Wrong region shown in activiy name

I wonder, where do you get such ideas?
Garmin has gps coordinates, it has map-engine, and has sick name-choosing algorithm :)

The location for an ISP could be used, ("network location services") but it isn't as it's really not that accurate, and your ISP (who really controls the IP address you use) could be cities away. I use the same PC to sync all the time, and my activities have, to date, always shown the proper city/suburb the activity started in, and change accordingly.

The GPS data is being used, but given the GPS co-ordinates, "something" must be used to translate that into a name for the location. I've read where with one of the map providers (I think it was "OpenStreetMaps), and had trouble if a route wasn't set as "rotatable" in the openstreemap data for the area, so it wouldn't surprise me if the map data was able to provide a location name based on GPS location, as it also seems to provide elevation for "elevation corrections".

There has got to be a gps location to name translation done somewhere, and that couple be done in the interface to the map provider, in that something like google maps must be told what the base GPS location is (and maybe a few more so a large enough map is returned), or it could be that garmin is using their own GPS data, as they have maps of the world for their GPS car systems (for example), or possible, some kind of lookup in government data (given a GPS coordinate, a country can be determined, and given the country, a government database for that country is queried, which may be passed off to a state system (in the US), and then a county if needed, etc...

I'm trying to recall if I've seen anyone in the US talking about having the wrong location name (there might be some I missed), and that could help to ID if it's a country (or region, like the EU) specific lookup.

Has anyone that's getting a bad location name contracted Garmin Support and asked how the name for the location is determined?

Wrong place name

I also have problems with closest Lithuanian places naming instead of mine in LATVIA. And all friends I know have this problem.
Seems like map dont know, that such country Latvia exist at all...

Pretty much spot on here in the UK, but then we have an excellent mapping organisation.

At home, it's ok but when I'm at the cottage, it thinks I'm 96km further East!

Also affected by the wrong Activity location

I usually run in San Salvador (Capital of El Salvador). What Garmin shows is Atescatempa Run (a small little town in Guatemala, a different country and more than 100 km away). And its not only me but any Garmin Connect User running around here.

Please Garmin, can you update the maps algorithm for smaller countries? I know that in USA and UK people get very accurate results. But this is a radically wrong estimate of location.

Alright. What's the big deal?



For whatever reason, as of the past few months Garmin Connect has started to name my uploaded runs by names of landmarks (e.g. Queen Victoria Building, Australia Square) instead of locality (e.g. South Sydney, Woolloomooloo) – and the landmarks it chooses are not even near any part of the route I took, when usually the landmarks I actually passed were Sydney Opera House, Royal Botanic Garden, Lady Macquarie's Chair, Art Gallery NSW, etc.

However…

While I would concede there's a question of the scale (or order of magnitude) of the error in terms of distance, what's the big deal if Garmin Connect doesn't automatically name an uploaded activity with the correct or meaningful location name? In my opinion, this is especially true if Garmin Connect incorrectly picked a location from a neighbouring sovereign nation – because the system does not hold any political views or dearly held values about sovereignty, it isn't aiming or attempting to insult anyone, and it doesn't really give a damn about anyone's ‘patriotism’ and/or insecurities about having one's country recognised or ‘respected’ by all and sundry. Discrepancies are simply a form of imperfection, part and parcel of the reality in which we all live, and you can change the activity name afterwards to display whatever you want it to say, and it isn't any more of a chore (let alone a slight) that some other Garmin user ‘having to’ change Queen Victoria Building Running to Art Gallery NSW Running after every run if he/she so pleases.