Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about counties

message: There needs to be some suggestions, somewhere, about the kinds of InfoBoxes that can be added to these entries. I know there appear to be InfoBoxes for the Counties and the Districts (at least in England), but perhaps these need documenting here? Also, given that there are InfoBoxes for Counties, Districts, and Settlements (at least in England!), I think there is a need to complete this by having an InfoBox for Civil Parishes. Such an InfoBox would at least specify the name, its position within the district and county, and its area and population. The usual kind of things, in fact. What do people think about and suggest for fields in such an InfoBox? Should there be an InfoBox at all? I would definitely have a use for one, myself, as part of the work I am doing on the Cheshire project.  DDStretch  (talk) 13:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that. Would it be possible to make use of that for ourselves? Can it be modified in any way?  DDStretch  (talk) 14:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes - Template:Cornwallparish is the template I've drawn up for this, so you would only need to add  to the relevent pages, and then the shorthand for the information.  It would be relatively simple to rename the template to UKparish.  The style of the infobox is consistent with that of UK county infoboxes. The boxes currently on the penwith parishes are all written in longhand at the moment as I hadn't worked out what templates were for when I originally put them in!Mammal4 14:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In the new guide it would be helpful to have a listing of useful templates and how to use them in the County context- at a level understandable by newbies ClemRutter (talk) 23:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: InfoBoxes

message: Until you have tried to contribute to a ceremonial county that contains a unitary the size of the problem isn't apparent. Everything has to be duplicated- statistics/including those in infoboxes- location of county town/s- all value judgements- e.g. the largest road/river frontage. This needs to be considered when the new guide is written.ClemRutter (talk) 23:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Ceremonial v Administrative

message: In the new guide- a list of the type of images that are relevant and how to format. Where to upload, a link to the :Commons:Geocoding and a mention of www.geograph.co.uk project
ClemRutter (talk) 23:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that we need more guidance about this. The issue that has recently come to my attention about images is the deletion of images of county and district (tier two) coats of arms that were going into various infoboxes and articles. There are two aspects of the matter: (a) should a coat of arms go into a county or district infobox or article at all, rather than the article specifically about the council that administers the region (county or district)?, and (b) should we make sure that any coats of arms created as images are as safe as possible from being deleted if that is at all possible? I've seen the deletion of the actual images, and I wonder what the policies or guidelines say about this. I'd appreciate some comments and guidance about this.  DDStretch  (talk) 01:16, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Images

message: OK folks, I've took on board most, if not all the concerns raised so far. I've expanded some material for Scotland and Wales too (though more is needed for the Principal areas of Wales and Counties of Northern Ireland).
I'm assuming now that these guidelines are now live (?). If there are any fresh concerns or need for adjustments, I for one would appreciate it if users could explain their intentions here first to achieve consensus. Spelling mistakes and other simple changes of course being exempt from this. -- Jza84 · (talk) 00:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gone Live? 

message: Just a comment on the Guidelines table.  Berkshire is no longer an Administrative County, but it is a Ceremonial County.  Unfortunately, its unusual status means that with the wording currently in use, it actually fits in two separate guidelines - the top one (as it's a Ceremonial County) and the third one (as it no longer functions with an administrative role).  Can someone think of slightly better wording so that it's quite clear which section (presumably the Ceremonial County one) that it fits within? Fingerpuppet 16:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not offering a solution, but want to add that if the changes in local government proposed for Cheshire come into force in 2009, I understand that Cheshire will be in a similar situation, since it will be made up of unitary authorities with no functioning overall county administration.  DDStretch  (talk) 16:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: These are good points - just the kind of thing I was hoping we'd find really! I would be very much inclined to write Berkshire from the ceremonial perspective, would others? Perhaps all that is needed would be a including Berkshire adding on? I don't know, -- Jza84 · (talk) 16:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree.  I think of Berkshire as being a "halfway house" between Traditional Counties and modern Administrative Counties. It's not quite dead yet, but it's not far short of being.  I've been thinking about it, and I'm still not sure how to phrase it - but I've realised that we need to be very careful with any use of Administrative Counties in the phrasing, as all Unitary Authorities are technically Administrative Counties (such as the County of Derby, County of Leicester, County of Southampton et al). Fingerpuppet (talk) 16:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I also agree. If the changes for Cheshire go ahead, then one possible way of dealing with the article might be this. It's the best I can think of at the moment, but may be it can spark some better idea in someone here: the article about Cheshire should talk about the ceremonial role it has in the present tense, since that aspect of it would be still in existence. The history of the county then would be written about, but since this would deal with an entity whose functions would have by then disappeared (apart from the ceremonial ones), these would be written about in the past tense, as if we were writing about a dead person. In effect, most of the specific articles as they exist for a "live county" would be transformed into articles more like "History of..." articles. Does that seem right just for a starter, or should it be altered a bit? Can anyone suggest anything better?  DDStretch  (talk) 17:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are aware that Cheshire existed for many hundreds of years without a county council, right? Lancsalot (talk) 18:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

