Talk:List of countries and dependencies by population/Archive 1

message: We need to update this New data from CIA -Pedro 14:39, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: For the Netherlands I have used template:popneth and template:popdateneth. They are used here and on four other pages. Next update will just require changing the number and date, each in one template (apart from possible changes in order in lists, and recomputation of population density).Patrick 15:49, 2004 Aug 30 (UTC)
Please do not include data from the link that is provided to "New data from CIA". There is consensus that these numbers do not seem to be accurate. --Jibran1 22:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Update

message: Shouldn't there be a date on this. I mean are these like the correct population figures, this minute right now? Mintguy
:Good point. Fixed. --mav
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There are a number of items here that aren't countries. I'm fairly sure that a lot of them shouldn't be listed here: the French overseas departments (St. Pierre et Miquelon, French Guyana, Reunion, Polynesia); the assortment of UK island dependencies (St. Helena, Montserrat, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands)--I'm less sure about the Channel Islands, Man, and Wight; the US territories (Guam, American Somoa, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico); the Netherlands Antilles. (The entry that just says "Virgin Islands" is probably meant to be the US Virgin Islands, by elimination.)
Those are the easy cases--autonomous regions like Greenland, and the odd status of Macau and Hong Kong, are going to be harder. But nobody claims that Bermuda, Montserrat, St. Pierre et Miquelon are independent countries. Vicki Rosenzweig
Good question. The US Census and the CIA Factbook have rather loose definitions in this regard. Is there another more sane method then please point me to the list and I will redo the numbering by deleting the numbers by non-nations. Perhaps we can define a nation based on UN membership? But then we would have to exclude several nations... Hmm... --mav
: Switzerland is not a UN member, so that would look ridiculous. Neither is Taiwan by the way, but that's a more debatable issue (I know...). Maybe the safest is to say "countries and dependent areas". Jeronimo
:I'd start by eliminating the French overseas departments. Colonies, autonomous regions, and the like are trickier, and we might have to do them case-by-case. The only place Puerto Rico counts as a country is in international sports competition--where England, Scotland, and Wales are also separate countries. There are people who want it to be independent, but they don't claim it already is. I don't know whether Greenland or the Faeroe Islands are treated as countries. Taiwan is de facto independent.
:Also, we should try to find out whether the population numbers for the country these territories are loosely part of include that territory: either to add them if they aren't already included (for places like French Guyana) or make sure the people of a territory aren't being listed both as population of dependent area and as part of population of separate nation. Vicki Rosenzweig
---- 
I propose something like this:
* France xx,xxx,xxx
**Mainland xx,xxx,xxx
**Guadeloupe xx,xxx
**Martinique xx,xxx
**French Guyana xxx,xxx
**etc.
In this way, we can still get the numbers for the "non-countries", since that is also interesting. Jeronimo
i quite like that idea. - fonzy
It looks like the other country lists don't include dependent areas. So as is, this list is useless when used with the others. I do very much like Jeronimo's suggestion though -- that way this list will be usable with the others and have additional interesting info on dependent areas. I will try to find time to do this during the weekend. --mav 12:18 Aug 15, 2002 (PDT)
:Me likes! Great job - that must have taken a while to do. --mav
No real problems, making it a table was easy (find-and-replace is a nice function), and some cut-n-paste work for the dependent areas. Was kinda surprised to not find all countries though, will look for these now. Jeronimo
Now that the table has noticable table cells, how about having the dependent areas in the same cell as their parent state (using < br > tags to make things line up)?  --mav
: Yeah, that would look a lot better. Will tend to it later, have to do some real work now... I'm also working on the other lists (put some data in the density page, working on the area) Jeronimo
I reformatted China's area to show you what I am thinking of. --mav
: Looks OK, except for the dashes, they look ugly now. Also, maybe we need the total at the top or with some emphasis (bold, italic, whatever)? Jeronimo
::Modify away. The hard spaces could go or even the dashes completely. My original though was to bold the total but that would unbalance the article. Italic font would be good. However, unless this list is to be resorted by total population of all areas under the control of any particular nation (not something I would like), I don't think it would be a good idea to move the total to the top of the cell list. It's fine at the bottom and this is a logical place to have it.  --mav
: Please check your figures for China.  How can the total for China, Hong Kong and "Macau" (and check the spelling of Macao) be less than the population of China alone? --GUllman
The idea of adding together non-"American" territories into the population of the US seems odd.  Are American Samoa and Guam, at least, ever included in the population of the US? -- Zoe
:Another thing that could be done is the name of the article could be changed. Kingturtle 03:39 Apr 4, 2003 (UTC)
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For the UK, the is a difference between "overseas territory of the UK" (eg Bermuda, chief of state: Queen ELIZABETH II) and "British crown dependency" (eg Jersey, chief of state: Duke of Normandy ELIZABETH II ). The first case is similar to oversea territory of France, US, Netherlands... The second case is more like the odd situations of Monaco (dependent of France for defence & foreign policy), Andorra (dependent of France and Spain for defence), Vatican (dependent of Italy for defence), Liechtenstein (dependent of Switzerland for defence)... Ann O'nyme 14:51, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Date

