Talk:Lake Urmia

Recent radical changes
Adil, please provide reliable sources for the timeframe that you provided.--  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 18:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Please keep your (not singling anyone out, I'm talking to both the Azeri and Armenian users) Amrenia-Azerbaijan disputes out of this and other Iran related articles please. If you want to revert war or edit war, please do so on articles other than such minor Iran related ones. Thanks.Azerbaijani 23:20, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Why were references to Iranian Azerbaijan removed?! They were in previous edits and should not be removed under the guise of a "revert"! Moreover, user Eupator, what is so "controversial" about this statement that you have removed: "In ancient times, Lake Urmiya was part of the Manna state, later Urartu, Medes (Media) and Atropatena. Along with lake Van and lake Sevan (Lake Goycha), from 95 B.C. to 65 B.C. it was one of the three great lakes of the Armenian Kingdom, ruled by dynasties of Persian origin at the time, referred to as the seas of Armenia"?


 * If anything, the controversy is caused by the imprecise and not very relevant: "Along with lake Van and lake Sevan, it was one of the three great lakes of the Armenian Kingdom, referred to as the seas of Armenia." For one, it makes no sense to single-out Armenia, which under its Persian king, Tigranes, held Atropatena for about 20 years only. No mention of Urartu, Manna, Media Atropatena, not to mention later empires, which I didn't even list out. Then, Armenia's borders barely touched lake Urmiya, whilst the wording above makes it sound like it was fully within Armenia, which is of course incorrect. Also, Lake Goycha (Gokcha) is an equally applicable name for Lake Sevan, and in fact has been in usage longer than Sevan (which as "Black Van" is meaningless), so should be mentioned too. --AdilBaguirov 06:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The term Iranian Azerbaijan in that part was unnecessary. The previous statement was: Lake Urmia (Persian: دریاچه ارومیه) is a salt lake in northwestern Iran, in Iranian Azarbaijan (between the provinces of East Azarbaijan and West Azarbaijan), west of the southern portion of the similarly shaped Caspian Sea.


 * This makes no sense. Saying between the provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan is more accurate and makes more sense. Also, you should also notice that I took out Iranian also where it was unnecessary. You need to calm down and stop putting your nationalist feelings before edits that actually make sense. Again, keep your Armenia Azerbaijan dispute out of this article. You guys are already in an Arbcom, and your just going to spread the disputes to Iranian articles now?Azerbaijani 06:24, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You are in Arbcom too, user Azerbaijani, and are the one who engages in reverts. Saying "between" two provinces is not making clear that it is inside Iranian Azerbaijan. Also, the provinces East and West Azerbaijan are not a historical reference, but a modern territorial-administrative division of IRI, and can change at any time (like it did in 1993 when Ardabil province was created by splitting that territory from Eastern Azerbaijan province). Thus, Iranian Azerbaijan was a reasonable choice put by previous editors. Meanwhile, the rest of edits about Manna, Medes Atropatena, Urartu, should not have been removed either. --AdilBaguirov 06:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Iranian Azerbaijan doesnt even exist has one specific entity right now, it cannot be used as a geographic term. Saying in between those provinces is correct. The fact is that this is how Iran's provinces are split up now and you cant change that. Your argument makes no sense whatsoever. Putting Iranian Azerbaijan is a needless factoid at that point in the article. And no, I am not involved in that Arbcom at all. I was added in by Grandmaster days after it was started simply because I made and edit to two Iran related articles that he did not like.Azerbaijani 21:24, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Adil stop revert warring you are always in a rush, when someone reverts you do not revert back, and keep discussing or else someone else will revert you discuss so next time you add it no one will revert it. Artaxiad 01:26, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Narek (Artaxiad), stop throwing accusations left and right, you have your chance in ArbCom. I have not revert warred -- instead, your friends have. Indeed, I've never reverted this article -- but you have, as did Eupator. The POV you have there will be removed, and the article about a lake will become NPOV. --AdilBaguirov 01:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Armenian POV
This line is not correct: "Along with lake Van and lake Sevan, it was one of the three great lakes of the Armenian Kingdom, referred to as the seas of Armenia". Firstly, because it is imprecise and gives a wrong impression that the Lake was fully within Armenia, as opposed to bordering its north-western shore. Secondly, because it gives a link to Armenian kingdom, where it positions itself as some unitary "kingdom" for centuries ("was an independent[citation needed] kingdom from (approximately 355 years) 190 BC to AD 165[citation needed], and a client state of the Roman Empire from 165 to 428.") The reality is that Armenia, under the Persian king Tigranes the Great, had Urmia and other Atropatenian lands for only about 20 years during its first and only independent existence from 95 BC to 66 BC. Before that, and after that, lake Urmia was firmly part of various empires that existed on the territory of Iran -- whether Achameneid and Sassanid Persian Empires, or the Parthian Empire, or the Medes/Media. Thus, the wording used by POV pushers is incorrect and will have to be changed.

