Talk:Administrative geography of the United Kingdom

message: Maps already exist that could go on this page but the problem is deciding what layer of subdivision to use. As they are somewhat complicated and the sub-articles provide them anyway I would suggest none. MRSC 16:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps a conscious and motivated selection of maps - perhaps just one - to illustrate (ordered hierarchically?) which functions or layers are related to which administrative subdivisons. This would help the reader to get a quick overview. On the other hand, the Scotland and England artcicles seem somewhat confusing, to me at least. //Big Adamsky 16:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The CIA factbook map that you just inserted shows no administrative borders at all. Just the international border. Big Adamsky 16:16, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The structure is unfortunately so complex that to include maps would require pulling futher information out of the articles to explain them - effectively repeating the sub-articles. England alone has four levels of divisions and at one level (county) they are split into four types of unit which may (or may not) be then further divided by another two levels. That said, I have found at least one map that requires no further explanation. MRSC 16:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Map request

message: Sam has made up a Venn [Euler] Diagram that can be found at http://qntm.org/uk, i am not sure of the licence, but it may be of intrest as a link to. SkippyUK 13:02, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This Venn Diagram is that of the British Isles and not the United Kingdom, thus i propose it should be removed as to avoid confusion between both terms. --  RÓNÁN   "Caint / Talk"  22:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I beleve tt it covers both topics; and as such should be worthy of consideration SkippyUK (talk) 21:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  For the record, it's an Euler diagram, not a Euler diagram. "Euler" is pronounced as if it were spelled "oiler". Michael Hardy (talk) 02:30, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

text: No, because it's fundamentally wrong.  "Britain" is not England and Wales: it is a term used for the whole of the UK, including Scotland and NI.  Much more accurate and comprehensive diagrams already exist, in this article and elsewhere.  See also MOS:FLAG.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:54, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Venn [Euler] Diagram of the The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 

message: According to Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use, Ordnance Survej of Great Britain and International Organization for Standardization UK consisting 4 constituent parts: 2 countries (England and Scotland), 1 principality (Wales) and 1 province (Northern Ireland) , . So, informations in this article are wrong. Aotearoa from Poland (talk) 17:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Officially, maybe so - but within the UK, the terms "nation" and "country" are very widely used. I've amended the article to mention this. Bazonka (talk) 20:40, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So, in Wikipedia we should use the official one. Aotearoa from Poland (talk) 16:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The terms "nation" and "country" are so widely used that it would be unthinkable not to refer to them. I'm not entirely sure that "principality" and "province" are official anyway (the documents you referred to are not necessarily authoritative) Bazonka (talk) 11:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Constituent country v. constituent part 

message: As the country issue at Wales is now successfully resolved, I've made the merge. 
I found it impossible to completely remove information on the UK in the constituent country article. Basically, it is because the term is in use for the UK, and so needs to be covered to some degree on the main article, including on a semantic level (ie the word "constituent"). Plase bear in mind that a lot of articles link to constituent country (like Cardiff in its infobox).
I've cut it down to (what felt like) the minimum text though, and linked to here as the 'main article'. 
A lot of useful information has been moved over here. The new 'History' section may include some duplicated information and need some work. Looking through it seemed OK, but this is more something to work from than the finished article. --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge performed

message: Come look see here and vote. MickMacNee (talk) 02:10, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Country within a country" wording proposal

message: How many of these articles which describe the geographic and political terminology with regard to the British Isles now exist?!? This is getting ridiculous! Feel free to merge this with one of the others. --Setanta747 (talk) 01:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  How many? 

message: Eight possibilities originally came up in the end (the last two - which I personally don't see as possibilities - have since been added). I couldn't see others that worked, myself. Mauve etc all looked too close to the two blues (or too close to green or orange). I think one country has to be very dark, unless yellow is used. 
The arrows are a bit 'freehand' (but they can be done properly later - all these can be 'saved-over' easily) - this is about the colours and text placement. These are the same size as currently used, but can be made smaller/larger. I'm running a high resolution, and they look quite big, so I don't think they can really be made bigger as the thumbnail.
I think I favour the first - one of the first four anyway. Maybe number 7. --Matt Lewis (talk) 02:59, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I like 7 but they are all fine by me - great job Matt and thanks  --Snowded (talk) 03:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice.  I'd go for 3 or 7. Bazonka (talk) 08:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