message: I have updated all figures (including those in the first table) from CIA World Factbook 2003. The country articles of China, India and Romania have also been updated to reflect the new population and density - these are listed as Population (2003) in their country article rather than Population (2000). It would be good if more people would update the population in each country article to the new 2003 population from this article's table.
----
What has gone wrong that Guatemala is listed twice? Crusadeonilliteracy 15:24, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Updated Figures

message: I've converted the list of countries and dependencies, ordered according to population
using a simple sed script:
:sed -r -e "s%^([0-9]+) (.+?)  (.+?)  (.+)$%  \n    \1\n    \2\n    \3\n    \4\n  %"
Some linked country names will probably be invalid, due to the simple conversion.
For that I apologize. --Bigsmoke 02:09, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Updated List Ordered According to population

message: The combined population of the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and New Zealand is of no use or significance to anyone that I can imagine. They are not even counted in the same census. Why are countries grouped together like this? Yes, there're some constitutional links between the countries, but they are hardly relevant for a page about population.
Ben Arnold 01:28, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are protectorates grouped with their protecting country? 

message: The main list is 193 countries, supposedly the 191 UN members plus Taiwan and the Vatican.  But the list includes the Palestinian territories, which is not a (voting) UN member.  Is another country missing from the list? Dreyfus 03:22, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Aha!  Two countries are numbered #140.  Does someone have a script to fix this the quick way? Dreyfus 03:23, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is something missing? 

message: Source is bfs.admin.ch the swiss Federal Statistic Office. --212.254.248.201 01:45, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adjusted Swiss Population 

message: Looking over the history of this article, it seems people have been changing it more or less at random. Are the numbers supposed to be from the 2004 edition of the CIA Factbook? --Sdfisher 06:52, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The second table on the bottom was updated by me a few weeks ago using census.gov. The first table should be updated using the second table OneGuy 22:21, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where are the numbers SUPPOSED to be from? -Sources for data

message: I believe the CIA Factbook is the data that is supposed to be used.
Don't see where you get supposed from, we shoul donly have the CIA fact(sic)book where there is no up to date info. IE if a census is published it is used. --130.36.87.102 14:55, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  CIA Factbook 

