diff --git a/layers/place/city.sql b/layers/place/city.sql
index 902b64b..8cf6f0e 100644
--- a/layers/place/city.sql
+++ b/layers/place/city.sql
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@ RETURNS TABLE(osm_id bigint, geometry geometry, name text, name_en text, class c
     SELECT osm_id, geometry, name, name_en, place, "rank"
     FROM osm_city_point
     WHERE geometry && bbox
-      AND ((zoom_level = 2 AND "rank" = 0)
-        OR (zoom_level BETWEEN 3 AND 7 AND "rank" < zoom_level)
+      AND ((zoom_level = 2 AND "rank" = 1)
+        OR (zoom_level BETWEEN 3 AND 7 AND "rank" <= zoom_level)
       )
     UNION ALL
     SELECT osm_id, geometry, name, name_en, place, "rank" FROM (
diff --git a/layers/place/country.sql b/layers/place/country.sql
index 805b90d..82511b6 100644
--- a/layers/place/country.sql
+++ b/layers/place/country.sql
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION layer_country(bbox geometry, zoom_level int)
 RETURNS TABLE(osm_id bigint, geometry geometry, name text, name_en text, "rank" int) AS $$
     SELECT osm_id, geometry, name, name_en, "rank" FROM osm_country_point
-    WHERE geometry && bbox AND "rank" <= (zoom_level + 2)
+    WHERE geometry && bbox AND "rank" <= zoom_level
     ORDER BY "rank" ASC, length(name) ASC;
 $$ LANGUAGE SQL IMMUTABLE;
diff --git a/layers/place/merge_city_rank.sql b/layers/place/merge_city_rank.sql
index 0b98598..8a08b5d 100644
--- a/layers/place/merge_city_rank.sql
+++ b/layers/place/merge_city_rank.sql
@@ -18,11 +18,9 @@ WITH important_city_point AS (
     AND ST_DWithin(ne.geom, osm.geometry, 50000)
 )
 UPDATE osm_city_point AS osm
--- Normalize both scalerank and labelrank into a ranking system from 1 to 10.
--- Scaleranks for NE populated place range from 0 to 8 and labelranks range from 0 to 10.
--- To give features with both ranks close to 0 a lower rank we increase the range from 1 to 9 and 1 to 11.
--- This means a max combined rank of 20 divided by 2 to get us uniform ranking from 1 to 10
-SET "rank" = CEILING((ne.scalerank + 1 + ne.labelrank + 1)/2.0)
+-- Move scalerank to range 1 to 10 and merge scalerank 5 with 6 since not enough cities
+-- are in the scalerank 5 bucket
+SET "rank" = CASE WHEN scalerank <= 5 THEN scalerank + 1 ELSE scalerank END
 FROM important_city_point AS ne
 WHERE osm.osm_id = ne.osm_id;
 
diff --git a/layers/place/merge_country_rank.sql b/layers/place/merge_country_rank.sql
index ac1bfd5..898bb96 100644
--- a/layers/place/merge_country_rank.sql
+++ b/layers/place/merge_country_rank.sql
@@ -6,22 +6,21 @@ WITH important_country_point AS (
     WHERE
     -- We only match whether the point is within the Natural Earth polygon
     -- because name matching is to difficult since OSM does not contain good
-    -- enough coverage of ISO codes
+    -- enough coverage of ISO codesy
     ST_Within(osm.geometry, ne.geom)
     -- We leave out tiny countries
     AND ne.scalerank <= 1
 )
 UPDATE osm_country_point AS osm
 -- Normalize both scalerank and labelrank into a ranking system from 1 to 6
--- Scaleranks for NE countries range from 0 to 6 and labelranks range from 2 to 10.
--- This means a max combined rank of 16 divided by 3 to get us uniform ranking from 1 to 6
-SET "rank" = CEILING((scalerank + labelrank)/3.0)
+-- where the ranks are still distributed uniform enough across all countries
+SET "rank" = LEAST(6, CEILING((scalerank + labelrank)/2.0))
 FROM important_country_point AS ne
 WHERE osm.osm_id = ne.osm_id;
 
 UPDATE osm_country_point AS osm
 SET "rank" = 6
-WHERE "rank" < 0 OR "rank" > 6 OR "rank" IS NULL;
+WHERE "rank" IS NULL;
 
 ALTER TABLE osm_country_point ADD CONSTRAINT osm_country_point_rank_constraint CHECK("rank" BETWEEN 1 AND 6);
 CREATE INDEX IF NOT EXISTS osm_country_point_rank_idx ON osm_country_point("rank");
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/layers/place/merge_state_rank.sql b/layers/place/merge_state_rank.sql
index 20ebc8b..51181ba 100644
--- a/layers/place/merge_state_rank.sql
+++ b/layers/place/merge_state_rank.sql
@@ -12,9 +12,7 @@ WITH important_state_point AS (
 )
 UPDATE osm_state_point AS osm
 -- Normalize both scalerank and labelrank into a ranking system from 1 to 6.
--- Scaleranks for NE states range from 2 to 11 and labelranks range from 0 to 20 and dataranks from 1 to 11.
--- This means a max combined rank of 42 divided by 7 to get us uniform ranking from 1 to 6
-SET "rank" = CEILING((scalerank + labelrank + datarank)/7.0)
+SET "rank" = LEAST(6, CEILING((scalerank + labelrank + datarank)/3.0))
 FROM important_state_point AS ne
 WHERE osm.osm_id = ne.osm_id;
 
diff --git a/layers/place/place.yaml b/layers/place/place.yaml
index 789ad18..98840b9 100644
--- a/layers/place/place.yaml
+++ b/layers/place/place.yaml
@@ -17,7 +17,8 @@ layer:
         Countries, states and the most important cities all have a `rank` to boost their importance on the map.
         The `rank` field for counries and states ranges from `1` to `6` while the `rank` field for
         cities ranges from `1` to `10`. Use the `rank` field to build a text hierarchy.
-        The rank value is a combination of the Natural Earth `scalerank`, `labelrank` and `datarank` values.
+        The rank value is a combination of the Natural Earth `scalerank`, `labelrank` and `datarank` values for countries
+        and states and a shifted Natural Earth `scalerank` for cities.
   buffer_size: 128
   datasource:
     geometry_field: geometry
diff --git a/layers/place/state.sql b/layers/place/state.sql
index 96c90d8..3ed1b92 100644
--- a/layers/place/state.sql
+++ b/layers/place/state.sql
@@ -2,9 +2,10 @@ CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION layer_state(bbox geometry, zoom_level int)
 RETURNS TABLE(osm_id bigint, geometry geometry, name text, name_en text, "rank" int) AS $$
     SELECT osm_id, geometry, name, name_en, "rank"
     FROM osm_state_point
-    WHERE geometry && bbox AND (
-        (zoom_level = 3 AND "rank" <= 1) OR
-        (zoom_level >= 4)
-    )
+    WHERE geometry && bbox AND
+          ("rank" + 2 <= zoom_level) AND (
+              zoom_level >= 5 OR
+              is_in_country IN ('United Kingdom', 'USA', 'Россия', 'Brasil', 'China', 'India') OR
+              is_in_country_code IN ('AU', 'CN', 'IN', 'BR', 'US'))
     ORDER BY "rank" ASC;
 $$ LANGUAGE SQL IMMUTABLE;