text: I haven't missed it, I have rejected it because it does not use national colours.  As far as I can see you remain the only one interested in it.  --Snowded (talk) 10:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose I could have included examples of England as red, given the labelling itelf is a new addition, and NI has changed. I didn't think to do it as it is essentially the current colouring - and it is so problematic. It almost reverse the traditional colours of Enlgand (white) and Wales (red). I could have also tried: England red, Wales blue, Scotland yellow, and NI white! But I wouldn't vote for it. Wales has to be red.--Matt Lewis (talk) 14:17, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Actually, they are not identical, though if you have a monitor whose brightness is turned down, they may appear identical. Additionally, I indicated a preference for 3, and did this in the knowledge that it was not identical to one of the others, and so I think they should be kept in. So, I've reinstated them.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The second dark colour is a purple. --Matt Lewis (talk) 14:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Map choices

message: If you have a second or furher choices, please leave them in order in brackets.
7 (3) --Matt Lewis (talk) 14:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think for this particular article the text is needed. I don't mind uploading versions without the text if they would be useful somewhere else - esp for consistency. (I could use the sames names without "labelled" in). This is looking like consensus but as there are a lot of '3's I'll leave it a bit longer, to make absolutely sure about the yellow! --Matt Lewis (talk) 19:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Poll on best map

message: First off, my sincere apologies over my recent edits to :Image:United_Kingdom_labelled_map7.png and linked pages. User:Ddstretch pointed out that there was a discussion here on the choice of colours. I think that is great that editors from GB took such a responsible approach to the colouring of the map, but I do think it has been taken a little far. 
Green is of course the colour of Northern Ireland and used by many "national" organisations: NI Commonwealth Games Federation, NI Football team, Sport NI, Northern Ireland Tourist Board, Police Service of Northern Ireland (and the RUC before that), Athletics NI, the Royal Irish are just a few. On a second point if you don't want to offend anyone using yellow wasn't the best choice as can be seen on an Über-Republican Irish Tricolour incorporating the flag of the Roman Catholic Church.
Therefore I would like to propose changing the colour to green      , however if GB editors don't want green then there are other suitable/sensible alternatives:
*       Saint Patrick's Blue (virtually any shade, usually dark used on both the UK Royal Coat of Arms and ROI Coat of Arms)
*       Flax Flower Blue (a light blue used by the Northern Ireland Assembly)
*       Pine green (used alongside the Saint Patrick's Blue by the Northern Ireland Executive)
*       Red (Hand of Ulster) (The colour is more commonly associated (in a UK context) with England and Wales)
Thanks for reading - and sorry once again. Any thoughts?  Roadnote  ♫  19:09, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Green seems like a better choice for Northern Ireland than Yellow. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:53, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The above examples aside, it still has a political connotation - yellow doesn't. It's about avoiding future hassle, not finding examples of past use. --Matt Lewis (talk) 20:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

text: I think the thinking was that the ties to Scotland are too close to use blue (the history between the countrues, both old and modern.. all politics I know) - and red of course is Wales! (although we loan in the England on occasion). Someone did voice the religious connotation in yellow, though not too seriously, as of all the colours available (apart from bright pink), yellow was the best of the bunch. And I expect even pink is used by the church in some denotation - they do like their colours. The flax idea is interesting though (a geyish blue), but I still would keep yellow, as no other UK country uses it. I'm not sure that there is an official blue for the Scotland flag either - I've seen it both dark and light - another possible cause of confusion.--Matt Lewis (talk) 20:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We have got a problem actually, because in Ireland-related articles we need to colour Ireland one colour and Northern Ireland another. The yellow looks quite garish against the green. Could we have a go at design principles to include Ireland as well? Compare the images here.  -- Evertype·✆ 21:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm about to add two more images to the table above. -- Evertype·✆ 21:33, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hope you don't mind but I put them above - otherwise it looks like they were polled in an old poll, but they weren't. --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:42, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

