Naming standard for same named cities in different provinces

What are the South African naming standards where two cities, with the same name, exist in more than one province? I don’t see anything in the South African standards wiki page.

Case in point, Middelburg. There is a Middelburg in the Eastern Cape, which is currently labelled ‘Middelburg, EC’, and a Middelburg in Mpumalanga, labelled as just “Middelburg”, though I have started renaming the city centre to ‘Middelburg, MP’

My problem is that even with the editor centered Middelburg, Mpumalanga, and I search for Middelburg, I’m taken directly, with no search results offered, to Middelburg, Netherlands! Why?

Even weirder, from Middelburg, Netherlands, if I then search for ‘Middelburg, EC’, I’m offered 7 results, the top two both being different locations in Middelburg, EC and the third being ‘Middelburg, Netherlands’. Why don’t I see any ‘Middelburg, South Africa’ options. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen any ‘City, South Africa’ search result.

If I search for ‘Middelburg, MP’, one of the results is ‘Middelburg - MP’, which takes me to the Mpumalanga Middelburg, though I haven’t seen any segment with a city name of ‘Middelburg - MP’, so I suspect that is an old city name, when a dash was used.

If there are no standards. I’d suggest using the city name, followed by a comma and space, and then the two letter province abbreviation, as is the case for Middelburg, EC.

Your comments are welcome. What are other countries using?

Leigh.

I don’t think I have either. You;d think there would be some kind of “dominant” city based on say area or something but I don’t see it.

From what I can tell other map providers label the MP Middelburg with the suffix and the EC one without. I don’t see why though.

I’m happy with the formatting you’ve suggested but this may have to be a case by case thing.

Kyle