Sydney, NSW, Australia

[wsergent]

Added all 30 Regional Councils of Sydney, NSW Australia
Also added a larger map of Sydney itself
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_areas_of_New_South_Wales#/media/File:Sydney_councils.png for guide to the areas.

[JamesChevalier]

Thanks @wsergent !

I'm trying to piece together the relations of these places, and I'm having a little trouble. This is one of those cases where my US-centric point of view doesn't help me. 😬
I'm accustomed to a hierarchy along the lines of Country -> State -> County -> City ... but I can't piece together that understanding for Sydney.
I thought Sydney is the city, making the hierarchy Australia -> New South Wales -> Sydney.
But then again ... 4,775 mi² of streets to complete! 😳 That's not fair! 😆 🤣

I guess one way to answer this is through the question of ... Do people who live in Sydney tell other people "I live in Sydney"? Or do they tell people "I live in Camden Council"?

Additionally, it seems to be a toss-up between "[name] Council" and "[name] City Council" in OpenStreetMap. Are they typically referred to one way or the other by locals?
For example Bayside Council vs Blacktown City Council.

[wsergent]

Hi @JamesChevalier ,

In Australia, it's typically Country/State/Suburb or Country/State/City/Suburb, but depends on who you are talking to.

i.e. as someone who lives in Sydney, I would say "I live in Sydney" to a foreigner... but Sydney is massive.. 12,368 km² to be exact.. so it's way too big to realistically say Sydney to someone who lives in Sydney.
So, if I was talking to someone else who lived in Sydney - I would say "I live in Blacktown" or "I live in Parramatta". These are Suburbs. However, there are many hundreds of Suburbs in Sydney, and a lot of them are so intertwined and/or relatively small, that I wouldn't say to someone from Sydney "I live in Lalor Park", because chances are they've probably not even heard of it - I'd still say 'near Blacktown', as it's the nearest 'city' centre, (or, more realistically, it's also the council in which I live).

It becomes very confusing and time consuming taking things into account at any smaller scale than the City Councils which I have presented in this Pull Request. Councils are a level of Government here (we have Federal [Australia], State [NSW] and Council [Council] elections). Therefore, even though all of these 30 Councils make up Sydney as a whole, I would consider them the realistic bounds for the purposes of your project (especially as a resident who would potentially want to run an entire district - having all of Sydney as a whole would be fantastic, but a very largescale, and almost unrealistic goal. However, if you look at my LifeMap, you'll see I would have run a large portion of several of these individual Council bounds).

To answer your question, people wouldn't typically say "I live in xxx Council", but would typically say "I live in/near Blacktown/Camden/Liverpool/etc". Some exceptions lie in those that call themselves Shires, which, whilst being the same, tend to be referred to as "The Hills Shire" for example.

As far as whether the word 'City' is part of the names, I think they interchange these - and I think I probably named them all with City, despite some not actually using it (as it is - an example like Ryde City Council https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/details.php?place_id=199141332 technically uses the name 'Council of the City of Ryde' formally, though either is acceptable.
You could probably drop the Council naming altogether and just go with the place/area names - but I think as a resident, I would see Blacktown and assume the suburb, whereas Blacktown City Council I would assume the Council area, which contains many suburbs, and in some cases - only parts of suburbs (see the bottom of https://profile.id.com.au/blacktown/about ) - where a Council legislative area might divide a Suburb in more than one part.

I hope all of the above makes sense - happy to provide more information or details if required.

FYI a City like this: https://citystrides.com/users/7679/cities/53166 would be considered a Suburb. Ashfield is within the bounds of the Inner West Council. I don't think people tend to refer to places here as Municipalities. As it is, the bounds of Ashfield as shown in that link don't match the bounds of the Suburb itself (https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/details.php?place_id=199023997). Again, much easier to use the larger Council area.

[wsergent]

Hi @JamesChevalier - just wanted to check if there is anything more that I can do to assist with getting Sydney, NSW, Australia onto CityStrides?
Does the above provided information give you everything you need?

[brendonrjones]

The council idea for areas in the state of New South Wales seems like a good idea (Country -> State -> Council).
I've had a look and for the most part, the major cities in a few major Australian states/territories seem to work as follows:
ACT (Canberra): Country -> State -> District of [...] (classed as county).
Victoria (Melbourne): Country -> State -> City of [...] (classed as county)
New South Wales (Sydney): Country -> State -> [...] Council (classed as county)

I live in Canberra, ACT and would love to have the Canberra regions uploaded. If there's any way I can help, let me know.

Brendon