message: On the page about the European Union, it is stated that the EU is the 3rd largest by population, and the link leads here, but here the EU isn't mentioned in the table. The same for the List of countries by GDP (PPP). It looks odd that those links lead to pages where the EU is not even mentioned.
We should either include the EU in the lists, like in the List of countries by area (where the EU, being the 7th largest, is listed after the 6th largest but is not numbered as 7th, so it doesn't mess up the order of actual countries), or we should delete the links leading here from the EU article, since the EU isn't included in the country lists either by population or GDP. I think the first idea is better, since Wiki should include as much info as it's possible. Opinions? Alensha 15:24, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for adding the EU info again. Alensha 13:37, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: For statistical purposes I think, and because the EU page links here, and because it's always been here contrary to the opinions and wishes of certain Americanophiles... --Giandrea 22:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Just another EU'er who is trying desperatly to out do the US. The Eu is an organizatio. Like the OAS. Only it has its own money that some member countries use. For your argument we should include the British Commonwealth, the CIS and who knows who else. The EU is more an alliance or confederation. I lived in Europe, especially southern Europe, and their idea of the EU seems to differ from yours. You will find here that the EU is considered an organization not a country, no matter what certain Europhiles may believe.--Numerousfalx 23:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I just happen to live in southern europe, and from a long time... Noone is trying to out do noone. The EU is NOT a confederation, it is not even an organization. It's much closer to a state/nation by its definition and by the Maastricht treaty and the other treaties, even if it is not a state/country. Anyway the article has changed name, and the inclusion of the EU should not be questioned at least under the 'territory' classification.--giandrea 17:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: EU?

message: Updated UK population to reflect changes i made to population at article United Kingdom --Benbread 21:09, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK population update 

message: :Country: a particular geographical region of indefinite boundary (usually serving some special purpose or distinguished by its people or culture or geography)
I will revert the latest changes by Adam Carr in about 20 hours or so. —Cantus…☎ 05:30, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)
OK, so why doesn't this page include Tibet, Kurdistan, Quebec, East Turkestan, Elam, Aceh, Kosovo, West Papua, Somaliland, Puntland, Padania, Chechnia, North Cyprus and all the other self-proclaimed, aspirant, de facto and other "countries" in the world? Why for that matter doesn't it include Scotland, Bavaria, Zululand or Tatarstan, which have much better claims to be "countries" than Pitcairn Island? In my opinion this list should be confined to sovereign states, but I am happy to leave the various colonies etc in the list for purposes of comparison. (Although Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion and French Guiana (Cayenne) are not even colonies, they are departments of France If they are included then why is Calvados not included? Or Alabama or Surrey?). The numbering, however, should be confined to sovereign states. If Cantus reverts this (in 20 hours or not), I will re-revert. Adam 05:45, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: maybe because your examples are not apart from the "core-country"? Some insight might be gained from ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 and the official source for that. Tobias Conradi 22:27, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: No thanks. That was already attempted, and reverted (on the list by area). Please don't try it here. —Cantus…☎ 02:13, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
Why not? Adam 02:58, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of country 

message: Earth looks stupid in the table vs World, but, the Earth article is better written and more relevant to this article than World.  Would World really be such a bad thing? SchmuckyTheCat 20:24, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: the World would be even better. In fact, I think The World should redirect to Earth, not to World as it does today. -- uriber 22:15, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[World]] vs [[Earth]] 

message: Can it be two-column - one for ranking of sovereign states, and the other for all countries listed?  — Instantnood 12:03, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
:I would suggest no, because then you lose the ability to directly compare to other countries. —Cantus…☎ 18:46, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
::Please take a look at this version . :-D  — Instantnood 07:16, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)
:::Hmm. I don't like it. —Cantus…☎ 09:07, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)
:::Ugly, unnecessary SchmuckyTheCat 14:28, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why would we need that when they are deemed uncomparable?--Huaiwei 14:35, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you please elaborate a little bit on why " they are deemed uncomparable "? Thanks. — Instantnood 06:52, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

text: (response to Cantus' comment at 18:46, June 3) Not ranking the non-sovereign territories is in fact creating troubles. On the country infoboxes of these countries, some are saying "not ranked", while some are using a ranking by considering them as sovereign states (e.g. Foo with a population of 780,011 is said to be ranked as 156th). — Instantnood 10:41, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Rankings

message: Spain has not 40 milions in 2005, this number is from 2000. You can consultate www.ine.es the web oficial page of the National Stadistical Institute and the population of Spain is 44 milions, exactly 43.975.375 inhabitants. Is more credible this number that the CIA's number, because is from a national web, and Spain is traditionally a very advanced country in census and other stadisticals. Ah, for the USA's people, Spain is in Europe, not in Iberoamerica.
It is much easier to fix errors rather than to get all sarcastico about them. Adam 04:20, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fatal error in the population 

message: Is it right to put Somalia on the list when its last census was in 1975? Especially since most of the other countries are updated? Even with the war and instability, Somalia should have more than 8 million people. It is one of the fastest growing countries in the world and has one of the highest fertility rates.
Somalia should have around 15-20 million people, with a much larger urban population before the war, since the cities have grown since then.
The 8 million figure is a 2005 CIA estimate based on the 1975 census, ie it is the CIA's estimate of the current population. Adam 05:37, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Somalia 

message: The figures on this page are all quoted to the exact number of people, which is way above the level of accuracy of the data employed.  Even for developed countries there are significant problems in estimating populations, given the uncertainty over numbers of illegal immigrants etc; for undeveloped countries it's not unheard of for population estimates to be revised by tens of millions.  I would suggest rounding the data to no more than three decimal places.  Any comments?
Enchanter
We should use the figures available from the various national censuses etc, and include a general caveat along the lines you suggest. Adam 9 July 2005 16:18 (UTC)
I've now changed everything to 4dp (well above the underlying accuracy of most of these figures).  Bear in mind that the figures are population estimates, not raw census figures, and as such would generally include approximate adjustment for undercounting in censuses etc.
:Please stop rounding the population figures; there's no reason for not being accurate in the estimation given by the sources. Respect the sources and the visitors wishing to see faithful information. —Cantus…☎ 09:47, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
:Of course the figures aren't precise, but the detailed figures should be more accurate than your rounded figures, which you are moving away from the best estimate available. Osomec 18:04, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Spurious accuracy?

message: As mentioned in the footnote, I have updated the Malaysia listing with information from the Department of Statistics, Malaysia from this page http://www.statistics.gov.my/. As also has been mentioned the metholody used to calculate that figure is described here http://www.statistics.gov.my/English/frameset_popclock.php?file=malaysia
There appears to be a number listings, e.g. Spain, Chile, NZ where the CIA Worldfact Book figure is replaced with the official figure so I feel this update is in line with the previous practice. I'm aware this creates some unbalance and makes maintaining the table much more difficult but IMHO it would be the best practice. There has been little discussion as far as I can tell so I would recommend the following system be adopted (for now anyway).
60.234.141.76 22:01, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malaysia 

message: Whenever possible, except as outlined below, the official number/estimate provided by the government department in charge of determining such statistics should be used in preference to numbers taken from the CIA World factbook. All numbers from official government departments should include a date and a link to this number if possible or if not should mention the specific source of the number.
In these specific instances, the CIA World factbook number should take preference:
1) No information is available or will be provided by government department on how this number is derived
2) Strong evidence (should be discussed in the talkpage) that the metholodgy used is seriously flawed. This may include statistical errors, ignoring certain segments of the population and ignoring significant numbers of widely reported deaths.
In either case, whichever number is not in the main table (CIA World factbook or official figure) should be listed in the footnote.
60.234.141.76 22:01, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recommendation for source of population numbers 

message: The article incorrectly states that Brazil is in a epidemic of AIDS. This is by no means true. In fact, brazilian AIDS control program is considered a world model. I'm removing this. --Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho 02:13, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: AIDS in Brazil

message: I'd like to propose that we cease to use population clocks as the basis for population statistics in this article, because:
* Population clocks are constantly updating. We could conceivably be editing the page every few seconds to keep track of them.
* Population clocks are inaccurate. Typically a population clock is nothing more than a linear interpolation between an estimate and a projection. Statistics organisations provide them as a gimmick, rather than a serious statistical measure. In contrast, published periodic estimates are likely to be the product of good quality statistical analysis.
* Population clocks are unverifiable. One of the hopes for Wikipedia is that our articles can be fact-checked by other Wikipedia users and become an authoritative source. Published periodic estimates can be cited and checked even after they become historic.
Ben Arnold 02:19, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I didn't get any responses here, I've raised this issue on the Village pump. I'd like to reach a consensus before I go crazy and change the entire page. So please post your comments there. Ben Arnold 23:45, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Stop using population clocks?

message: I agree with BrotherM. that "Arab World" is too vague a concept to be listed in a statistical ranking, and should be replaced with the corresponding international organization Arab League, as it is much easier to precisely define and delimit an international organization than a "cultural sphere". I also think that these international organizations should have their flag icons in the list! Whoever made the flags of sovereign states, could you please do the same for the IGOs? Cheers. --Big Adamsky 14:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Flag icons

message: According to the Peru 2005 Census, the country has a population of 26,152,265, which is lower than the 2002 estimate shown on this page. Someone should change the position of Peru on the table. Source: INEI Thanks. --Tuomas  hello 18:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-adjust Peru 

message: I recommend that we move any explanatory references relating to population figures to a separate column to facilitate copying and pasting this data to a spreadsheet. 
For example:
Rank	Country                   	Population   	Notes
—   	World                     	6,446,131,400	
1   	People's Republic of China	1,306,313,812	
etc., etc.
Captain Zyrain 03:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good, but wouldn't it be even better if we had "date" and "source" columns? Then we wouldn't need half the footnotes. The "source" column could be a short name of the statistics agency linked to the relevant page on their website. Ben Arnold 21:28, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Columns; making it easier to copy & paste to a spreadsheet

message: All data updaters: can we please settle on data for the past June 31 of July 1, since this is the data used in most calculations and for statistical information. Please?? —Cantus…☎ 06:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Data updating

message: According to the Christmas Island page the CIA World Factbook is wrong so I'm changing it back. Richard Cane 05:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Christmas Island

message: Thought we settled the EU debate, why does it keep appearing. The EU is not now, at current times, a country or self governing territory.--Tomtom9041 17:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, let's keep it out, please. - Randwicked Alex B 04:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And I just removed both the eu and the African Union.--68.85.27.47 15:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are an awful lot of places listed that are not "countries".  THe first entry is "World", for goodness sake. I think it makes sense to include the major political and economic blocs, particularly the EU. In many ways, the EU is a federated country (customs union; free movement of goods, services, workers, capital; legislative body; "supreme" court...) despite what the member states say to their electorates. -- ALoan (Talk) 08:12, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I think that your ideas and facts about the EU are a bit confused... The EU constitution has nothing to do with this article, and just for the sake of information, if one country refuses to pass the EU constitution, it doesn't mean that the country refuses generally the EU and it's values; The things are unrelated. I think you are biased, I don't know if you really are an European citizen, but I don't care. The EU is not an alliance, it is a binding union, but for more information, you can read the very good article about the EU. I'm getting information about resolving disputes now. --Giandrea 22:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: EU

message: I think the many inaccuracies of this list have already been exposed time and again by several Wikipedians. The CIA Factbook is just a very poor reference for country populations. I suggest we use the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) figures instead. Their yearly world population datasheet is an excellent reference. Check here for the July 2005 datasheet. Do other Wikipedians agree with replacing the current CIA list with the PRB list? Hardouin 16:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree, anything leading to more precise results is welcome! --Giandrea 00:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't agree since as mentioned below (proposal repeat) the PRB data is copyrighted and given the amount of data we are using, I doubt it will be legal. Nil Einne 14:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inaccuracies 

message: This has turned into a big edit war / pissing contest about whether the EU is a country or not. I submit that whether the EU is a country or not is not relevant. (There's nothing sacred about the list that means only countries should be included, as I've demonstrated by changing its name.) What we have to ask ourselves is: is including the EU in a list of territories split by population helpful information for our readers? If it is, it should be included (like the lead-in to the list, says 'for the purposes of comparison'). If not, it shouldn't. I think it's helpful, verifiable information and should be included. What do you think? --Nick Boalch ?!? 11:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I already said before, I totally agree. It is informative.--Giandrea 20:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Giandrea, please explain how the EU should be on this list and not other organizatiions such as NATO, ASEAN, OAS, etc. Last I heard, the EU is not a country, nor do the member nations/countries refer to it as one. Including Mine, the Netherlands. Last I heard thar EU was an organization like the UN. If so then why are not the UN and the Commonwealth and CIS included? This seems to me to be a petty attempt a one uppance to our American cousins and an attempt to impose a certain view or agenda on the EU. Seeing how the OAS has over 840 millions of people and the Commonwealth has 1.35 billion, I think that this will rapidly escalate to silliness and some will get their feelings hurt. --Tombombadil 11:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Tombombadil? The Netherlands?? Last time I looked Pennsylvania was more in the neighborhood of the US. Are Numerousfalx and 68.85.27.47 also so confused about this :-)? What…? you don’t know? 212.102.225.147 13:37, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