text:  "people in general do not talk of Bournemouth being in Hampshire or Liverpool being in Lancashire" - Many of us do.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.90.32.76 (talk) 20:59, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

text: Actually, on reflection, I agree with you. Ignore my previous message. Only the governance section needs to be in the past tense.  DDStretch  (talk) 01:03, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Berkshire 

message: I've been busy expanding Template:Infobox historic subdivision, which now replaces a variety of infoboxes for historic subdivisions and incorporates fields found in Template:Infobox England historic county and Template:Infobox London Met Borough. They are nominated for deletion. MRSC • Talk 20:17, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have incorporated articles using Template:Infobox Wales historic county, which is now also nominated for deletion. MRSC • Talk 15:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Template:Infobox historic subdivision

message: I usually remove these from infoboxes and place them somewhere in the article with a caption "Unnoficial county flag of Foo". I do this because I think it is wrong for us to imply in any way they are official, by presenting them in infoboxes often without so much as a caption. Did we come to a decision on this? What do other editors do? MRSC 06:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't checked through the county articles for a while but I thought these had gone from infoboxes (bar Yorkshire and Cornwall). I would have though it best practice not having these in the infoboxes for the reasons just stated including the two just stated. Other county emblems, particularly "county flowers" should be treated with caution too. Of course we have things like the Cheshire cat, and the Red Rose of Lancaster, but there seems to be the Plantlife charity list of their "county flowers" being used in lead sections! I'd be happy for a note about this on the guide. -- Jza84 · (talk) 13:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

text: A long long time ago, I created a "symbols" section for Devon to move the flag out of the infobox.  It returned.  Joe D (t) 20:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Can we agree something here and get some support. I don't want to see any more flag-war over this. MRSC • Talk 11:09, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Unnoficial county flags

message: I've not had time to follow the evolution of this page closely, so I apologise if I'm wasting everyone's time going over old ground, but I would just like some clarification on a few changes (to the English counties box) that have occurred since I last checked in.  Were these changes discussed before they were made, were any arguments made in their favour, and are they really what we want to be encouraging?
# Climate section -- in our featured articles (Dorset and Somerset), climate is part of physical geography, and I thought this was the case with our guidelines.  I am sceptical that climate would ever need a section of its own, and am therefore unsure that we should be encouraging having such a section.  I think that the addition of this section to the guidelines has also caused the introduction to the box to be incorrect: "Editors are strongly encouraged, however, to follow the first five sections outlined here." -- I believe that this applies to History, Geol/lands/ecol, Politics, Demographics and Economy sections. 
# Settlements - we are now being encouraged (underlined, so strongly encouraged) to use a table.  My immediate unconsidered reaction is that this is a terrible idea.  My considered reaction is only a little more favourable.  This section always used to encourage prose, briefly describing the important settlements.  Again, our featured articles use prose for this section.
# Sports - didn't we used to encourage including "sport" within "Culture"?  Once again, in our featured articles, sports form a paragraph within a culture section.  
I am rather surprised that "culture" has been relegated to "optional" sections, and I think it would be helpful to have a proper guideline for writing culture sections -- after all, I'm sure that I would be able to recommend a county for "FA" without such a section.  If we do make such a guideline, in addition to using our FAs for ideas, Cornwall might be useful to take a look at (not that I think the culture section is especially well organised, but it is quite comprehensive).
I would actually suggest that we discourage having "sports" as even an optional section, unless we can be sure that some editors will monitor it.  My experience of the "culture" section of Bristol is that it is a constant battle to prevent these sections from filling up with "victory cruft".  If one tried to study British sport using Wikipedia, you would find that every team in Britain is in the top 5%, winning important victories and trophies.  At the very least, I think we need some good guidelines about what not to put in a sports section -- no more than three sentences for any one sports team (if the team is notable, it will have its own article); avoid individual match results; be careful not to include too much recentism, or, conversely, too much historical detail.
Cheers, Joe D (t) 21:16, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Corrections to changes to the guidelines + culture & sport guidelines 

