Talk:Douro

another
I have added information from another article entitled the Douro River, which I have eliminated. I will be working on this article today. Portcult 12:43, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Mostly Portuguese perspective?
I'm not too sure this article as it currently stands quite gets across the Spanish aspect of the river. I realise I must be slightly biased too to even make this comment which is why I think Duero should perhaps be a page of it's own and an automatic redirect to this article.

Merge proposal (with Duero)
As I stated on the talk page of Duero: I propose this article be merged with Douro or deleted. The Douro article, though it may have a Portuguese informational bias, is much more complete and is about the river's full course as it exists in Spain and Portugal. As far as I can tell, this article adds no information except to distinguish the spelling difference by setting it off in a separate and less complete article, despite that the Portuguese spelling is mentioned in the first line of the other article and if merged, can be made a redirect thereof. If more information on the Spanish portion of the Duero/Douro is needed, can't and shouldn't that be added to the other article?

I do see the above discussion, but again, I think if information is missing on the Spanish portion it can be added here. --Fuhghettaboutit 12:45, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Merging the two articles in one
As proposed, I merged the Duero and Douro articles. In spite of being born and raised in Porto, I tried to reduce the "Portuguese perspective" as far as I could. I included every information in the former Duero article, a link to Spanish region of Castile-Leon, to it’s provinces and towns, as well as a reference and link to Ribera del Duero wine region. On the other hand, I reduced the size of the part related to Portugal, eliminating (in my opinion) not essential information. But, of course, this article can be further improved with more contributions. Regards, Manuel de Sousa --MSousa 00:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Why Douro?
First thing would be to ascertain what English speakers actually say; however, it's quite unlikely that a significant number of them native speakers may be abe to use such authority. So the thing is: which name should we take? The Spanish or the Portuguese? I was born a Spaniard and have passed my summers in Aranda de Duero for many years... It strikes me then to see the name 'Douro' and that's why I ask what has been taken into account when naming it... The length it occupies in each country? The relevance of the cities it flows through? Ay... Wish we could all speak one language... 88.16.86.250 01:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Good point 88. Actually if you know any other names that could help (it may have prior names from history). I believe the way to go is to report the current names (greater and lesser known) and its previous names/spellings if any. AlanBarnet 03:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Traditionally the name Douro has been preferred to Duero in English language articles and books. As far as I know, this is neither due to the length the river occupies in each country, nor to the relevance of the cities it flows through. This is a consequence of the old involvement of the English in the port wine business. They used to live in Porto city and sailed up-river, to the Upper Douro, for their quintas, where the vineyards were located. So, the name Douro has been relatively familiar to the average Brit for more than two centuries now. - MSousa 23:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You can user Google Ngram Viewer for this kind of doubts: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=douro%2C+duero&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cdouro%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cduero%3B%2Cc0 --81.255.178.243 (talk) 08:09, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Valladolid
I have removed Valladolid as one of the cities through which Duero river passes, since it doesn't pass. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.199.157.143 (talk) 22:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Linguistic dividing line?
It is not a linguistic dividing line, as the text claims. See this. Tuvalkin (talk) 11:42, 8 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Anyone? More than 1 year later, no replies — I'll just remove the (unsourced!) statement that it is a dividing line. Actually should be noted that inspite of the international border and rough terrain is is not a linguistic dividing line. --Tuvalkin (talk) 18:57, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Lithuanian etym? Nopes.
I removed this paragraph from the article: "Another hypothesis exists which originates the river's name from Lithuanian tribes that inhabited this region during Gothic invasion. Durys in Lithuanian language means doors and bearing in mind that in Europe already exists the river Varta which similarly means gates in Lithuanian language." It is not only unsourced (for which it would be tagged, not removed) but it’s patent nonsense: Regardless of the bearing of current Lithuanian etyms in 5th century Gothic language, the fact is that the Romans were using the name Durius for 500 years before the Goths arrived at the peninsula. --Tuvalkin (talk) 04:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Undiscussed move reverted
I have reverted an undiscussed move (of article only not Talk) to the Spanish upstream name Duero per (1) WP:BRD and (2) as contrary the result of a previous merger discussion to merge upstream Duero stub into main downstream Douro article - which is why the mover's move failed to keep article and Talk page together. Two editors had contacted mover on his Talk page but no further response to enter discussion. IP editor commenced a RM at the old merged article Talk:Duero, but I have preemptively made a non-admin close as unneeded per WP:BRD, and malformated given the separation of article and Talk by undiscussed partial move. If the User, or any other user wishes to open RM it should commence from stable title at Talk:Douro per previous merger result. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:02, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

