That is exactly the point pnbruckner and I concluded. The altitude found on non-local sources have no meaning. Only the observation of the surroundings on the specific location makes sense.
The bug is that the description is plain and simple wrong.
You might call it common understanding, but then common understanding is wrong too.
Trying to argue for the common understanding here would be like arguing the earth is flat again. 
So your suggestion for the right description is ?
I mean , i took an average of what Google, and a ānationalā map-provider suggested, and came pretty close (only had to change few meters ( in height above sea-level ) 
, to match the Temperature of Met.no (weather-integration) , with my own local temp-Device
Even coordinates are slightly different for these 2 sources (so my house floating around a bit, depending upon which map-source i look at) 
Sorry i canāt see the forest because of all the trees , so looking out the window i have no idea of how high up in the sky i am
Temperature?
We are talking about sunrise and sunset. Not temperature.
Trees are actually one of the things you could take into account and the lower your height because of that.
I donāt know what astral would do with a negative observer elevation.
Astral does have a second option for specifying observer elevation. Instead of a single number (i.e., height above ground level), it can also accept a tuple of two numbers, distance to, and height of, and obstruction, like mountains, or trees, etc. HA doesnāt support that (but Iām thinking about adding it to my custom Sun2 integration.)
Yeah, the sun integration is a bit lacking.
That is also why I am your excellent Sun2 instead. Thanks for that work!
Yeah, well others use the altitude for temperature as well, as it in fact makes a different
If you stand at the foot of a 300meter high cliff / mountain , you can be sure that the temperature, is not the same at the top , same principle as you use for the āsurroundingsā when you consider sunrice/sunset, if you live in a valley, or on top
Yes i do also take the trees into account, when i consider sunrice/sunset, obviously
PS: You are not talking about sunrice/sunset, you are talking about cordinates and altitude and their sources in HA, which btw some other than native integrations makes use of
True, the altitude might be used for temperature too, which just makes it a lot more complicated, because the temperature needs to be calculated as altitude over sea level.
This is require some rewriting of HA to make it right or maybe the sun integration in HA should be ignored and Sun2 recommended instead, so the altitude setting in HA can be used for those other things.
Indeed , i even found that the definition of sunset/sunrise ( and sun above/below horizon ) variates, some sources use the tip of Sun , others use the center of the sun, who knows some might even use 2/3 or 3/4 
I donāt even remember why i or when i installed Sun2, but it must have been doe to āmissingā options in the native ( or because it was already dark when my very first automation kicked in 
PS: But speaking about sunrise/sunset , and OPās question, i admit i have to agree, sun-integration does shows wrong time, for me more than the 8 min OP has ā¦
So i do really wonder where it āpicksā the data from.
My coordinates are fairly right cording to met.no and google, same is the altitude (height above sea level , cording to met.no and google ) , only thing (data) that i could suspect as misleading is the ātimezoneā we have to choose, as that places me in Stockholm, 600km north east of here ( and definitely at a level near sea )
Well atleast the timezone is right in HA , guess on just have to be āobservantā upon which sources various integration make use of, and āadapt/fine-tuneā best way possible
So, i had to follow your āsuggestionā , while iāve never had sunrise/sunset correct here ( Living at 132-134m above sea-level (i guess) , so i always type 132 when i have to type in altitude.
Followed your example, more or less, i just typed 0 zero meters, in the Map-settings.
Sunset/sunrise changed to 1 minute off ! , compared to the +8 min off, i had when typing 132m
Now i just wait out the next weeks temperatures, to monitor the ( met.no )variation, compared to my outside sensors
So indeed āaltitudeā in the context of the HA Map settings, is misleading ( kind of ) , and probably totally irrelevant in 99 of 100 use-cases here.
Go to the Met.no integration entry and click CONFIGURE. Iām pretty sure its elevation setiing is independent. It probably uses HAās value as a default when it is first set up, but you can change it to whatever you want afterwards.
EDIT:
In fact, i know it is. I changed my HA elevation seeing to zero, but the Met.no elevation setting is still 187.
i tried, but couldnāt find these setting, even thou i thought that i must have type this info there also ā¦somewhere ā¦ iāll check again
Bummer , one have to get use to this āconfigureā button 
( yep, itās still 132m ) so i guess im in the right spot there
While i have to get use to the Map Setting in HA , been 132m for about 3 years now !
Where is the WTH of the month, i can click 