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| #REDIRECT ] | |||
| {{Misplaced Pages subcat guideline|naming conventions|places}} | |||
| {{main|Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions}} | |||
| {{See also|Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (city names)|Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (geographic names)}} | |||
| '''Naming conventions (places)''' are guidelines on how to appropriately name articles about countries and regions, and places within each country or region. This style guideline is intended to make this process more efficient by giving article titles a consistent look, and avoiding distracting information. | |||
| It is important to note that these are ''conventions'', not rules written in stone. As Misplaced Pages grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated, and there may be cases where a particular convention is "obviously" inappropriate. But when in doubt, follow convention. | |||
| {{Style}}Generally, ] should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. | |||
| In addition to following the naming conventions it is also important to follow the ]. Following consistent conventions in both naming and linking makes it more likely that links will lead to the right place. | |||
| == Check for the name == | |||
| Always ''']''' for the shortest form of the name. When the short form "ShortName" does not yet exist, while ], always check the <u>''What links here''</u> link on the creation page '''before''' saving it. If the name has already been used in articles for another purpose, use a ] page instead. | |||
| This will give some inkling about how the name has already been used in existing articles, and whether a long form has already been established for that administrative division of a particular country. | |||
| {{main|Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (subnational entities)}} | |||
| ==General issues== | |||
| If the name of a place has changed over time, what name do we use to refer to that place? When places 'change ownership' during the course of time, what convention should be followed? | |||
| === Cities === | |||
| There are no special naming conventions for cities, unless multiple cities with the same name exist. For more information, see: ] | |||
| === Streets and highways === | |||
| U.S. Highways should be listed as is found in ]. | |||
| As for city streets, the rule of "most common usage" is recommended, if the streets are notable (for example ]). For non-notable streets, there is not currently consensus on whether individual articles should even exist. A 2005 debate about the matter can be seen at ]. See also: ] | |||
| == Countries == | |||
| In general, country-specific articles and categories should be named using the form: "(item) of (country)". For more information, see: ]. | |||
| ==Specific issues== | |||
| ===Australia=== | |||
| All Australian town/city/suburb articles are at <nowiki>]</nowiki> no matter what their status of ambiguity is. Capital Cities will be excepted from this rule and preferentially made <nowiki>]</nowiki>. The unqualified <nowiki>]</nowiki> should be either a redirect or disambig page. ]s are at their official name. | |||
| The state of Victoria is at ] due to all the other uses of ]. | |||
| ===Counties of Britain=== | |||
| Carried with 13 in favour, 2 against.: ''We should use the current, administrative, county. E.g. Eton is in Berkshire, not Buckinghamshire.'' | |||
| This approach is consistent with most local | |||
| and national government literature, some private sector literature, will be | |||
| familiar to most readers and writers, and indeed the approach will apply even | |||
| if boundaries change again. It is also easy for people to find out where | |||
| a particular village is, as maps with administrative boundaries are freely available online. While historic county maps do exist, it is hard to find one with maps of modern urban areas and city and borough boundaries transposed against historic counties. It is also consistent with other encyclopedias such as the ], which specifically calls ] a 'former county'. | |||
| We should mention historic counties in articles about places and in references to places in a historic context, but only as an afternote. If a place is a ] and not administered by a county council, it is acceptable to use ] as geographic references, as this is often more in line with common usage. As has been pointed out, it is not useful to state that "Luton is a town in the county of Luton". | |||
| In historic references we should make sure to note that the county at the time | |||
| was not the same as the county now, if relevant. | |||
| Articles about counties should not be split up and should not be | |||
| disambiguation pages. They should treat the counties as one entity | |||
| which has changed its boundaries with time. We should not take | |||
| the minority position that they still exist with the former boundaries. | |||
| We should mention that this position exists, especially on pages like ] and ]. | |||
| With respect to the areas covered by unitary authorities, we should only call them counties if they (a) are legislatively defined as such, and (b) are significantly larger than the town they are centred upon, or have no such centring. If the formal title is '''Borough''' (formerly "County Borough") then that is the form to be used. So we would refer to the ], the ], and the ], but we would say just ], ], ]. | |||
| Metropolitan counties should be treated as counties - the fact that they no longer have councils has no relevance on their legal status. | |||
| With respect to which version of the traditional boundaries we should acknowledge as having historic importance - the versions before the 1847 revisions would probably be best - they include many more anomalies, like ] and other exclaves. | |||
| Examples of acceptable things: | |||
| *''Coventry is in the West Midlands, and within the traditional borders of Warwickshire'' | |||
| *''Most of the pigeons were found at ], then part of ]'' | |||
| *''Middlesex is a traditional county of England, now mostly covered by ]''* | |||
| *''Southwark is a village in the ] in ]. It is in the traditional borders of ]'' | |||
| *''Stoke-on-Trent is a city in the English Midlands, it is a part of ] for ], although it is administered as a ]'' | |||