text: This article is about the UK, so the Republic of Ireland should be coloured grey (same as France) because it's not part of the UK. The Republic must not be coloured in.  I would not object too strongly if NI were green, but I should point out that yellow is a traditional colour of Ulster (although of course this is not the same as NI). Bazonka (talk) 22:29, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: They are discussing the Ireland map here too - I've given a couple of alternatives. Are we really discussing a green Northern Ireland for the UK map? I could never pass that - sorry. --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, of course the UK countries table can continue to keep Ireland (the state) grey. The current discussion however is to include Ireland (the state) in the colour design scheme so that we can use the same colours on Ireland/Northern-Ireland-only articles. -- Evertype·✆ 00:50, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree with Matt, it might be best not to confuse the two. the Ireland map doesn't include GB and the UK map doesn't need to identify the ROI. Maybe we should get the opinions of more Irish editors? I accept blue won't work as it is already used in the sea and Scotland. But I don't understand these "political connections". Anyone form Northern Ireland would agree there isn't a problem, green isn't exclusive to republicans nor is it exclusive to the Republic of Ireland. I'll try and upload a copy of the green version of Matt's UK countries map later for comparison, uploads don't seem to be working at present.  Roadnote  ♫  11:48, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd still like to be able to use the same colour for Northern Ireland on our maps as you are using on yours. Not so much to ask... Have a look at these: -- Evertype·✆ 11:56, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Northern Ireland's colour

message: The Introduction of this page says "The United Kingdom, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe, comprises England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales." Shouldn't it read "The United Kingdom, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe, comprises of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland." As a result of the Acts of Union 1707 then the later Act of Union 1800. Mr Taz (talk) 19:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's probably much more confusing for our readers. The UK is a result of much more than those two pairs of Acts of Union (see Template:UKFormation), whilst England, Scotland and Wales span beyond Great Britain, by way of the Isle of Wight, Northern Isles and Anglesey alone. --Jza84 |  Talk   19:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Once again we see political and geographical terms conflicting. It should be made clear that the phrase "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is a politically coined misnomer - excluding, geographically, 394 offshore islands from the political whole. DavidFRAS (talk) 22:15, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where is Great Britain? 

message: Can we actually detail what might be biased on both this and the Countries of the United Kingdom article? Neither need be so (an yes they are overlapping - though we needn't delete either). 
There certainly is a lot of nationalism in the UK, but bias or intent does not necessarily mean the information isn't sound or appropriate. Regarding the title "Countries of the United Kingdom", it is a commonly-used phrase. The alphabetical ordering of "England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales" unfortunately isn't. We can't go after "intent" on Wikipedia (I've had my fingers burnt there myself) - and we need to just accept that the word "country" is simple more flexible than "sovereign state" (why else do we have this other term?). The US was calling Georgia the "sovereign state" not so long ago, and saying how the "they must be respected" - it is where the international power lines are, but the situation showed how politics has its own language - Abkhazia and South Ossetia were not Georgian culturally, and were called "breakaway states". I'm certainly not comparing this with the UK (a different situation entirely). But the principle of 'country' being the 'non-political' word is the same - I see as much bias trying to deny it as trying to overplay it, but to me the word simply esists. We certainly don't call ourselves united 'states' in the UK, because we were always countries (or a country formed out of the division of a pre-existing country, like Northern Ireland).
By the way, I will soon be applying some more citations to the term "multicultural" (if that is a problem of bias, I don't know). It is more leftfield to say the cultures in the UK are not 'multicultural', than it is to call the UK multicultural (the winning Olympic bid, and the traditional - and in my view correct - view). Some sociology can crawl inside iteself on these things IMO (as sociology often does - it's a multifarious field to say the least). Most of the UK articles seem to be shy on tackling ethnicity. I worked on the Haringey article last year (now in the news, of course), as I noticed in passing that it basically manipulated ethnicity statistics to claim there are less than 50% white people in Haringey (it focused only British decent). I found out that around 65% of Haringey's population were white (and the Irish and others, of course, are not 'non-white'). The truth is that Britain is full of different cultures, whether British citizens, or British-decended or not. Some people are certainly British full stop, as it means something to them other than being Enlgish, for example. When someone becomes a British citizen why should they be made to be 'English' too, just because they moved to England? Britishness for them is clearly keeping their culture (first from the old empire, but it rubs off on other immigants too). We all know the millions Polish are very different culturally (which is why its argued that we should have gone back to the old empire, or the 'commonwealth', when we were searching for workers, as they are closer in identity). Great cities like London have always had a kind of cultural life of their own too, and are a significant part of the wider identity.
Anyway (I'm not even sure if that the identity section is a problem) - can we detail what is wrong, so it can be addressed? 
(PS - lets not make "Wales is not a real country" etc an 'issue' again here, please - it will simply obscure debate and prevent progress.)--Matt Lewis (talk) 12:55, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've read this a couple of times, but I'm struggling following where the real gripe lies. What is it you're proposing? As I understand it, this article is merely about how the UK is geographically subdivided. Culture, ethnicity, identity, language are all factors that shouldn't be in the article IMO. --Jza84 |  Talk   22:21, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it was about Countries of the UK more than this, but was in response to a comment in here. I'll have to come back to it again. Maybe I'll move it when I look at it - I'm fixed on Ireland right now, so we can get the Ireland disam right esp. --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

