# Combining small "cities" **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [January 1, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143 "2021-01-01T20:50:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sergio](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/sergio/32/400_2.png) [@Sergio](https://community.citystrides.com/u/Sergio)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/1 "2021-01-01T20:50:39Z")
Right now the city of Saint Petersburg as opposed to other big cities in Europe isn’t available as a single city to run and complete but as a set of neighborhoods. I am sure this is not an isolate issue. Maybe we can propose some unification for cases like this as I would like to see my progress in the city as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![ericjrw](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/ericjrw/32/1065_2.png) [@ericjrw](https://community.citystrides.com/u/ericjrw)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 10:11pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/2 "2021-01-01T22:11:19Z")
Take a look at this: [https://community.citystrides.com/t/discussing-nested-cities](https://community.citystrides.com/t/discussing-nested-cities) It’s never applied to me, but sounds like what you are asking about. ---
**Author:** ![Sergio](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/sergio/32/400_2.png) [@Sergio](https://community.citystrides.com/u/Sergio)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 11:19pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/3 "2021-01-01T23:19:37Z")
Thank you for the reference. That’s a similar issue but in this case the parent city (Saint Petersburg) doesn’t exist, once we have the city it will be the same. ---
**Author:** ![fredrik.coulter](https://community.citystrides.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@fredrik.coulter](https://community.citystrides.com/u/fredrik.coulter)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 11:17pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/4 "2021-01-02T23:17:58Z")
It definitely exists in OpenStreetMap - [Relation: ‪Санкт-Петербург‬ (‪421007‬) | OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/421007). I don’t know enough to know if the proper admin level has been set, etc. Somewhere there’s a spreadsheet that people use to add cities to this site. However, I’m amazed that the home of my grandfather isn’t on this site. ---
**Author:** ![ericjrw](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/ericjrw/32/1065_2.png) [@ericjrw](https://community.citystrides.com/u/ericjrw)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 3:49pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/5 "2021-01-03T15:49:37Z")
> [@fredrik.coulter](#): > > Somewhere there’s a spreadsheet that people use to add cities to this site. That info can be found here: > [@How to help with missing/broken cities/regions](https://community.citystrides.com/t/how-to-help-with-missing-broken-cities-regions/18699): > > Head on over to [Missing/Broken Cities Tracker](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F9eB2cteelcdHXMTmMuXg4dIp_lkHWopKajzhJnhCpw/edit?usp=sharing) to report issues and/or help us in the effort to fix data in OpenStreetMap. Please provide as much information as you can. smileyHere’s what I need in that spreadsheet The City, Region, and Country columns must be filled in The OSM Issue column helps, but isn’t required The OSM Fixed column is there to tell me whether or not the city is ready for import; if OSM is not fixed, then I cannot import the city The CS Issue is almost always City Missi… ---
**Author:** ![8f7162110d9eeaf907ab](https://community.citystrides.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/8/ad7895/32.png) [@8f7162110d9eeaf907ab](https://community.citystrides.com/u/8f7162110d9eeaf907ab)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 8:33pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/6 "2021-01-03T20:33:18Z")
Hi Sergio, the problem you’ve identified is common to most (all?) larger Russian cities. I looked at it a while back, and the cause was the admin level classification in OSM being weird or not present (sorry, I can’t remember the exact detail). It’s still possible to run these cities by district (these should ideally be “nested” in the big city), not ideal, but at least it’s something 🤷‍♂️ 😄. Brussels, Belgium has the same problem btw., so it’s not unique to Russia. Unfortunately, OSM is not consistent across countries which makes for lots of exceptions like this… ---
**Author:** ![Sergio](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/sergio/32/400_2.png) [@Sergio](https://community.citystrides.com/u/Sergio)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 9:44pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/7 "2021-01-03T21:44:24Z")
Thank you everybody for they replies, I guess the best approach would be to try to fix it in OSM. Do you know if there is any initiative trying to fix the problem with Russian cities? ---
**Author:** ![8f7162110d9eeaf907ab](https://community.citystrides.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/8/ad7895/32.png) [@8f7162110d9eeaf907ab](https://community.citystrides.com/u/8f7162110d9eeaf907ab)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 10:56am UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/8 "2021-01-04T10:56:19Z")
It’s not necessarily a problem in OSM terms, each country has its own way of using admin levels (see here: [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dadministrative#10\_admin\_level\_values\_for\_specific\_countries](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dadministrative#10_admin_level_values_for_specific_countries)). If you want a specific city and there is a suitable boundary for it you can ask @JamesChevalier to import it (or you can add it to the missing cities sheet). Without local knowledge it is hard to know which boundary is “correct”. ---
**Author:** ![ericjrw](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/ericjrw/32/1065_2.png) [@ericjrw](https://community.citystrides.com/u/ericjrw)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 2:08pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/9 "2021-01-04T14:08:44Z")
> [@8f7162110d9eeaf907ab](#): > > import it I don’t recall, but was the map boundary file called a GPX file maybe? I thought I read that it can sometimes be downloaded, perhaps from a city’s webpage? ---
**Author:** ![fredrik.coulter](https://community.citystrides.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@fredrik.coulter](https://community.citystrides.com/u/fredrik.coulter)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 9:58pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/10 "2021-01-04T21:58:53Z")
All the information on this site comes from OpenStreetMap, and is not downloaded directly from primary sources. If the border is wrong here, then it’s wrong on OSM. (Unless it’s an update issue, but that’s a different can of worms.) I don’t feel confident enough to update a city border on OSM, but you could go to their forum and ask them for help. ---
**Author:** ![8f7162110d9eeaf907ab](https://community.citystrides.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/8/ad7895/32.png) [@8f7162110d9eeaf907ab](https://community.citystrides.com/u/8f7162110d9eeaf907ab)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/11 "2021-01-04T23:14:23Z")
In Russia OSM mostly has relations with borders, but the lack of admin levels makes batch-importing difficult. Some cities (eg. Moscow) have several plausible relations, figuring out which is correct is time consuming without local knowledge, hence the demand-driven approach… ---
**Author:** ![ericjrw](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/ericjrw/32/1065_2.png) [@ericjrw](https://community.citystrides.com/u/ericjrw)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 1:13am UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/combining-small-cities/22143/12 "2021-01-05T01:13:57Z")
@fredrik.coulter Maybe I was thinking OSM needed that (boundary) file to get the city properly into OSM, then CS could pick it up.