| Examples of unacceptable things: | |||
| *''Coventry is a town in Warwickshire, and administered by the metropolititan administrative "county" of ]'' | |||
| *''Brixton is a place in Surrey, England within the former metropolitan "countiy" of Greater London and in the London Borough of Lambeth.'' | |||
| *''Middlesex was a county of England. It was abolished in ] after being gutted in ] to form the ]. The end.'' | |||
| ====Addendum==== | |||
| * ''Some people have claimed that this contradicts the rest of the above policy, so an explanation is in order. No administrative or ceremonial county of Middlesex exists, it therefore exists purely as an area name and is in fairly common usage, the same applies to ]. In all other cases where an administrative county or ceremonial county exists. For the purposes of Misplaced Pages, these are treated as single entities which have changed their borders over time, so referring to the historic county area as a still existing entity is not acceptable, as is stated clearly above. If a county is still commonly used as an area name in its historic area, and is relevant, than that should be noted'' | |||
| :: ''N.b. it should be noted that the above 'interpretation' was added after the policy was passed and ''was not voted on''. Editors might therefore not consider it to be ']' in comparison with the ''policy'' proper.'' | |||
| :: ''It should also be pointed out that six users have privately told ] that they support this addendum, although of course it is unknown how many other users support or oppose this addendum but have remained silent.'' | |||
| This does not form part of the policy, but attempts to reason that it is not self-contradictory, as has been alleged. If you have comments they go on the talkpage. | |||
| These examples were intended to demonstrate that (a) it is totally acceptable to refer to counties as 99% of people do, and regard the 1844, 1889, 1965 and 1974 changes as changes. (b) as a concession it is important to mention continued use of the placename. Thus we should mention Middlesex Crown Courts, Middlesex bank of the Thames, Middlesex as a formal postal address location, etc.) | |||
| ===States in the USA and Provinces of Canada=== | |||
| Always write these out in full: not everybody understands the two-letter abbreviations that are often used in North America. | |||
| ===Countries of Europe=== | |||
| There have been many changes as the result of two World Wars (e.g. the disappearance, reappearance, and change in area of Poland) and of many other conflicts (e.g. the breakup of Yugoslavia) and peaceful political reorganisations (e.g. the division of Czechoslovakia, or the reunification of East and West Germany). In case of name changes, the current widely accepted English name or in absence thereof, the current local official name is to be used. When mentioned in a historical context, the current local official name can be additionally accompanied by the appropriate historical name in parentheses, where reasonable. This applies both to articles' contents and titles. A historical name can be used in article title only in case of a redirect to the appropriate article titled with the official name. | |||
| The ] and the ] should be consulted when preparing articles. | |||
| ====Country and Topic Specific Guidance==== | |||
| Topic specific guidance has been developed and should be followed: | |||
| *Scandinavian History - Follow the naming conventions specified in ] and its subordinate topics. | |||
| Country specific guidance has been developed and should be followed: | |||
| * Norway - Follow the naming conventions specified in ] | |||
| * Switzerland - Follow the naming conventions specified in ] | |||
| *Irish issues - Naming issues for Ireland are expanded upon at ] | |||
| ===Transliteration of Cyrillic-alphabet place names=== | |||
| This has recently (as of Feb. 27, 2004) become a contentious issue. A number of articles (e.g. ]) now begin with a long string of Cyrillic and one or more transliterations into Roman characters. Also, a standard developed here could be applies to names of individuals, which seem to be following the same path. Please use the appropriate section of this article's ] for the discussion. ane results will be posted here. | |||
| ===Place names in China=== | |||
| {{Main|Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Chinese)}} | |||
| ===Place names in Ireland === | |||
| {{main | Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles)}} | |||
| ===Place names in Japan === | |||
| {{main | Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)}} | |||
| ===Place names in Korea === | |||
| {{main |Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Korean)}} | |||
| ===Place names in New Zealand=== | |||
| Since most places in New Zealand have unique names, the standard convention (where it is necessary to distinguish a place in New Zealand from one elsewhere) is simply to use the form "]", irrespective of whether the place is a town, river, or whatever. In those rare instances where two places in New Zealand have the same name then the following rules are used: | |||
| *If both places are the same type of place (e.g., both towns), the Regional names are used (for example, "Waverley, Taranaki" and "Waverley, Otago"). | |||
| *If the two places are different types of place, then parentheses are used to disambiguate (for example, "]" and "]") | |||
| Rules of Maori place names are still under discussion, but at present, where the usual name of a place is Maori, macrons are not used in the name. Where the usual name is English but there is also a Maori name, macrons are used in the Maori name. Thus Whakatane is simply ], but ] is also listed within the article as Ōtautahi. In the rare instance where a place officially has both Maori and English names and both are used equally, both names are used in the article title, separated by an oblique (e.g., ]). The order in which the two names are listed is not fixed. | |||
| ===Place names in Poland=== | |||
| {{Main|Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Geography of Poland}} | |||
| == See also == | |||
| * ] (unapproved proposal, still in development) | |||
| * ] (unapproved proposal, still in development) | |||
| ] | |||
Latest revision as of 11:17, 7 February 2009
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