Discussing ambiguities with locations in Italy

Troubleshooting
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8

Ambiguities within OSM

@centralinedalbasso asked for

We would like to share that the place_id coming from the reverse geocoder is an internal id from Nominatim, so it should not be counted upon. While the osm_id referencing OSM elements might feel better, one has still to take care about its properties.

The place_id has no relevance for OSM, it is only an internal Nominatim identifier. Between different Nominatim instances, the place_id for the same OSM object may differ.

The Nominatim’s place_id is only an internal parameter of the engine. You cannot use place_id for anything, it is a technical database key and depends on a single Nominatim instance.

There are good candidates to “persistent place-identifier”, but all fails in the main property, that is to ensure persistence . In this context of non-permanent IDs, the most important example is the Nominatim’s place_id that is “independent of geometry”.

References