text: EU is not a country, but it's not an organization either; it's more than that. It's an union of countries agreeing to collaborate on political, juridical and economic matters. All the various treaties signed by the EU countries, from Maastricht to Shengen, are the proof that it's not just an organization. You and me, we have the right to vote the European Parliament. Tell me about another organization with a parliament elected with an universal suffrage. The statistical relevance of the EU in this list is clear, it's to have a comparison with the other political entities. It's not here to say "We are bigger than you" to our American cousins (???)... this is not an argument! --giandrea 17:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This should follow the precedent developed at such articles as List of countries by GDP (PPP) and List of countries by GDP (nominal). On these articles, the European Union is included, but not ranked, which I believe should be the consensus here. The EU is the closest international organization to being a country, with the Eurozone (most of the EU) having a common currency and monetary policy. It's not a country in my opinion, but I can see the case for it's inclusion, whereas I couldn't see it for NATO, WTO, etc.--naryathegreat | (talk) 23:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The EU has a common currency and an open market within it's border, so it's entry into a list of countries by GDP is not nearly as contentious as it's listing here or in other similar lists.  Malnova 22:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restoring some sanity 

message: The back-and-forth over this is beginning to get silly now. Please sort out a Wikipedia:Consensus here about whether the EU is to be included in the list rather than edit warring over the article. I have protected the page to enforce a cooling-down period, and will unprotect in 12 hours. --Nick Boalch ?!? 13:01, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert war 

message: Given that contributors to this article have continued to show themselves unable to sort out a consensus on this talk page, instead preferring to war on the article's content, I am once again protecting the article. This time it will remain protected indefinitely until I see firm evidence that a consensus has been sorted out here. 
I see two issues:
* Should the European Union be included?
* What should the title of the article be? I previously moved it to List of territories by population in an effort to halt the revert war, but it's now been moved back to List of countries by population. Which do we want?
Please discuss these below, preferably in a civil fashion. When a consensus has been worked out I will unprotect the article.
--Nick Boalch ?!? 11:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As you may know I'm in favour of the inclusion of the EU in the list for many reasons, but the first that cames to mind is "why not?". It's a relevant value for statistical purposes, it's not ranked in the list, and even if it might not be considered a country, it's still a democratically elected body (as in elected by its citizens). --giandrea 18:46, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, actually the EU is a self-governing entity, with a democratically elected parliament. It's not a nation-state, but it has its own currency and citizenship. It's an entity with a special status. --giandrea 09:05, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit war still continuing 

message: I will repeat my proposal of where figures should be sourced...
:Whenever possible, except as outlined below, the official number/estimate provided by the government department in charge of determining such statistics should be used in preference to numbers taken from the CIA World factbook. All numbers from official government departments should include a date and a link to this number if possible or if not should mention the specific source of the number. The date of the statistic should be as close to the middle of the year as possible.
:In these specific instances, the CIA World factbook number should take preference:
:1) No information is available or will be provided by government department on how this number is derived
:2) Strong evidence (should be discussed in the talkpage) that the metholodgy used is seriously flawed. This may include statistical errors, ignoring certain segments of the population and ignoring significant numbers of widely reported deaths.
:In either case, whichever number is not in the main table (CIA World factbook or official figure) should be listed in the footnote.
I am open to the idea of using other more reliable sources as our secondary reference but still feel we should use official figures whenever possible. However the population reference bueraue as mentioned above seems an unsuitable source to me. Their figures seem good but their article is copyrighted and given the amount of data we will be taking from them, I doubt it would be legal. Nil Einne 14:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal repeat 

