Talk:Country/Catalogs

I realise I've made an off-the-cuff policy decision here with my intro. Feel free to dispute, but I think it is the only way to avoid back-and-forth POV pushing of the type that plagues Wikipedia: To count it must be a UN member.Ian Cundell 18:44, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Why not rename the article to "List of Member States of the United Nations." (or something more catchy.) Since that's what it will be. Derek Harkness 04:03, 8 March 2007 (CST)

I agree with Derek about the title of the article. I've added the members from A through L. I'll add the rest later today.Hillie Plantinga 08:55, 8 March 2007 (CST)

The problem with the name is that we aren't interested in "member states of the UN" (right now). We're interested in the countries of the world. Therefore, in addition to the UN states, we can have a handy list of nonrecognized/questionable/whatever states. --Larry Sanger 09:21, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Gareth's slight reworking of the intro is immensely helpful. The point is to have a clear concept of organization that avoids the problems of special/ vested interest groups arguing that their hobby horse absolutely MUST has recognition at the top level: as a matter of policy we should deal with "nonrecognized/questionable/whatever" in the article for the pertinent state that is recognised. Any argument is over at a stroke and if you wish to know about South Ossetia you start at the Georgia article.

I would also argue for a name change, but to Citizendium Gazetteer, with a category of the same name for country's/ city's/ continent's etc articles, and the removal of Countries of the World from the Social Science section on the front page because, quite frankly it ain't. As I may have cited elsewhere, mere place names are not geography.Ian Cundell 17:38, 8 March 2007 (CST)

I'm very open to a name change. Citizendium Gazetteer is an interesting possibility. --Larry Sanger 19:18, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Cool. What's the best way to take things forward? Just go for it and see it it ends up making sense? Ian Cundell 15:05, 10 March 2007 (CST)

I'd like to discuss the implications of our labelling a list of countries a "Gazetteer." What precisely will we mean by this term? Does this mean that we will have Gazetteers for every national and major subnational entity? Let's get a reasonable proposal on the table before we take an action with such consequential implications. Will we mean something different by entries in a "Gazetteer" than what we mean by "encyclopedia article"? Or is the only reason we choose the word "Gazetteer" that it provides a nice label for a list of geographical entities? --Larry Sanger 17:46, 11 March 2007 (CDT)

Well, a gazetteer is a geographical index and this is one way of organising the information on geographical objects. I would favour a category/ workgroup to back it up and move the other pertinent stuff (Lists of Oceans/ mountain ranges - whatever AND the articles to it) to this and away from Geography (which is a subject, not an object). The only reason I kept it to countries was because that was the title of the (then red) link. 'Gazetteer' is a good, reasonably familiar term for a way of cataloguing geographical information (Let's Go..., Rough Guide etc are all gazetteers), so it makes sense. But happy for another term if anyone can think of one. Citizendium Guide to the World, anyone? Ian Cundell 14:20, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

Additional Information.

Can we convert this list into a table and add some addition information and or demographics. For example, Capital City, Continent, Population, Land area, Adjoining Counties and Seas. Derek Harkness 19:49, 8 March 2007 (CST)

No problem in principle, but I'd be wary of over complicating things. I'd favour keeping as sinmple an index as possible: Country; Capital; Land Area; Population. No real need for "feature bloat"

But if we switch to a Gazetteer approach there may be scope for a more flexible outlook. In the end any apporach needs to be easily understood. Ian Cundell 15:02, 10 March 2007 (CST)

There is the obvious limit of the width for the screen. I thought perhapse 4 or 5 columns containing just the most important information and demographics. Derek Harkness 03:18, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

No problem with that. Ian Cundell 14:20, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

Taiwan, etc.

I understand the desire to head off disputes of the kind that plague the similar wikipedia article on this subject, but it seems like problems are bound to creep in. A couple of thoughts:

1. Limiting to UN member states is untenable. The Vatican would have to be excluded if this were strictly observed. Furthermore, until quite recently there were undoubtedly sovereign states which were not UN members. Notably Switzerland, which only joined in 2002 or so.
2. Taiwan/The Republic of China is a sovereign state in all but name. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the main list, but surely it should at least be mentioned here. This list generally seems to take up a constitutive theory of statehood - i.e., that statehood comes from recognition by other countries, rather than by attainment of certain objective characteristics, which is the declarative theory of statehood. The latter seems to be the one more commonly used by political scientists, so it seems problematic to pretend otherwise for the sake of a neat list. The ROC pretty clearly meets a declarative theory of statehood definition, and it seems wrong to entirely exclude it on the basis that it doesn't meet as well an alternate, but less widely held, view. (And the ROC, additionally, does have recognition from a couple of dozen small countries).
3. What has happened to Western Sahara? It has about as much de jure recognition as Palestine, and considerably more claim to de facto status. Somaliland, the various de facto states of the Caucasus, and Transnistria should also probably be mentioned, even if not listed in the main list.

