# Un-deleting a city in OSM

**URL:** <https://community.citystrides.com/t/un-deleting-a-city-in-osm/28332>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [October 21, 2024, 11:48pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/un-deleting-a-city-in-osm/28332 "2024-10-21T23:48:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![JamesChevalier](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/jameschevalier/32/2_2.png) [@JamesChevalier](https://community.citystrides.com/u/JamesChevalier)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2024, 11:48pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/un-deleting-a-city-in-osm/28332/1 "2024-10-21T23:48:32Z")

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We’ve got [CityStrides](https://citystrides.com/cities/3640) which was deleted in OSM.

Its history goes back 9 years - [Relation History: 5553951 | OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5553951/history) - so it seems like an incorrect deletion to me.  
Is anyone here skilled with these kinds of edits that can help out?

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**Author:** ![JamesChevalier](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/jameschevalier/32/2_2.png) [@JamesChevalier](https://community.citystrides.com/u/JamesChevalier)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 3:20pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/un-deleting-a-city-in-osm/28332/2 "2025-03-19T15:20:27Z")

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Another similar issue with [Nekoma, North Dakota - CityStrides](https://citystrides.com/cities/16963) which has a 15 year history [Relation History: ‪Nekoma‬ (‪181651‬) | OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/181651/history)

Someone removed its border in version 6: [Relation: ‪Nekoma‬ (‪181651‬) | OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/181651/history/6)  
It looks like this is the Way that was deleted: [Way: 38225027 | OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/38225027)

😅 I’m unsure what to make of their [Changeset: 162225991 | OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/162225991)

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**Author:** ![eevdriet](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/eevdriet/32/4577_2.png) [@eevdriet](https://community.citystrides.com/u/eevdriet)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2025, 11:05am UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/un-deleting-a-city-in-osm/28332/3 "2025-03-20T11:05:41Z")

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It seems like the person removing the border is relatively new to OSM ([MKartes](https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/MKartes) with 10 edits in total), so it might be a mistake… Generally I’d expect more experienced mappers to step in and undo the deletion if it was a mistake, but Nekoma seems very rural so you can’t be too sure of that 😅

Out of curiosity, what rules do you currently have in place for adding/removing cities? Maybe it would be nice to have a delay on adding/removing to filter out OSM mistakes when they are corrected.

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**Author:** ![JamesChevalier](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/jameschevalier/32/2_2.png) [@JamesChevalier](https://community.citystrides.com/u/JamesChevalier)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2025, 4:03pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/un-deleting-a-city-in-osm/28332/4 "2025-03-20T16:03:58Z")

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> [@eevdriet](#):
>
> Generally I’d expect more experienced mappers to step in and undo the deletion if it was a mistake

Yeah, and this is something I don’t have any experience with so I can’t fix it myself.

> [@eevdriet](#):
>
> Out of curiosity, what rules do you currently have in place for adding/removing cities?

If the request for streets gets an empty result back, I scream into a private Discord channel I have set up for myself.

A lot of times, it’s just that an edit resulted in a new Relation ID. I can update the value in my database, and send the city back in for a sync.

Other times, like this, data is removed from OSM. When the removal is something “correct”, I’ve just been moving on with life - leaving the city as-is in CityStrides and ignoring future screams. Other cases, like this, I’ll ask for help making corrections. There’s a “questionable edits” channel in the OSM Slack that is sometimes helpful. Sometimes, it’s the typical pedantic OSM arguing that I really don’t have time for. 😅