is this the one?
Is this the Douro that provided the title Marquess Douro, Earl of Wellington, for the man later known as the Duke of Wellington? 108.18.136.147 (talk) 01:37, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Renaming proposal
I propose this be renamed Duero for the simple fact that 572 kilometers of it (73%) is in Spanish territory and 213 kilometers (27%) in Portuguese territory, plus 112 kilometers on the border. The Spanish basin has about 78,859 km² and the Portuguese basin about 19 214 km². Source: Ríos del Planeta and yes, I know that it's Douro there https://riosdelplaneta.com/en/douro-river/

In addition, the Duero is far more important in the history of Spain than the Douro is in the history of Portugal. (I had a course in Spanish historyand another in Spanish geography at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.) It was first the frontier between Christian and Islamic Spain, and then it was "the Christian river", connecting Castile's main cities: Soria, Valladolid, Salamanca, and on tributaries, Burgos and Zamora. You could say it divided Christian and Islamic Portugal, buf at the time what would become Portugal much later was part of the (Spanish) kingdom of León.

Duero is definity the preferred term of the British, but there is politics involved. Britain and Portugal were allies against Spain. In the 18th and 19th centuries.

I have read the previous merge discussion. If you look at the very beginning of the Google Trends you will see Duero is much higher. I think what may have happened is that once Wikipedia called the article Douro, instead of reflecting usage, it created usage. deisenbe (talk) 17:30, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I think those reasons are not good enough. According to WP:COMMONNAME, the article's title should be the name by which it is most commonly known. The statistical distribution of the portions of the river belonging to each country is not too relevant here, and neither is the mere fact that it was once a border between Christian Spain and Islamic Iberian territory. The decision will depend on the modern impact and prevalence of each of those names in English literature and, with that in mind, I can argue: 1) that the Alto Douro Wine Region is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Portugal but not in Spain; 2) that a very popular scenic railway runs along its Portuguese stretch but not its Spanish one; 3) that it flows by the second most important city in Portugal, Porto, more relevant in proportion to the country's population than Valladolid in Spain; 4) that the Encyclopaedia Britannica refers to it as Douro; and 5) that even the website you sent refers to it as Douro. LongLivePortugal (talk) 16:45, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the main (the only?) relevant information is: what is the common name amongst writers and readers of the English language (not England alone). How much of it is in Portugal, Spain, or the border, is not relevant. How large are the cities Portuguese or Spanish, is not relevant. How important it was to each countries history, is not relevant, and note that a history course in Spain quite naturally highlights the importance to Spain; I am Portuguese, I've learnt a few things about the river in school, all of them far more important to Portugal than Spain... Again: the common name amongst writers and readers of the English language is what really matters. Show us some usage metrics favouring Duero, and I'l support the move, until then we better stay with the status quo, rather than changing based on 'random' metrics of length, size, or subjective measures of importance. That said, I'd say so far we have too interesting claims (I have not checked neither), that Google Trends favour Duero, and that britannica.com uses Douro. I would like to know (I may check eventually, but may you already have the data?) if the Google Trends are specifically for English language use or do they include all languages? Any more published references other than britannica.com? Which as pointed might have some historical bias favouring Portuguese language - Nabla (talk) 22:02, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Need better map
To add to this article: a map showing exactly where in the Iberian peninsula this river is located. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 05:27, 1 January 2022 (UTC)