Duplicated/Inconsistent ADM1 entry for Judea and Samaria Area vs. West Bank
Tim Dierolf
Dear GeoNames Team,
I would like to report a data inconsistency regarding the administrative mapping of the West Bank / Judea and Samaria:
Data Inconsistency: The entry for "Judea and Samaria Area" (Geoname ID: 11821181) is set as ADM1, but it only contains a single point coordinate without a polygon, overlapping with the proper polygon-based ADM1 entry for "West Bank" under country code PS (Geoname ID: 285153).
ISO Standard Compliance: According to ISO 3166-2:PS, the international standard administrative division covers the territory under "West Bank" and "Gaza Strip". Having a secondary point-based ADM1 feature creates ambiguous spatial resolution for downstream applications (Point-in-Polygon queries).
Naming Neutrality: "Judea and Samaria" is an internal Israeli administrative term, whereas "West Bank" is the international and UN-recognized standard term for this geographical area.
Suggested Fix: Please review whether the ADM1 status of "Judea and Samaria Area" should be deprecated or changed to a historical/alternate name tag (alternateNames), or clearly subordinated under IL without conflicting with the official spatial polygon of PS / West Bank.
Best regards,
Tim Dierolf / wetter.com Group GmbH