The problem with this list in wikipedia is that there's a ton of Template:Soup [point of view] pushers on all sides of the issues who aren't really interested in trying to come up with a reasonable article that deals with the questions concerning the various dubious states. Instead they all want to force their perspective through on whichever of the dubious states they're trying to either prove or disprove the statehood of. So you've got a bunch of people who will come through and repeatedly remove anything from the list that hints at questionable status for, say, South Ossetia or Somaliland, and then you'll have others who will simply remove them entirely. And you get a bunch of people with questionable command of English and very strong points of view arguing vehemently on the talk page. One would hope that this project could deal with the issue a bit more maturely and productively, rather than simply closing off all possibility of improvement by artificially limiting the list to UN members, which isn't, as I pointed out above, a tenable distinction. John Kenney 00:39, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

We really need two lists. One Politically Correct list and one comprehensive and politically ignorant list. For the PC list, we have to decide who's politics to go by and I suppose the UN is as good as any other. I'm not saying the UN is unbiased and Template:Soup [non-neutral], it is decidedly biased, but at least we all know how and why it is so.

The second list should be longer and aim to be a comprehensive list that ignores political opinions of what is and is not a country and goes by the generally understood idea of sovereignty. I would argue that this list includes all potential country articles even if the country no longer exists. This allows use to cover subjects like Prussia, the old Yugoslavia, Scotland, England, Wales, etc. It would equally allow use to cover countries that are disputed such those named in the post above. Derek Harkness 03:30, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

I'm not sure I understand the "politically correct"/"politically ignorant" distinction you are making. At any rate, there is no reason not to make this list multifaceted and include more dubious currently existing countries somewhere. We already include Palestine, which is not a de facto state and is not a UN member. If we had a separate section for it, why shouldn't we include the ROC, or Abkhazia, or whatever? To sink these currently existing state-like entities into a list that includes Scotland and Anhalt-Dessau would just be to bury it. John Kenney 10:05, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

I think the idea of having two lists should be anathema. One list, properly disciplined with clear rules for when exceptions are made (I can see a case for both Taiwan and Western Sahara - NOT for England etc because they should be covered in the UK article). As far as I know the PLO (or the Palestinian Authority is it now?) has observer status so I do not think Palestine should be on the list, because (right or wrong) it doesn't exist. The Vatican stays because it has permanent observer status and that Switzerland only joined in 2002 is neither here not there: in 2001 there may have been a necessary debate. Now the point is academic.

The reason for using the UN as the basis point is that it provides a clearly defensible line: that is to say it is an editorial decision, and has nothing do to with political correctness and everything to do with maintaining a manageable system, free of the need to keep checking for POV pushers and special interest groups. It is essentially the same as a magazine having a style guide: ie "this is the way we do it. Work with it, or head back to wikipedia". Ian Cundell 14:20, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

The Switzerland example was merely to demonstrate that, until quite recently, UN membership was not very close to coterminous with "generally recognized sovereign states". It may not be again at some point. Beyond that, I'd be happy to discuss a system that would allow exceptions for Taiwan/ROC and Western Sahara in particular, as those two have both de facto statehood and considerable minority diplomatic recognition. Palesitne has considerable recognition, but no de facto status - the Palestinian Authority, which rules Gaza and some parts of the West Bank, is neither sovereign nor the same thing as the de jure State of Palestine, which is represented diplomatically not by the PA but by the PLO. That said, listing Palestine separately wouldn't be too bad either. I don't really feel that strongly about Somaliland and the various ex-Soviet de facto states. If we can come up with a clear distinction that allows us to include Taiwan and ditch them, that would make me perfectly happy. John Kenney 01:17, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

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I could be persuaded to add another section on the end listing "Former members". Such a list would allow ROC, USSR and other countries that have changed in the last 50 or so years to be included in the list without creating a political headache. Derek Harkness 04:02, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

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No prob with Taiwan - I would strongly resist USSR - it doesn't exist and is not current, so belongs in a History of Russia article, with links form the from Soviet states' articles as apparopriate. Ian Cundell 07:37, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

I did not mean the USSR, I meant what I said, the ex-Soviet de facto states - Abkhazia, Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. I thought I was using a well-understood shorthand to refer to these countries, but I guess not. Perhaps everyone would be well-advised to at least read over the wikipedia arguments on these subjects here. While that discussion is incredibly annoying and never resolved, and is full of nationalist POV-pushing, this all feels like reinventing the wheel. And if we just want a List of UN members, we should just import the wikipedia article United Nations member states, which is completely adequate (and is a featured list). John Kenney 10:28, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

Neither the Taiwanese nor the Chinese consider Taiwan to be a seperate country from China. In that regard it is in no way a sovereign state. It can be considered an alternative government of China (although they don't push that much these days) but not sovereign. How about a category at the bottom "other entities"? Then let their articles explain exactly how and why. --Michael Johnson 22:20, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

short form names and long form names

Derek, whatever names the UN may use, it is wrong to use a mishmash of short form names and long form names. In a political context, "Russia" means the "Russian Federation," and it is not even slightly incorrect to call the Russian Federation "Russia." Or to call the Islamic Republic of Iran "Iran." Or, for that matter, to do what you have also done and call the French Republic "France," or the Islamic Republic of Pakistan "Pakistan," or to use the short name of just about any country in the world. There are some times when it makes sense to use the long form name, because the short name is informal or ambiguous (the Koreas, Macedonia, the Congos, the Federated States of Micronesia all come to mind). But the list as it was was completely inconsistent, giving some short form names and some long form names. John Kenney 10:02, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

BTW, if we were to turn the list into a table, I would support having separate columns for short name and long name (with the two merged in cases where there is no short name or no long name.) John Kenney 10:06, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

I don't know why some countries are listed with the long for and some short, perhaps an email to the UN might reveal some interesting information. I do think we should be consistent. A mix of long and short is odd. However, there are often more than one shortened version plus abbreviation. Listing both long and short together would just complicate the page without actually providing much additional information. Adding a column listing the capital cities would link to another page on those cities where as a column listing alternative names link to the same place as the first column.

My argument in favor of using only the long form on this page would be several fold. The long versions are less prone to ambiguity. Using the long version increases the amount of information where as using shortened versions decreases the quantity of information. There is space in the articles themselves to list all the various shortened, abbreviated, colloquial and local dialect versions of the names and their origin. There would be less chance of ambiguation with historical names. Derek Harkness 12:56, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

On balance I'm inclined to agree that long form removes and risk of ambiguity (same essential reasoning as using the UN as the basis point). The only reason it is like it is now is because it was stitched together by several people. Ian Cundell 14:20, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

What risk of ambiguity is there with "Iran" or "Russia"? John Kenney 18:11, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

And what about countries where the long form name doesn't even include the short name? "French Republic," for instance? It seems to me that this is unnecessary pedantry. Wikipedia, I think, actually does a good job with this. See here, and the way they give both short form and long form names. Beyond that, the problem is not that the list was stitched together by several people, but because the UN itself is completely inconsistent in how it names the various countries. There is no rhyme or reason to which countries the UN gives the long form for, and which the short form, and I don't see why we should emulate them on this subject. John Kenney 18:17, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

The wikipedia list is a bit messy. Especially with all the different language names included. I hope we can make something neater than that. I'm for only one name per country and full explanation of all the other variations and histories of the name can be left to the article on that country.

As for ambiguity: Russia, historically, has been used for various states. For example, The Tsardom of Russia, The Russian Empire, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Russian Federation, have all been known by the short name of Russia. There are WP articles on all these long names except for the Russian Federation which is listed under the title Russia. Here lies an inconsistency. Other short names name similar levels of historical ambiguity. For example, I can find at least 6 different United States of somewhere or other. While only one United States exists now, it doesn't mean that we won't want articles on some of the others. The short name for the United Kingdom leaves open some ambiguity as to the status of Ireland; where as the long name does not have this ambiguity. Derek Harkness 00:11, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

It is pretty standard practice for encyclopedia articles on currently existing countries to use the short form name. Wikipedia is rather unusual not for doing this, but for having separate articles on earlier incarnations of the state. But it's completely silly to have separate articles for, say, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Republic of Venezuela and United States of Venezuela. They are all the same country. The article on Russia can deal with both the current Russian Federation and all the previous entities called "Russia". Same thing with France (which can refer to the "French Republic," the "French State," the "French Empire," and the "Kingdom of France"), to Bulgaria ("Principality of Bulgaria," "Kingdom of Bulgaria," "People's Republic of Bulgaria," and "Republic of Bulgaria"), and so forth. Does it really make sense to act as though the People's Republic of Albania in 1975 is a different entity from the Socialist People's Republic of Albania in 1977? They were both the same country, ruled by the same man, Enver Hoxha. The change was completely meaningless and cosmetic. Especially at this point, where we don't even have separate articles for most countries, it seems bizarre to worry about ambiguity with earlier long form names that represent exactly the same state. And if we are going to use one name on the list, we should use the short form name except in cases of ambiguity like the Congos, the Koreas, and such like. That is to say, of instances where there is a present day ambiguity, not where there is ambiguity between the current form of a state and forms that existed in the past. John Kenney 01:11, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

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What are you talking about a straw man? Derek's justification for using the long form name was the potential of confusion with older long form names. I think that's ridiculous. Short form names are well-accepted, and are the titles used by every encyclopedia in their titles of entries on countries. If the old long form names are "irrelevant historical parallels," then, I repeat the question, what possible ambiguity arises out of articles at Russia, Iran, Iraq, France, and so forth? And are you all really proposing articles at French Republic and the like? As to what it should look like, a table that includes capitals, area, and population would make sense. As I suggested before, including long form names, as well, would make sense if people care about the long form names. As to "wikipedia-esque navel-gazing," surely this kind of thing isn't "wikipedia-esque," but a rather inevitable result of the fact that people can feel strongly about relatively small issues, and disagree about them. John Kenney 10:09, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

Dependent territories

Should these be listed here, perhaps in a separate list? Sometimes they even have separate currencies from their home country. John Kenney 12:17, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

I think a tiered aproach would be best. This list contains countries. The country articles contain the main sub devisions of that country (provinces or states) and, when we get that far, the state's article contains a list of it's counties and the countie's article contains a list of it's cities and so on. Dependent territories would be listed in the article of their parent country. Some of them will merit an article of their own (e.g. gabralta) others with not, but to list them all on this list would probably double or triple it's size and also make the list difficult to manage and check cause I doubt many of us know all the dependent territories of all the countries in the world without some heavy research. Derek Harkness 14:20, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

The thing about dependent territories, though, is that they aren't actually part of their parent country. French Polynesia, which is called a pays (country) in French, is not part of France. Greenland is certainly not part of Denmark. When one is talking about the land area of Denmark, for instance, the enormous size of Greenland is pretty much never included. As to all the dependent territories, little research is required. Among other things, wikipedia already has a list of them that is more or less adequate as a starting point. The CIA World Factbook also lists them all. John Kenney 16:30, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

Gazetteers

Well, I thought a gazetteer was a dictionary of places. So you could say that a really big encyclopedia contains gazetteer entries (in that sense) and thus replaces a gazetteer. An index of places, however, can also be called a gazetteer. "Index" usually means "alphabetical list," although indexes can also be organized in other ways as with a topical index. So what, precisely, is the content of the proposal that we create a "gazetteer"? It is that we call any list of places, or perhaps a top-level master list like countries of the world, a "gazeteer," and perhaps also that we feel free to intermix different types of links and geographical information into the pages, again as we are doing with countries of the world?

I suspect the appeal of the "gazeteer" or "guide" proposal is that it will be useful to people to have more information than, simply, a list of countries. I agree with this.

Here is what I propose. I propose we have (mere examples offered here) World Gazeteer, North America Gazetteer, United States Gazetteer, Ohio Gazetteer, and Licking County Gazetteer. At each level our aim is, obviously, not to have every possible piece of information about things at that level of generality, but merely "the highlights"--obviously, a controversial task, but one that is open to various objective measures (such as population statistics).

The idea, then, is that at each level, we list the major political divisions, major cities, major mountains and/or mountain ranges (and other geological features), major parks, and so forth. As to what sort of information to have, I would urge you to think first and foremost of what users are to find most useful and interesting. A list of countries alphabetically is not quite necessary, because if I want to look up a country, I can use the search box for that: so how many people want or will use an alphabetical list? Organizing them by continent, and continental subdivision as in the case of Europe, Asia, and Africa, would be much more interesting. Listing them also by land area, population, GDP and cost of living would all be interesting. But ultimately, for the World Gazetteer we should choose just one listing (perhaps by continent, then alphabetical); then we can link to a page such as Country comparisons that has the aforementioned lists. We might also on World Gazeteer have lists of the major mountain ranges, cities, rivers, oceans, etc.

I think the proper place to work out this idea is CZ:Geography Workgroup or some subpage thereof. (Notice that the new CZ: namespace permits subpages.) I'll copy this mail there for further discussion.

--Larry Sanger 15:26, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

Please reply at CZ:Geography Workgroup/Gazetteer.

Professionalism on this talk page

Please be aware that CitiZendium intends to create a professional environment for its writers. Although, there are bound to be disagreements, seldom is it necessary to revert to unprofessional behavior. Hopefully, this will make a better experience for everyone. Thanks for reviewing CZ:Professionalism guidelines. Also be aware that abbreviations such as POV are not to be used at CitiZendium for the benefit of all. --Matt Innis (Talk) 16:59, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

I apologize for using the term "POV", although I will say in my defense that I was using it in the context of discussing activity at Wikipedia. It's hard to kill old habits, but I will try to consciously stop myself from using wikipedia jargon. Beyond that, I apologize for any incivility on my part. John Kenney 17:38, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

Population figures

What source should we use for the population figures? Currently it seems to be drawn from the population numbers in the wikipedia article on the country, which themselves aren't sourced. That doesn't seem adequate to me. The wikipedia list of countries by population seems to give figures based on Minnesota State University's "Population Counter" (and which are different from the figures given in the individual articles). Other alternatives would be the CIA World Factbook, which itself generally gives the source of its conclusions. I'd suggest that as probably the best option, but I'm not sure. At any rate, I think for something like population, where there's any number of potential sources and the figure is constantly changing, it is essential to give the source of the figures. John Kenney 22:15, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

The half dozzen figures I added did come for WP. I don't think that's the most accurate source, I just wanted something in the box to see how the table would look on the page before spending allot of effort filling in every box. The best source would be direct form the county's own government pages e.g. for the UK use statistics.gov.uk and for the USA use census.gov Of course not every country has accurate census data, in which case another reliable source such as the CIA World Factbook or the Statesman's Yearbook (not free access but very detailed) could be used. Some cross checking between more than one source should ensure accuracy. Since most current published figures are estimates of current population due to only taking a census every 10 years or so, there may be small discrepancies between some sources. Derek Harkness 23:48, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

what are we to do in cases where we can get official census information from a government site, but other sites have more recent estimates? And what about situations when there's an official estimate from a few years ago, and an unofficial estimate for right now? The issue can become quite complicated, unfortunately. John Kenney 01:03, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

It depends who calculated the estimate. Some source would be more credible that others. For example, an estimate published as part of a pier reviewed journal would be good, but the local tabloid newspaper poll might not be so good. We have to just use some judgement and common sense.

This is all assuming that the population column stays. It's just one suggested demographic, I'm open to other alternatives. For example maybe the name of the current Head of State linking to a biography of that person or to a list of all the previous Heads of State would be better. Or maybe type of government, land area, GDP and so on. It doesn't have to be population. Derek Harkness 03:41, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

I like population, in that it gives a good sense of how large and important a country is. I'd think that land area should perhaps be included, as well. If I were going to get rid of a column currently there, I'd go with monetary unit, which is rather a secondary feature compared to population and area. I think a separate list dealing with heads of state would probably work better. It's worth noting that wikipedia has dozens of lists of the countries of the world giving different information. There's no particular need to put everything here. Name, capital, area, and population seem like the key things to put into the main table, to me at least. John Kenney 09:16, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

The correct datasource for all population data is unquestionably the UN Population Division. THe easiest published source from them is a database which can be downloaded, which constitutes the publication World Population Policies 2005. More recent estimates of population changes are unreliable and should be ignored, as is standard academic practice in these matters. Here is the link to the database World Population Policies 2005. This should avoid the horrors to be found on Wikipedia of CIA World Factbook estimates, most of which seem to be about 10 years out of date. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 19:48, 13 April 2007 (CDT)

This article take a needless position

In the world today there are:

• Internationally recognized countries, e.g., via the U.N.
• De facto countries, e.g., Palestine and Taiwan, who have recognition of certain states but not internationally.
• Separatist groups who wish to gain land and/or recognition to become a country, who may have limited recognition by at least one other state.

The above seems a far, far superior outline in which to construct this article, and the only one capable of full neutrality.

Stephen Ewen 06:06, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

I agree that places like Taiwan need to be addressed. I wonder if separatist groups might be going a bit too far. Tongue in cheek here, but would Texas count? Chris Day (Talk) 07:20, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

Stephen, you are confusing de facto countries, like Taiwan, with de jure countries, like Palestine. Taiwan, or Somaliland, or whatever, are de facto countries in that, while they do not have widespread recognition internationally (or, in the case of Somaliland, any international recognition), they function in fact more or less in the manner that other states do. According to one theory of statehood (the declarative theory), such entities are states whether or not they have international recognition. On the other hand, Palestine (and, to some extent, Western Sahara, although the latter has de facto control over a small part of its claimed territory) is a de jure state that has diplomatic recognition from a large number of states, but does not actually function as a state. The "State of Palestine" controls no territory, and has no population. The Palestinian Authority, which governs the Gaza Strip and some parts of the West Bank, is a) not the same thing as the State of Palestine; and b) not sovereign. At any rate, it does no good to confound these two very different kinds of state or semi-state into one. On the question of "separatist groups," before I comment, I want to be clear on what you are suggesting. Do you mean separatist groups that actually control a de facto state,, like Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, North Cyprus, and Somaliland? I'm fine with listing those somewhere, although I don't think it's necessary. Or do you mean more broadly any group that would like to have its own state? The latter seems entirely unworkable to me. John Kenney 09:13, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

I apologize for the inadequately thought out reply I made moments before dropping into bed last night. What follows will explain much more what I a getting at.

I have never visited Wikipedia's counterpart article to this until today, but what I think is happening is that the contentions over there are coloring things (a "point of view fork", but undertaken here). The Wikipedia article uses the Montevideo Convention as its standard, while this one selects U.N recognition.

I understand the purpose of this article to be one of serving as a top-level sort of "gateway to the world" article. While the intro here on this article does make an attempt at neutrality, I think it fails starting with, "For the purposes of this directory, a 'country' is…" In my view, all that is going to do is ensure this article not only begins as, but ever remains a battleground. I think there is a better strategy.

The first step is to discard countries of the world for the geopolitical world. From the get-go, this will set up the article to avoid un-needed declarative statements. We can then go about describing the geopolitical world neutrally and by allowing contested entities a place within appropriate categories that nearly everyone will agree are fair.

The intro should describe that what comprises the geopolitical world is always contested and shifting. Within it are internationally recognized nation-states; de facto and de jure states; dependencies; separatist groups that control land and are a de facto state (e.g., North Cyprus); and yes, we should mention a few major separatists groups who are seeking self-government and laying claim to land. This outline will provide for maximum utility of the article, and each main section should lead to a main article.

Stephen Ewen 17:35, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

I would agree with everything you say, more or less, except two things: 1) I'd prefer to leave the title at "Countries of the World." "The Geopolitical world" seems kind of awkward and unnatural to me. 2) I don't think that this is the appropriate place to discuss "major separatist groups who are seeking self-government and laying claim to land". What entities are you specifically thinking of? It seems to me that if they have some measure of de facto sovereignty, like Abkhazia or Somaliland, or whatever, it makes sense to mention them here. Kosovo, which is probably going to become independent in the not so distant future, and which is already de facto separated from Serbia, might be another example of something to mention. But when one goes below that level, it gets really murky. There are tons of autonomous regions within countries, and some of these have some pretentions towards independence - Iraqi Kurdistan and Chechnya come to mind. But Iraqi Kurdistan is undoubtedly part of Iraq at the moment (the President of Iraq is a Kurd, among other things), and the separatists in Chechnya don't even control the Chechen government anymore, much less have any kind of actual de facto independence. And those are probably the best examples of separatist movements that don't have de facto states. I think anything listed here should be able to claim either de facto or de jure statehood status. If it can claim nothing but nationalist sentiment (and perhaps autonomy) on its behalf, it shouldn't be listed, or else the whole thing will get rapidly out of hand. John Kenney 18:34, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

Replies:

1. the geopolitical world - it should actually be geopolitical world. "Countries of the world" seems to require us to select a criteria like the Montevideo Convention or U.N recognition to define "country". geopolitical world neatly avoids that dilemma and prevents this article from becoming a battleground for people who want to have their whatever listed under "country".
2. The reason why it is very important to select a few separatist groups for discussion is because it provides context to show how geopolitical shifts often begin. As for which ones are chosen, I would say two to four of whichever illustrate a different angle on how shifts can start out. The idea is to bring maximum illustration to the point, not lay out an exhaustive list.

Probably, we should await further views on what we have discussed thus far.

By the way, we could really use a geography editor about right now!

Stephen Ewen 21:26, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

Is this really a geography issue, though? Isn't this more the kind of thing that a political science editor should have a look at? Geography proper is about rivers and mountains and such like. Political geography is the domain of the political scientist, really. There's actually 12 politics editors. Perhaps they could be notified? John Kenney 23:29, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

The problem with "geopolitical world" is that it does not identify a concept that most people looking for a list of countries are familiar with, or particularly care to learn about. World Gazetteer and countries of the world are user-friendly, and that basically trumps all other concerns. --Larry Sanger 22:05, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

John, geography is exceptionally interdisciplinary and overlaps with most other disciplines, including political science. At any rate, we should consider the point on renaming the article moot since the Editor-in-Chief has expressed what he has above. I suggest we keep countries of the world and work out language in the Intro stating that what is and is not a "country" is a contested concept, give a brief overview of approaches, and aim for a moderate inclusiveness of what gets listed. Stephen Ewen 01:13, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

I think geopolitical is a confusing name. It's usually used on a map where a map of political bounderies has been overlayed ontop of a relief map. That is fine for a visual map, but I think confusing for a writen discription. It has to be either a geographical view or a political view. For example, geographically, Ireland would refer to an island, but politically it is a different thing, an island with a little bit cut out of one corner. A list of countries implies a political view rather than geographical. Perhaps we should tag this list to both geography and political workgroups to get more input.

As for the opening paragraphs, I have no love with articles that start with "for the purposes of this article..." It is accepting that you are trying to exclude something form the outset. I'd rather be inclusive than exclusive. That is why I suggested moving the current list to "Member states of the UN" and start a second list that is based on some other looser political or non political definition. I understand larry's point about not needing a list for the UN yet, but we probably will when someone writes a UN article and so why not keep what we have got and not through the baby out with the bathwater.

Just another point to confuse things more - What about Antarctica? It's not a country, or dependency, or de jure or de faco or anything else. However, it's such a large area of the earths surface that we can't really omit it. Derek Harkness 01:51, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

RE: Antarctica - From my remembrance of a Intro to Geography textbook I read for a class of the same title in I think 2000, basically the UN divvied it up like very thin slivers of pie to mostly Western countries through a treaty that included a usage rights scheme. I recall Japan had a sliver. See this for more. Stephen Ewen 04:13, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

That is incorrect about Antarctica. Several countries have made (overlapping) claims to Antarctic territory - Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France, and Norway. These claims are, as Stephen says, basically slivers of pie. The Antarctic Treaty basically puts all their claims on hold and doesn't recognize any of them, and turns Antarctica into a scientific preserve. To Derek - if we want a list of member states of the UN, as I said before, the wikipedia article is excellent, and should just be imported. This article should focus on being about what it's title says. John Kenney 09:21, 15 March 2007 (CDT)

Sources and accuracy

I think it would be preferrable to note both sources and dates (for population numbers), but I'm uncertain about what format would be best. Any ideas? In addition, to what accuracy should populations be stated? I noted it down to closest 1000 people, but for certain countries I think this is too fine. --Simen Rustad 14:02, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Countries are cultural entities, STATES are administrative units

I think the whole current lead passage is handicapped by a US-centric viewpoint.

England, Korea, Germany are (and will remain until their languages change and patriotisms transmute) countries.

The United Kingdom, The Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the German Democratic Republic are (or were) sovereign States. UK founded 1801, DPRK 1948, GDR 7 October 1949.

Countries are fluid entities in flux and without definable birthdays or deaths (barring catastrophic events). States typically have definite birthdays and dates of demise. A rough rule of thumb is that if you can pinpoint an exact foundation date, then the entity is not a country but a state. In this respect the USA is the exception that proves the rule.

It is rather rare (except for islands) for the borders of a state to be coterminous with that of a country or nation (that's why there are [or were] all these national liberation moverments like the IRA, PLO, Tamil Tigers, Minutemen, etc).

Using this clarification the Republic of China is a State (that both Taipei and Bejing agree is NOT coterminous with the country of China). When the UN swapped its recognition of the two chinese republics, little on a practical level changed in the State of `Taiwan'; people continued to speak the same language, spend the same banknotes, watch the same TV and salute the same uniforms. Again the US is the exception in awarding `recognition' of a state as some sort of award of probity rather than applying the practical test of control traditional to European diplomacies.

Please note that, in this regard, sovereignity is a practical de facto rather than de jure test.

Iraq provides a good example. It was formed as a (non sovereign) state by the British, probably became a country with a common culture and patriotism some time during Saddam's reign and may well die as both a state and a country during the next couple of years.

On this clarification, Antarctica (and the Moon) are neither countries nor states. W. Frank 17:25, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Both the term 'country' and 'state' have more than one meaning. The UK is composed of countries and the USA is composed of 'states'. But the constituent countries and states are not sovereign. In effect, country and state are widely used interchangeably and with loose meaning. Adding the term 'sovereign' may seem to clarify things, but then there will be arguments over wither some countries are truly sovereign or not. Some on the UN list may be considered by some people to have lost some level of sovereignty. E.g. Iraq is partly dependent on the USA and to what extent does the European Union impinge on the sovereignty of it's members?

We do need to find a way of including other entities like ROC, Palestine, Antarctica, Greenland etc somewhere. They account for too much of the earths surface to omit entirely. They should not be in the main list, but maybe in a section near the end explaining the situation for their special status. They are not countries or states but the rather loose term the UN uses of 'Entity' is suitable. The term Entity recognises their existence but does not require the problematic classification of each.

The introduction does need reworked. It needs to be less about defining the rules for the list and more about describing countries/states in a loose sense. It should not try to make the issue black and white, but rather explain the levels of grey.

Derek Harkness 23:51, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

I concur with your last paragraph, Derek. Utility is vital. That is why I prefer taking something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries as a starting point (perhaps adding last known capital and dated population and area figures if this does not become unwieldy).

I agree that 'country' and 'state' both have more than one meaning. Wikipedia and Wikidictionary lean too much towards US useage - which is why our list needs to be modified to include such undoubted countries (and past nation-states) as Scotland and such countries (and past and future states) as Yugoslavia and Kurdistan.

Scotland is actually a good example of WP inconsistency here, since it could be argued that it has a similar degree of self-government to "Faroe Islands (Self-governing country in the Kingdom of Denmark)" and certainly more than the Falklands or Pitcairn.

Perhaps the use of indentation from the left hand margin could signify. States recognised by the UN with a long stable history of the nation and country being co-terminous with the current borders of the state would be hard up against the margin (perhaps only Australia would appear here), then states recognised by the UN with internationally recognised stable borders broadly co-terminous with the cultural or national entity (`country) for at least the past 70 years such as Cuba, followed by those member states with at least 50 years stability such as Iceland, etc, etc.

Obviously there will be discussion on degree of indentation but this is where the advantage of an expert managing editor can be revealed so that Kurdistan, Chechnya, Palestine Sark are not indented too far to the right. W. Frank 03:37, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

I think stability of the nations borders may be hard to define. For example, you gave Australia as an example of a country that was coterminous for an extended period. However, Heard Island and McDonald Islands became part of Australia in 1947 and Christmas Island was transferred form British to Australian control in 1958. There may be other changes I haven't spotted yet. Countries borders change. A change in borders doesn't make the country less or more valid. So I don't think the stability of borders is significant here and I don't think we should be ranking the countries in this way. Derek Harkness 05:51, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

Exactly, one of my points. There are uniquely few countries that are synonymous with States. And the degrees of indentation are not intended to rank or award brownie points but rather to convey concisely the spectrum of possibilities as regards state (rather than national borders). In relation to its total area, none of these islands represent a substantial change in the national boundaries of Australia (especially since Heard Island and McDonald Islands are uninhabited, barren islands located in the Southern Ocean, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica and the 1600 souls on Christmas Island probably regard themselves as both something more and less Australian than the average resident of Darwin -wry grin).

Again, this makes my basic point that the geographical limits of countries change relatively slowly (as feelings and cultures and national identities change and coalesce and evolve) but that the borders of states are typically more well defined but subject to frighteningly rapid change. A list of UN recognized member States is not and never will be a list of countries - either past, present or future. W. Frank 08:04, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

Scrap population column and replace with...

The last column, population, is clearly causing some problems. This is demonstrated to a large extent by the lack of input of new data. Seems nobody wants to complete this column. It also seems to be difficult to obtain accurate data without just copying some other site. I question our ability to maintain such data. It would be better to discus the demographics of population and changes in population in the country articles rather than just list raw data of dubious accuracy. I suggest we drop population and change to a different subject.

I suggest we choose one of the following possible alternatives for the 4th and maybe a possible 5th column (I don't think there's space for 6th):

• Language(s)
• Head of State
• Form of government
• Or other...

Derek Harkness 23:12, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

---

I repost my comment from above, as there is no problem with population data for most countries.

The correct datasource for all population data is unquestionably the UN Population Division. THe easiest published source from them is a database which can be downloaded, which constitutes the publication World Population Policies 2005. More recent estimates of population changes are unreliable and should be ignored, as is standard academic practice in these matters. Here is the link to the database World Population Policies 2005. This should avoid the horrors to be found on Wikipedia of CIA World Factbook estimates, most of which seem to be about 10 years out of date. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 19:48, 13 April 2007 (CDT)--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 04:14, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

I had read your comments above before, that is why I said "... without just copying some other site." There seems to be little point in just being an exact duplicate of some other site. But worse, we'll be a dupliate that is often out of date and playing catchup all the time. Derek Harkness 04:57, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

It might be possible to use templates to simulate a database. For example, we could create a Template:Country population data with the content (not sure if the syntax is right)

 {{#switch:{{{country}}}
 |Afghanistan = 29,863,000
 |Albania = 3,581,655
 ...
 }}

Such a template could be updated without too much effort whenever the UN releases a new set of population data. Then any article can get the up-to-date numbers by transcluding {{Country population data|country=Afghanistan}}. Fredrik Johansson 17:04, 25 April 2007 (CDT)