Category talk:Towns by country

When is a city not a town?
I tend to disagree with the current first two sentences of the category page: ''Note that the category Cities by country seems to be significantly more populated than this one. If you consider creating a subcategory, think of creating it as a subcategory of "Cities by country" instead.''

Practically every area called a "city" (in either common speech or legal definition of local government units) can be considered to be a town, or at least to have a town of the same name as one of its main constituents. So a list or category of "towns" is not invalidated by having some cities in it.

But not every town is a city. So a list or category called "Cities of XXXland" would be invalid if it contained places that were definitely too small for anyone to consider them as cities (unless they were one of the rather rare cities of under 2,000 population in some countries such as USA). It should be renamed "Cities and towns of XXXland" and would go in this category but NOT in "Category:Cities by country". That's why I've just (in defiance of the opening "guideline") added "Cities and towns in New Zealand" here (and, yes, I will now work out how to get it under "N").

I suggest we reduce confusion and overlap and non-inclusiveness, by merging this and "Category:Cities by country" into a "Category:Cities and towns by country". It would not be potentially unworkably huge: no more than twice the size of the bigger of these two. And, with a bit more standardisation of word order and selection, users could easily see whether the country they were working on had a "Cities in" and/or a "Towns in" or a "Cities and towns in" and could decide where to put articles and subcategories and consider merging (if their distinction was too artificial) or separating (if that country did have a rational criterion for distinguishing). We could also do away with the laudable attempt but very vague introduction to this category.

Robin Patterson 06:33, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I think things are fine now. Cities and towns are different and we should reflect local usage. CalJW 15:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I find the status quo of separate categories confusing and exasperating. I propose a compromise: rename all to Category:Localities by country. - GilliamJF 02:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Can we cut down on avoidable confusion?
OMG, here in Wikipedia there is a Category:Cities by country, a Category:Towns by country and  a Category:Municipalities by country. Can't we just get them all put together under Category:Cities and towns by Country? For universities and colleges we already have Category:Universities and colleges by country. It's simple. Cities and towns don't mean the same across the globe, and those complex differences may be good for a lawyer or a diplomat, but NOT FOR AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. Say what? Aditya Kabir 09:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)