message: I've recently created new county templates for Leicestershire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire all using Template:County, however I've noticed that several county templates are using Template:Navbox instead and there is inconsistency as a result.
So..am I correct in thinking that Template:County is the preferred template to use, and should any templates using Template:Navbox be converted to Template:County for consistency?
Some other questions:
1. Some county templates such as Template:East Sussex are using alternative colours - is this encouraged or should all templates use default colours for consistency?
2. Should county templates be added to settlement articles (eg villages) that aren't actually linked in the template, or just to those articles that are?
3. Is there a list somewhere of preferred topics to be included in county templates?
4. Some counties also have "Places in" templates such as Template:Places in Bedfordshire and Template:T&W places. Should these be replaced by county templates and phased out, or retained and used as well?? My own view is that they're unwieldy and unnecessary since "Places in" can be accessed from the main county template, but what do others think?
Dallan72 (talk) 20:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  County templates 

message: Please note I am drafting Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about districts and it has some overlap with this policy. MRSC (talk) 22:41, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: How to write about districts

message: Please have a look at WP:Naming conventions (UK counties) (it was marked as a guideline, but I've demarked it as it seems to be in such poor shape), and comment on its talk page as to whether it should be redirected to or merged with this page. Thanks, --Kotniski (talk) 12:36, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Page to be redirected/merged with this one

message: Hi everyone. I expect this post will ruffle a few feathers and I hope it does. Numerous Wikipedia articles deal with British counties. Very many of them do nothing but cause confusion and contradiction. The reason is the false assumption that historic counties, administrative counties and ceremonial  counties are all variations of the same thing that has been modified over time. This is simply wrong. They are separate entities that have the misfortune to have in common the word 'county', the same name (such as Somerset, Hampshire, and so on), and a reasonably similar location on the earth's surface. To argue about whether or not Romford, for example, is in Essex is pointless unless you first define what Essex you are talking about. If you are talking about the historic county then of course Romford is in Essex, but if you are talking about the Ceremonial county then no it is not in Essex, it is in Greater London. 
The convention on Wikipedia, that seems to have been arrived at many years ago without much in the way of later review, is to treat, in this example, Essex as one entity, the administrative Essex, and then to have an article about that Essex and to try to accommodate the other Essexes within it. You are effectively then trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. The result is confusion heavily laced with illogical comments. Somebody can quite correctly write that Romford is in Essex and somebody else can just as correctly write that Romford is in London. What we do not want, and the wider, especially unfamiliar, readership does not deserve is for one of those statements to be removed or criticised as being incorrect. To do so also does a grave disservice to the truth and the intent of Wikipedia.
What then is the solution? Drawn out though it may be there may be no option but to take the onerous path of having three articles for Essex and to amend the very many other articles that will be affected by this change of approach.
It is unfortunate that a more robust analysis of the problem of 'counties' was not undertaken many years ago in the early days of Wikipedia. Had that been done we might have avoided the increasingly big hole we are digging for ourselves.
To end, here is one example, from the WP guidelines on county names, that illustrates my point. It is stated that WP does not follow the minority view that the boundaries of English historic counties still exist. Of course they exist - they were and you cannot change what was. What, I think, the author meant to say is that the boundaries of historic counties no longer have an administrative purpose. Most champions of historic counties know that they no longer have an administrative purpose, but so what? The historic counties still have other purposes that more than justify attention being given to them.
This mess with county names has been created by successive governments over a relatively short time. It is not our job to undo the mess but rather to accommodate it as best as possible in wiki articles. To change facts or twist the truth, which is happening far too often, is anathema to what most of us believe and what Wikipedia stands for.Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:32, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I've found the original discussions about this topic which took place in 2003/2004 if it's of interest to you. G-13114 (talk) 21:06, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Roger, everyone. I hope my appearance here does not ruffle your feathers:-) For what it is worth, I agree wholeheartedly with above post and particularly the final sentence part "to change facts or twist the truth, which is happening far too often, is anathema". I have only been 'in' WP forum for a few days, but, I have consulted a fair number of many WP pages and reams of 'talk areas'. I have seen far too many cases of obfuscation, and, this is the first requirement for 'truth' that I have seen and was beginning to despair for WP entity. Using the example above I would offer, please, a suggestion where there could exist one only Essex article, called, Essex (County of). Detail will be placed in Roger's proposed guideline.  after each section, for brevity and ease of understanding. I would suggest that the description of the differing 'counties' takes place on the "WP:Counties of England" article. This could briefly explain the chaotic progression / development that has resulted in counties having complimentary but different boundaries, 'traditional', 'administration' and 'ceremonial', and, that not all counties have all of these. A new discussion will be required on "WP:Counties of England" article but will reduce repeat text on individual county articles. An interesting observation, for later consideration / different forum. It is the case, I think, that admin boundary is under control of the (unelected?) Electoral Commission, and, Ceremonial is under control of Parliament via Lieutenancies Act. Who, or what body, if any, has vested or other authority to change 'traditional / geographical' boundaries? Starting to tire here. Final for tonight. If community consensus is to use term 'traditional boundary', I would suggest a need to quantify the term to avoid future challenges based on timeline. I further suggest that, for WP purposes, 'county traditional boundary' be specifically defined, at the highest subjective hierarchical place, as referring to the county's configuration immediately prior to the 1974 local government reorganisation (this being the point where we brits lost the plot:-) The terms 'traditional counties / boundaries' may also be open to later interpretations. To avoid this, can I suggest going back to the much earlier term 'Geographical Counties' described as "the County Boundaries in existence at the time of (the 1974 Act, better words needed)" This should lock it down. Mikewhit (talk) 08:39, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong Assumptions about County Names creates Confusion and illogical Articles 

message: Our guidelines, here , that have caused much debate over time, state that -- we do not take the view that the historic/ancient/traditional counties still exist with the former boundaries. The writings of Joan Beal  provide reliable secondary sources on topics relating to the regions of Britain, as here --  (pp 218-220). Is Beal saying that historic counties still exist with their former boundaries, or that they do not? Opinions welcome. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 01:07, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: What is this source saying?

message: Here  we are told to put a settlement's historic county in the lead. As in the section above, we are told the historic counties no longer exist. User:MRSC keeps stating, with determination, that historic counties should not be put in the lead of settlements in outer London boroughs because they do not exist.  What should we do? MRSC has been involved in some edit squabbles with different editors, including me, where he reverts, contrary to the lead guidelines, and without giving references to back his position. She (maybe he) is an experienced editor, so the constant use of original research is puzzling. For those of you who have not seen all these changes, look at Surbiton as an example that according to MRSC is not in the historic county of Surrey. 'That means there is a question mark over 28.7 million google sites. What do we do with Surbiton then? Which guideline do we follow? What do we do with all the reliable sources putting Surbiton in Surrey? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 14:45, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Guidelines contradict

message: Cuxton is a town in the unitary authority of Medway in South East England. It was, until 1998,[2] part of Kent and is still ceremonially associated via the Lieutenancies Act. This can be viewed in different ways. Any comments welcome. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 06:40, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: my last edit- I don't think I have anything to add to the wording debate on ceremonial Kent- we played this out ad infinitum in agreeing the wording of election leaflets all thro the 1980s. And later in tourist leaflets for RuMCC and fledgling Medway. But calling a crossroads with no facilities a Town is ridiculous it has 2600 inhabitants many living in outlying farms and in Upper Bush, one lady and her Labrador used to canvas both Cuxton and Halling in an afternoon!--ClemRutter (talk) 12:04, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

text: This may help to verify the confusion. Kent Teach directory of schools (sic) describes this as a lovely little village between the M2 and M20. Cuxton Library (Medway) is open for 16 hours a week - but cherished.--ClemRutter (talk) 12:35, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Cuxton, Medway

message: “A note on any divisions or suburbs of the settlement.”
I think it needs changing, I assume it was left over from using a settlement how to as a template. Maybe:
“A note on any districts, towns and cities of the county.” Chocolateediter (talk) 09:21, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ceremonial Geography