Map and list of regions do not show same results

[pbb72]

The regions that are colored on the map, do not correspond to the regions in the list. The map in this screenshot shows 12.332 visitors for Oslo (which is expected), but in the list this number is assigned to Hordaland. On the map, Rogaland and Møre og Rømsdal show 9.688 and 2.356 visitors, in the list these are Sogn og Fjordane and Telemark. The list shows 2.638 visitors from Aust-Agder, this number doesn't show up on the map at all.

To be honest, I am actually suspicious about if these numbers are correct at all; many thousands of visitors from 3 or 4 regions, and none at all from the other regions.

Also, the legend shows 1 dark blue and 2 light blue values, while the map shows 2 dark blue and 1 light blue region. The light blue values in the legend are also indistinguishable by eye and thus there is no use to list these.

Expected Behavior

Values on the list of regions and the map should correspond.

Current Behavior

Values on the list of regions and the map do not correspond. It looks like the list of regions is actually faulty.

Possible Solution

Fix it. 😉

Steps to Reproduce (for Bugs)

1. Visit the "Locations" page of Matomo. Zoom in to Norway.
2. Compare the regions on the map with the list of regions besides.

Context

Your Environment

• Matomo Version: 4.13.1
• PHP Version: 8.1.14
• Server Operating System: Apache/2.4.54 (Debian)
• Additionally installed plugins:

• Browser:
• Operating System:

[bx80]

Thanks for spotting this @pbb72, it looks like at least the names of the regions on the map and on the list are not consistent. The legend looks wrong too.

Geo location isn't always very accurate and often rural regions have IP addresses that resolve to the nearest urban center (e.g. my own IP address doesn't map to my rural region and instead maps to a city 300km away), it's possible that some of the provinces are being allocated to nearby cities. It often depends on the quality of the GeoIP database being used.

I'll assign this issue for prioritization 👍

[sgiehl]

This one is actually quite easy to explain. Our map is very very outdated. And therefor it contains some regions, that have meanwhile be restructured/renamed. In addition the region names on the map, are hard coded in the SVGs.
The regions in the report are those returned by the geoip provider. Internally we store such regions as region codes only. For displaying them in the reports they are replaced with their names using this mapping file: https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo/blob/4.x-dev/plugins/GeoIp2/data/isoRegionNames.php#L3722
This file might also be a bit outdated meanwhile.
I don't think there is much we can do at the moment besides waiting for #11929

[pbb72]

Okay so the problem is actually two; both the map components is outdated, but the GeoIP2 list of regions is also outdated. Compare https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo/blob/4.x-dev/plugins/GeoIp2/data/isoRegionNames.php#L3722 to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counties_of_Norway#List_of_counties; only 5 of the regions in your list still exist. This could explain why there is so high number of unknown regions for Norway.

However, it doesn't explain why Trøndelag, region nr 50, which is on you GeoIP2 list and is still current, is not listed at all while it should have a reasonable number. (I am actually located in Trøndelag.)

(As a general rule, geographic information needs to be updated at least once a year. If this is not possible, it's better to display the raw data (either coordinates, region numbers or uninterpreted names) that to try and interpret them.)

[sgiehl]

@pbb72 I agree that we should updates some of the data we are using. But it might be some more effort as simply updating the list. We also might need to keep the data for revised regions, as otherwise Matomo would later not be able to display already archived data.

@mattab We should consider working on this one soon. It might affect a lot people and the data displayed in Matomo might look inaccurate, even though it's tracked correctly. I guess I could adjust the region handling and the update script in around 3 hours to be more accurate. This adjustment might also help in other terms, where regions are not detected correctly using dbip databases.

[MatomoForumNotifications]

This issue has been mentioned on Matomo forums. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.matomo.org/t/geolocation-real-time-map/49564/2

[sgiehl]

I'll close this one for now. It should be improved / fixed with #20420
If anyone still has such problems after upgrading to Matomo 5, feel free to create a new issue for it.