I went to Taichung for COSCUP Taigi Conference last Saturday. But I didn’t response some question very well, so I type for a better answers for the question attendee asked.

For the question regard of how many place hasn’t tag with name:nan which stand for Taiwanese, the number is 15,000. The name:hak which stand for Hakka language is much more, but the magnitude is quite the same level, around 15,000 place name that has no name:hak tag.

Some one ask about the API, one of the API OverPass API is quite useful for small amount data, and can use OverPass API with certain query script, finding out which place still lack Taiwanese name tag name:nan. Using the same query script, just replace name:nan with name:hak, and you can find out the place which lack Hakka language name for a place.

Link for the query：OverPass Turbo

Someone says Department of Geography of NTNU had already publish a place name dictionary 《台灣地名辭典》, which has local language name like Taiwanese and Hakka place name. It will be a good reference book for researching place name.

Currently OpenStreetMap place name is based on GNS database from the US military, and plus some place from 台灣堡圖. I feel good to know that some years ago there is a book publish by Department of Geography, NTNU, but due to copyright issue, we just can’t import all the name from the book to OpenStreetMap.