text: Well you could start by proposing changes rather than criticising one of the admins who has show he understands the issues associated with the various UK Pages.  I have had my run ins with him but the above comments a nonsense.   I also see that you are a "new" user who has jumped straight into a controversial area.  --Snowded TALK 19:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Detailing issues 

message: According to this article the reason why there are no single defined terms for the subdivisions of the UK is solely due to the lack of a single document written constitution.  This is a false and unverified statement.--jrleighton (talk) 02:38, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Correct it then. Bazonka (talk) 07:14, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Constitution

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I boldly removed the whole section because it had not been verified eleven years after being queried. I looked for verification but found none that suited. In the circumstances I think I had every right to remove that section. I had considered first bringing this to talk, which I  accept was an alternative approach, but not necessarily a better one. My personal view is that this topic is so fraught with subtleties and misunderstandings that care needs to be taken when inserting text, and as such a total properly sourced re-write was the best approach, probably resurrecting much of the detail in the now deleted text. If the section is to be put back then I think it is more than reasonable to have good citations inserted without delay. Thank you to Ghmyrtle for making an issue of this. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:27, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I inserted two citations yesterday that between them provided sources for all claims in that section. I would not oppose a rewrite. There is a fuller article elsewhere on Wikipedia, so this section ought to be no more than a summary of the full article. However there is no reason to delete it as it is now fully sourced. Sirfurboy (talk) 08:51, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: History section

message: The legislature for Wales, formerly known as the 'National Assembly for Wales', is now known as 'Senedd Cymru' or 'the Welsh Parliament' in both English and Welsh. It is also commonly known and referred to, in both Welsh and English, as the 'Senedd'. 
Please see the Senedd's guidance on the name change for more information -https://senedd.wales/en/abthome/Documents/External%20content%20guide%20FINAL.pdf.
There are currently two references to the institution in the Wikipedia article. Namely:
Reference A - "Wales has an elected, devolved legislature, the Senedd Cymru – Welsh Parliament, from which the Welsh Government is drawn."
Reference B - "Constituencies also exist for the devolved Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru – Welsh Parliament and Northern Irish Assembly".
Note the use of the definite article in Reference A and B. In order to be grammatically correct, the definite article 'the' should not precede the term 'Senedd Cymru', although the definite article should precede the term 'Welsh Parliament'. For clarity, it would be correct for the definite article to precede the term 'Senedd'. 
In addition, the Welsh Government's Style Guide (https://llyw.cymru/bydtermcymru/style-guide) notes that the Government's own policy is to refer to refer to 'Senedd Cymru' as the 'Senedd' in Welsh and in English. The Government also uses 'Senedd Cymru' in (English and Welsh) when the institution is mentioned for the first time in documentation, and as 'the Senedd' in any subsequent references to it within the document. There is discretion to use the term 'the Welsh Parliament' in addition to the use of 'Senedd Cymru'. The Senedd's own guidance also supports these conventions.
I therefore suggest that references A and B should be edited in line with this edit that was undone. Namely:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Administrative_geography_of_the_United_Kingdom&oldid=962759526  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jammyjames60 (talk • contribs) 10:14, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of the name 'Senedd Cymru', 'the Welsh Parliament' and the 'Senedd'