## Search rank
The search rank describes the extent and importance of a place. It is used
-when ranking search result. Simply put, if there are two results for a
+when ranking search results. Simply put, if there are two results for a
search query which are otherwise equal, then the result with the _lower_
search rank will be appear higher in the result list.
4 | countries | -
5-9 | states, regions, provinces | -
10-12 | counties | -
-13-16 | cities, municipalities, islands | 7.5 km
+13-16 | cities, municipalities, islands | 15 km
17-18 | towns, boroughs | 4 km
19 | villages, suburbs | 2 km
20 | hamlets, farms, neighbourhoods | 1 km
10-12 | county
13-16 | city
17-21 | suburb
- 22-25 | neighbourhood
+ 22-24 | neighbourhood
+ 25 | squares, farms, localities
26-27 | street
28-30 | POI/house number
The country rank 4 usually doesn't show up in the address parts of an object.
The country is determined indirectly from the country code.
-Ranks 5-25 can be assigned more or less freely. They make up the major part
+Ranks 5-24 can be assigned more or less freely. They make up the major part
of the address.
+Rank 25 is also an addressing rank but it is special because while it can be
+the parent to a POI with an addr:place of the same name, it cannot be a parent
+to streets. Use it for place features that are technically on the same level
+as a street (e.g. squares, city blocks) or for places that should not normally
+appear in an address unless explicitly tagged so (e.g place=locality which
+should be uninhabited and as such not addressable).
+
The street ranks 26 and 27 are handled slightly differently. Only one object
from these ranks shows up in an address.
* highway nodes
* landuse that is not an area
-Other than that, the ranks can be freely assigned via the JSON file
-defined with `CONST_Address_Level_Config` according to their type and
-the country they are in.
+Other than that, the ranks can be freely assigned via the JSON file according
+to their type and the country they are in. The name of the config file to be
+used can be changed with the setting `NOMINATIM_ADDRESS_LEVEL_CONFIG`.
The address level configuration must consist of an array of configuration
entries, each containing a tag definition and an optional country array: