Talk:Cantons of Switzerland

(Moved here from User talk:Docu)

I see you've been adding the Swiss cantons to Cantons of Switzerland (nice work BTW) and List of capitals of subnational entities, as well as changing Basle back to Basel. The issue is that we have decided to use English terms for places where available. In adapting the template to Switzerland I have followed the English placenames used by the Swiss federal government, see here (http://www.admin.ch/ch/e/schweiz/kantone/index.html). I know, "Basel" is often used in English, partly because native German speakers would use it when writing English (the city website does so as well), partly because the difference is minimal, but the fact remains there is a separate English name for the city. Likewise for Argovia, Thurgovia, Saint Gall, Grisons, etc. Is there any reason we should not follow the names given by the federal government? Danke/Merci/Grazie/...I don't speak Romansh ;) -Scipius 19:22 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the praise. "Anglicisation" mentions Torino and recommends using what would be the least surprising to a user finding the article. I suppose naming in the line with media or local/national tourist office usage should be ok. Possibly the choices used by the federal government pages linked on the suggested reference under "Key Data" (also here (http://www.statistik.admin.ch/stat_ch/ber00/eecktext.htm)) may be a good thing. I did notice that Basel had recently been changed to Basle, a form not used by the 1911EB (http://14.1911encyclopedia.org/B/BA/BASEL.htm). Interestingly the new accords named after that city are spelled Basel (formerly Basle). I tend to think that "Argovia" is an Italian or Latin word. -- User:Docu 20:17 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

I was the one who changed that as I was following the federal cantons page. As said, Basel is not that much of an issue, since the difference is minimal, even if "Basle" can still be used. As for others where the difference is larger (Grisons/Graubünden), it's best to be consistent is naming the canton and if there is a different English form, then why not use it? Redirects take care of the rest. It's certainly the case that there is a tendency to use local names, but it can easily become a slippery slope (which do we anglicise and which not?), so my opinion would be to be a bit conservative. As for "Argovia" and "Thurgovia" seeming Latin, that is entirely logical. English often uses either Latin names or French names (see Grisons), especially in areas close to where French is spoken. This is the case in Belgium, but also for cities like Cologne. -Scipius 21:27 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

I went through a series of current English language travel guides on Switzerland, just one mentionned "Argovia" (but together with the name Aargau), thus I think we should change it back. --User:Docu 08:23 Mar 30, 2003 (UTC)

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(Moved here from User talk:Docu):

Is it really necessary to create xxxx(canton) and redirect them to Canton of xxxx? -- wshun 23:04, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As it may be easier to write "Schaffhausen (canton)|" instead of "Canton of Schaffhausen|Schaffhausen" .. yes -- User:Docu

I don't think that is so much differences. Anyway, do you start to rewrite all articles Canton of xxxx. Now many xxxx(canton) are just doubly redirect to xxxx, which do not work well in Wikipedia. wshun 01:29, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Where necessary (name of canton=capital), the articles will be at "Canton of xxx"). Thank you for fixing the links. Not much to rewrite though, rather to write. -- User:Docu

In most contexts though Canton of Schaffhausen is more useful than Schaffhausen (canton) .. -- User:Docu

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Shouldn't we remove Spanish and Esperanto from the Names in other languages section? I mean this table is potentially very large because there are many more languages that have designated names/spellings for Swiss cities (at least some of them). Having the four "official" languages and English (the language of the encyclopedia) seems reasonable to me. To me having the Spanish/Esperanto names belongs to the Spanish and Esperanto version of Wikipedia respectively. Any views? diwiki 13:54, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

I think it can be helpful to have them on one page and may make it easier to maintain. There are similar lists for other fields. BTW it's just limited to cantons, not cities, and Latin is (still) missing. -- User:Docu

Fair enough. However, there is a list of places/cities List_of_cities_in_Switzerland. The thing if you include Sanish and Esperanto, you should also include Portuguese, Swedish etc. etc. Latin, on the other hand seems reasonable to me (history). diwiki 16:26, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

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There's a link to canton at the top of the article, but neither here nor there a proper definition of a canton is given. I think we should remove the link to canton and provide a proper defintion in the Swiss context at the top of this article. Any thoughts anyone? diwiki 21:55, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sure. We could even enhance the French definition provided there. -- User:Docu

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I suggest we use the following spellings:

Appenzell Innerrhoden, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Aargau, Basel Stadt, Basel Landschaft, Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Glarus, Graubünden, Jura, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Thurgau, Ticino, Uri, Valais, Vaud, Zug, Zürich

See Talk:Switzerland for more. Kokiri 18:38, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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The number of municipalities for Geneva is shown as being 44; what is the source for this number ? I'm 99% confident (diplomatic way to say 100% ;-) that the correct number is 45. Canton of Geneva lists 45 names. I was going to make a change but was wondering where the total comes from: should I add 1 to it as well, or does it come from another source ? Schutz 00:09, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wondering how that happened. I changed it to 45 (as per [1] (http://www.geneve-communes.ch)). I doubt the number increased since 2000. -- User:Docu

It definitively didn't increase -- it's been 45 for about 70 years... I've also updated the total, which was short by one after the change.Schutz 10:38, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

More generally, should we try to update this table ? Some numbers are very outdated: in Fribourg, many municipalities have merged in the meantime: according to [2] (http://www.fr.ch/stat_statonline/portrait/etape2.asp?Contexte=1&Domaine=55&Liste=55), the number was indeed 242 in 2000, but only 202 in early 2003, and still going down... Schutz 10:38, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Personally I'd prefer if the data is all from the same year, even if it's not the most recent. Afterall, it's y2k just once. Unfortunatly, during the last update, it was even omitted to update the the population density in accordance with the population number. -- User:Docu