Places¶
Places are independent records for geographical information — towns, bodies of water, buildings, regions. Like actors, they are created once and then used by any number of units of description. They are found under Admin → Places.
A place is attached to a unit of description in two ways: as a keyword (the place occurs in the content) or via an event (something was produced, received or performed there). The distinction is the same as with actors.
Types¶
The types follow the feature classes of GeoNames: country/state/region, bodies of water, parks and areas, city/village, road/railway line, building/farm, mountain/hill, undersea, and forest/field. Further types can be added per archive.
Recording¶
The form contains type, name, other name forms, variants, abbreviations, city/municipality, state/canton, country, address, description, sources, comment and the coordinates.
Places can also be created directly from the object form via the + next to the selection list.
Geocoordinates¶
If a place has coordinates, the detail view shows a map. In the place list, an overview map can also be displayed via show map; it is coupled to the list — panning or zooming the map filters the list to the visible section.
Via authority data — the easiest way¶
If a place is linked to GeoNames or ortsnamen.ch in the edit view, Anton adopts the coordinates automatically.
By hand¶
In the coordinates (lat lng) field of an already saved place, the values can be entered directly.
Not yet when creating
Coordinates entered in the form for a new place are not saved. The place has to be created first and the coordinates added afterwards via Edit — or obtained from GeoNames right away.
Anton recognises the format automatically and converts to WGS84:
| Format | Example |
|---|---|
| WGS84 (decimal degrees) | 47.3769 8.5417 |
| Swiss national coordinates LV95 | 2683141 1247637 or 2'683'141 1'247'637 |
| Swiss national coordinates LV03 | 683141 247637 |
Signs, thousands separators (' or space), separation by space or comma and
decimal places are each optional.
If coordinates are present, an additional button for deleting them appears in the edit view.
Deleting¶
A place can only be deleted as long as it is not in use. Anton refuses deletion in both of the following cases and reports which one applies:
- the place is involved in an event,
- or it is entered as a descriptor on a unit of description.
If the aim is to get rid of a duplicate, merging is the better route than deletion: the links then move to the remaining record instead of being lost (see below).
Different up to v0.82.0
Until then, a place was deleted without any check, and its links to the units of description silently disappeared with it.
Merging duplicates¶
Two records for the same place can be merged. Events, authority links and the links to units of description move to the target record. The text fields (description, sources, comment) and the name forms of the dissolved place are adopted as well; its coordinates only move across if the target record does not yet have any — existing ones are never overwritten. The old record is deleted afterwards.
Reserved for superusers
Merging is reserved for superusers; with Anton as a Service, k & r is responsible for it. A place cannot be merged with itself.