message: The number stated here for DRC is nearly 30 million more than what the UN has, and the "5" footnote that I hoped would explain it is broken.  - BanyanTree 16:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Figured it out.  The last census, which is the number I was looking at, was in 1984. Sorry for storming on this page. - BanyanTree 16:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  DRC 

message: This has a population figure in the table and is ranked, but I don't think it is a soverign county - it is apparently a government in exile that controls part of Western Sahara. Since Transnistria, another disputed territory, is listed but not ranked, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic should not be ranked either. In addition I suspect that the figure is for Western Sahara and not just the area the Sahrawi controls (the figure given is significantly higher than the population listed on both the Western Sahara and Sahrawi Arab D.R. pages) - after all, if it indeed came from a UN source, why would it give figures for a portion of Western Sahara which itself is disputed? If no one objects I will unrank the figure and rename it Western Sahara.
DisgruntledWaterlooStudent 02:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic 

message: May I update the figure for Israel (as I did for the list of countries by poppulation) or are the UN numbers a binding policy?
Penedo 07:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the List of countries by population(?!). The great thing about this article is that it is a consistent snapshot at a single (recent) period of time, and all numbers are sourced and easily verifiable. The problem with updates is that they are usually based on different methods of estimation and different interpretations. I think it best to stick to just one interpretation. The UN seems as good a source as any (and better than most). -- zzuuzz (talk) 09:25, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the significance of the population clocks in the notes column then if they aren't sources? - ҉Randwicked҉ 12:34, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They appear to be useful additional sources of information, not references for the article. -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:10, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

text: What is the policy of adding corrections. For example Ireland's figure are higher as a result of their recent census. ant_ie 20:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All figures are estimates for a common point in time (mid-2005). If the listed figure is wildly off, I suggest adding a footnote. For reference the 2006 estimate by the UN for Ireland is 4,210,000 (about 0.6% lower than the preliminary 2006 census figure). --Polaron | Talk 21:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating numbers from non-UN sources? 

message: Montenegro voted independence on May 21, so preparations should be made to include it in the list separately. Why revert to older version, if it is a done deal? Nije bitno... 14:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not yet official and the new government has not been recognized yet by the United Nations. In the meantime, you can add a footnote indicating what the estimated separate populations are. Polaron | Talk 14:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Montenegro independent

message: I used CIA factbook for Bangladesh as its facts seem to be more closer to the Bangladesh government's estimates. I am Bangladeshi myself and know first hand.
:According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the population projection for 2005 is 139.1 million (140.9 million for 2006). The UN estimate is closer than the CIA estimate. I think UN data is more accurate in this case. Polaron | Talk 21:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why I used CIA World Factbook. 

message: Here is a link to a copy of the 2006 UN data for reference. Data was obtained from Series 13660 of the United Nations Common Database. The data in the link was retrieved on 2006-04-12. Note that the original data table is behind a subscription wall so may not be public domain. Polaron | Talk 19:48, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  2006 data from UN Common Database 

message: While scanning through the list, I noticed a footnote for the Comoros which stated that the population figure given for that country also included the population of the French overseas territory of Mayotte. Since this is a list of countries and not geographic regions (e.g. Comoros archipelago, Europe, etc) then why is Mayotte included? Also, doesn't the inclusion of Mayotte in the listing for the Comoros promote the claim by the Comoros over Mayotte? If this is so then a section of this article does not conform to a neutral point of view. 72.27.59.26 05:25, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The figure and definition for Comoros were taken directly from the UN World Population Prospects Report. Polaron | Talk 05:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comoros and Mayotte 

message: For some reason, Jersey and Guernsey were listed together as "Channel Islands".  I see no way this is appropriate - they are administratively separate.  I separated them, using the population figures found in their articles (rounded to the nearest thousand). john k 22:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jersey and Guernsey