Also, the Redgrave book, however unscholarly and pro-Armenian, contains the following quotes as well: "From their base south of Lake Urmia (now in Iran), the Scyths troubled Urartu as well as her rival Assyria. Azerbaijan is an arrow pointed at Armenia's..." (p. 10)

"More ancient still than these sites is that of Hasanlu, to the south of Lake Urmia. Here there was a settlement as early as the sixth millennium BC. Hasanlu was a major metal-working centre and prosperous in the very late second millennium. In the late ninth century BC it was part of the newly formed kingdom of Mana, which both Assyria and Urartu were to try to control, for strategic, commercial and economic reasons." (p. 29)

"But the Scyths attacked Urartu as well as Assyria from their base in Mana and the Zagros mountains to the south of Lake Urmia." (p. 32)

This is why I've previously inserted the following line, which for some unexplained reason was removed by POV pushers: "In ancient times, Lake Urmiya was part of the Manna state, later Urartu, Medes (Media) and Atropatena." Anyways, this line is going to be added back. --AdilBaguirov 20:41, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Not to me. It's all rabid anti-Armenian propaganda.--  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 22:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Script
Babakexorramdin, there is no need to mass remove (vandalize) Latin script titles for Azerbaijan. As you have already been explained at Talk:Tabriz, the International Standards Organization recognizes the language with Latin script. Please, provide basis, with references, for using Arabic script only. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 23:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I have answered you before.You see I have nothing against you. I usually agree with you when you say interesting things. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 10:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Name origin
On 20 January 2011 Xashaiar removed the paragraph:
 * Today, the majority of the people who live around the lake speak Azeri (a Turkic language) as their first language and Persian (Iran's official language) for use in commerce and government. The word "urum" has a turkic grammatical structure and means grape in several different Oghuz Turkic dialects including Azeri spoken in Urumia. The Ancient name used by Turkic tribes for Urumia was Urumlu (land of grapes), which would explain the large amount of fabulous grapes grown in the region for thousands of years. The modern Azeri word for grape is Uzum.

claiming that it was original research and contained false information. It seems that the first sentence is true based upon pre-1950 descriptions of the area, but I don't live there. I haven't looked at dictionaries about the "grape" meaning of urum. Does anyone have good citations to reliable sources for this? --Bejnar (talk) 00:02, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

altitude
Needs some information about approximate altitude. Is this a high-altitude lake ? Eregli bob (talk) 13:51, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

This article once started out with a list of alternate names:
 * Lake Urmia (, Daryāche-ye Orūmiye Azerbaijani: Urmu gölü, ﺍﻭﺭﻣﻮ ﮔﺆﻟﻮ, Kurdish Wermy, Կապուտան ծով, Kaputan ts'ov, ancient name: Lake Matiene)

However, the guideline at Naming conventions (geographic names) states Alternatively, if there are more than two alternative names, these names can be moved to and explained in a "Names" or "Etymology" section; it is recommended that this be done if there are at least three alternate names, or there is something notable about the names themselves. As there was a considerable list of names, the lead was shorted and the alternate names placed in the "Names and etymologies" subsection. The guideline goes on to say: Once such a section or paragraph is created, the alternative English or foreign names should not be moved back to the first line. As the local official name is not different from its anglicization, it was not included in the lead. --Bejnar (talk) 20:45, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Pan-Turkic activist junk
This edit removed content because: Regarding the last one, there are two important points here: first, Iranian Azeris are well integrated in society and there are no any kind of ethnic frictions with others because Iran is a multi-ethnic society. There are dozens of high-ranking Iranian Azeri politicians (proportionally even more then Persians), including head of state Ali Khamenei. Second point: Iran and whole region was infected by serious of droughts in past few years (building of dams also contributed to losing water), so not only Urmia was affected but also Parishan Lake, Zayandeh-Rud and many other (in central Iran, Fars/Persia region). Maybe government plans to depopulate inner Persia also? Laughable. Beside lacking reliable sources, claims make no logical sense. --MehrdadFR (talk) 01:45, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Sources are not reliable, most of them are various activist websites, YouTube and Facebook.
 * 2) They use irredentist terms like "South Azerbaijan", used only by pan-Turkic activists from Republic of Azerbaijan.
 * 3) They use conspiracy theories about Iranian government wanting to "depopulate region" because it's inhabited by Iranian Azeris.


