′
it should be: ‘Durbach′

{"display_name": "5, Ruländerstraße, Durbach, St. Anton, Durbach, Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Offenburg, Ortenaukreis, Regierungsbezirk Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, 77770, Deutschland",
    "class": "building",
    "type": "yes",
    "importance": 0.331,
    "address": {
      "house_number": "5",
      "road": "Ruländerstraße",
      "residential": "Durbach",
      "suburb": "St. Anton",
      "village": "Durbach",
      "county": "Ortenaukreis",
      "state_district": "Regierungsbezirk Freiburg",
      "state": "Baden-Württemberg",
      "postcode": "77770",
      "country": "Deutschland",
      "country_code": "de"
    }
  }

Example 3: little village

searching for: ‘Unditzstraße 6, Schutterzell′

OSM will suggest the address: ’6, Unditzstraße, Schutterzell, Ottenweier Hof, Neuried…’
and the autofill for address: ‘6, Unditzstraße, Schutterzell, Ottenweier Hof’
it should be: ‘Unditzstraße 6, Neuried’
but can be: ’6, Unditzstraße, Schutterzell, Ottenweier Hof, Neuried’

and the autofill value for the City field: ‘Neuried′
it should be: ‘Neuried′
can be: ‘Schutterzell’

"display_name": "6, Unditzstraße, Schutterzell, Ottenweier Hof, Neuried, Ortenaukreis, Regierungsbezirk Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, 77743, Deutschland",
    "class": "building",
    "type": "yes",
    "importance": 0.331,
    "address": {
      "house_number": "6",
      "road": "Unditzstraße",
      "residential": "Schutterzell",
      "suburb": "Ottenweier Hof",
      "village": "Neuried",
      "county": "Ortenaukreis",
      "state_district": "Regierungsbezirk Freiburg",
      "state": "Baden-Württemberg",
      "postcode": "77743",
      "country": "Deutschland",
      "country_code": "de"
    }

Example 4: another normal village

searching for: ‘Belzackerweg 6, Kappelrodeck′

OSM will suggest the address: ‘6, Belzackerweg, Zuckerberg, Mattenmühle, Verwaltungsverband Kappelrodeck…’
and the autofill for address: ‘6, Belzackerweg, Zuckerberg, Mattenmühle, Verwaltungsverband Kappelrodeck’
it should be:’Belzackerweg 6, Kappelrodeck’

and the autofill value for the City field: ‘Kappelrodeck′
it should be: ‘Kappelrodeck′

{"display_name": "6, Belzackerweg, Zuckerberg, Mattenmühle, Kappelrodeck, Verwaltungsverband Kappelrodeck, Ortenaukreis, Regierungsbezirk Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, 77876, Deutschland",
    "class": "building",
    "type": "yes",
    "importance": 0.221,
    "address": 
      "house_number": "6",
      "road": "Belzackerweg",
      "neighbourhood": "Zuckerberg",
      "suburb": "Mattenmühle",
      "village": "Kappelrodeck",
      "county": "Ortenaukreis",
      "state_district": "Regierungsbezirk Freiburg",
      "state": "Baden-Württemberg",
      "postcode": "77876",
      "country": "Deutschland",
      "country_code": "de"
    }
  }

Example 5: another little village

searching for: ‘Messingstraße 10, Legelshurst′

OSM will suggest the address: ’10, Messingstraße, Legelshurst, Willstätt, Ortenaukreis…’
and the autofill for address: ’10, Messingstraße, Legelshurst’
it should be:’Messingstraße 10, Willstätt’
can be: ‘Messingstraße 10, Legelshurst’

and the autofill value for the City field: ‘Willstätt′
it should be: ‘Willstätt′

{"display_name": "10, Messingstraße, Legelshurst, Willstätt, Ortenaukreis, Regierungsbezirk Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, 77731, Deutschland",
    "class": "building",
    "type": "yes",
    "importance": 0.331,
    "address": {
      "house_number": "10",
      "road": "Messingstraße",
      "residential": "Legelshurst",
      "village": "Willstätt",
      "county": "Ortenaukreis",
      "state_district": "Regierungsbezirk Freiburg",
      "state": "Baden-Württemberg",
      "postcode": "77731",
      "country": "Deutschland",
      "country_code": "de"
    }
  }

Example 6: example of town and why you should never use the part ‘Verwaltungsgemeinschaft …’ or ‘Verwaltungsverband …’ of the display_name string

searching for: ‘Eichbühlstraße 5, Bad-Griesbach′

OSM will suggest the address: ‘5, Eichbühlstraße, Spinnersberg, Bad Peterstal-Griesbach,Verwaltungsverband Oberes Renchtal…’
and the autofill for address: ‘5, Eichbühlstraße, Spinnersberg, Verwaltungsverband Oberes Renchtal’
it should be:’Eichbühlstraße 5, Bad Peterstal-Griesbach’

and the autofill value for the City field: ‘Bad Peterstal-Griesbach′
it should be: ‘Bad Peterstal-Griesbach′

{"display_name": "5, Eichbühlstraße, Spinnersberg, Bad Peterstal-Griesbach, Verwaltungsverband Oberes Renchtal, Ortenaukreis, Regierungsbezirk Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, 77740, Deutschland",
    "class": "building",
    "type": "yes",
    "importance": 0.221,
    "address": {
      "house_number": "5",
      "road": "Eichbühlstraße",
      "suburb": "Spinnersberg",
      "town": "Bad Peterstal-Griesbach",
      "county": "Ortenaukreis",
      "state_district": "Regierungsbezirk Freiburg",
      "state": "Baden-Württemberg",
      "postcode": "77740",
      "country": "Deutschland",
      "country_code": "de"
    }
  }

2. I’ve tried to change your osm js code and add some more params in order to restrict and optimize the search and the country address format (feature request: could be very nice to have this options in the back-end for local directories)

accept-language=<browser language string>
<a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bounding_Box">countrycodes</a>=<countrycode>[,<countrycode>][,<countrycode>]...
viewbox=<x1>,<y1>,<x2>,<y2>
bounded=[0|1]

As my project is restricted to this German state:

accept-language='de-DE'
countrycodes='de'
viewbox=7.5,47.6,10.5,49.8
bounded=1

But this did not work and I could not see the changes applied to the OSM search. Do I have to put it in other functions too as in geocodePositionOSM ?

bump

bump vor v2