 * Hi Mehrdad. I'm not claiming the existing text is perfect, but it could easily be changed to report on activists' claims (rather than to advocate their cause) and balance these claims with alternative, sourced viewpoints. Both the your line and the Azeri-nationalist line are POV if not presented as reported opinions. Deleting large chunks of sourced text is disruptive editing, and I think you know that. Using comment tags to hide the text does not make that acceptable. You say the "sources are not reliable, most of them are various activist websites". I see the NYT, SF Chronicle, Guardian, Hürriyet Daily News, Today's Zaman, and the BBC among these. I'm restoring the existing content because it's less POV than your deletions. You're welcome to edit what's there to make it accurately reflect the reliable sources, and to add alternative views supported by reliable sources. Rupert Clayton (talk) 04:52, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

History - minor inaccuracy
The following statement: "in the last five hundred years the area around Lake Urmia has been home to Azeris, Iranians, Kurds, Assyrians, and Armenians" makes a false distinction between Iranians, Azeris, and Kurds - whilst the latter two are part of the Iranian peoples. For example, Iranian Azerbaijanis and Kurds are descendants of Medes and Parthians. The languages spoken are all part of the Iranian languages. Iranian (Iranic) peoples include Azeris and Kurds. The distinction made is not an accurate description.

I recommend the following alternation:

"In the last five hundred years the area around Lake Urmia has been home to Iranians, Assyrians, and Armenians".

Note that the substance of the statement is not impacted. Merely the words: Azeris and Kurds are merged with Iranians - as they should have been. NuturalObserver (talk) 13:25, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

The alteration has been made. NuturalObserver (talk) 13:52, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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File:Urmia lake drought.webm to appear as POTD soon
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Largest saltwater lake?
The says that this was the largest saltwater lake in the world once, but this makes little sense because the Aral Sea was significantly larger at the time, just to give an example. The Caspian Sea also has salt water, although the salt concentration is lower. Is there a specific definition in use by this article?
 * Update: Looks like it was a recent addition, I restored the test to the previous form. —Ynhockey (Talk) 12:58, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:37, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Lake Urmia Google Earth Timelapse 1984–2018.webm

Why Armenian name is relevant in the lede?
ZaniGiovani particularly has always been firm with his consensus, which he said already achieved long long before I started to edit on this AA contentious articles. However when I looked for consensus he said in the talk page of Lake Urmia, I found nothing.

He removed Turkic name of Lake Sevan I added yesterday because it is not used for more than hundred year, etc. Meanwhile, there is Armenian name in the lede of Lake Urmia which also is not inhabited by significant Armenian population and no one beside them use that name.

It is ridiculous. Why Armenian name must be inserted in articles of place/physical object in nearby country, but we can't vice versa? Mfikriansori (talk) 16:48, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Then discuss it on the talk page of the Lake Sevan article instead of taking it out on other articles. --HistoryofIran (talk) 17:07, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * You reverted my latest edit. Okay, thank you. I want to ask your opinion regarding Armenian name in the lede of Lake Urmia. However it is not important tho, because Armenian name can be put everywhere, not vice versa. Mfikriansori (talk) 17:19, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I reverted you because you were removing Armenian names in multiple articles due to being dissatisfied with Azeri names not being on other articles, which is far from constructive. You already have two ongoing discussions at Talk:Yerevan and Talk:Ganja, Azerbaijan, you might want to finish those first. --HistoryofIran (talk) 17:47, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Mfikriansori can you stop talking out of thin air? This isn't the first time you do it.
 * However when I looked for consensus he said in the talk page of Lake Urmia, I found nothing.
 * I didn't tell you anything about this article, in fact, this is the first time of me interacting with you here aside from reverting you today. I told you in Talk:Yerevan and Lake Sevan that both articles did have discussions about Az names and didn't have consensus for their inclusion in the lede. You then went on a rampage, removing Armenian names from random AA articles without any discussion or consensus whatsoever. This is the definition of WP:POINT. "I don't like X article not having a name, so instead of discussing it, I'm going to remove the other name in Y article".
 * Also, for your information, Azeri translation/name is in many Armenian articles, added by a single user, often with poor sources or WP:SPS. And for the record, that user was banned for sockpuppetry and is currently tbanned from AA. See their publicly available map and how many Armenian articles, still, even with poor sources, have an Azeri name in lede and other info . Jog off with these nonsense edit-wars and WP:POINT edits. Also, good job on placing those tags 90% of them being in Armenian articles, that and removing Armenian names / adding Azeri ones with flawed reasoning / lack of consensus or literally with no explanation at all (like most of your edit descriptions) seem to be your only concerns in AA. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 17:52, 18 April 2022 (UTC)