Talk:List of first-level administrative divisions by area/Archive 1

Comment
Should we limit as to how many can be listed on here? - 68.23.33.147 02:11, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't really care about the size limit, but I have tagged the article for cleanup. The list is rather long - I think a table or perhaps a section or two is in order. Not saying the content needs shortened; I think just better formatting would help tremendously. Editing the list is a real bear. If you don't agree, feel free to delete the cleanup tag. Perhaps I'm wrong &mdash;akghetto (talk) 18:25, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

What is the precise function of this page - and why several entries from one country (eg PRC). If it is retained it should be organised in a logical manner (eg - alphabetic by entry or by country: or largest subnational entity in each country). Not saying there shouldn't be an entry: useful for crosswords, Christmas quizzes and other such amusements.(g)

Jackiespeel 22:55, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Ordering
Um, according to their pages, Utah, Kansas and Idaho are smaller than Minnesota, yet that is listed differently here. 70.92.1.10 04:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

DR Congo
The provinces listed of Congo no longer exist anymore - they have been subdivided, compare old map with new map --Astrokey 44 08:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

EU Members
Why are EU member states France, Sweden, etc, listed? They are independent nations by all normal definitions (members of the UN; France has a permanent UN Security Council seat). And the wording "Member State of France, European Union" is meaningless - France is a member state of the EU, not the other way round. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.172.19.20 (talk) 11:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * He's right. The EU is a multi-national organization, and its members are all sovereign states.  The Transhumanist  00:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup is definitely needed
What it looks like is someone took the list from World Gazeteer and did a quick cut and paste job. Unfortunately, there is no consistency as a result. So a lot of the entries here disagree with their respective Wikipedia pages. For example, Sakha is listed as "3,078,125.1" square kilometers, and this precision makes it suspect. (After all, the true number would vary with the ebb and flow of the Lena.) The appropriate page actually lists "3,103,200". I think the second number is more reliable.

Another thing which needs to be pointed out: are we counting the whole area, or the area excluding lakes and rivers? I prefer the first - it's easier to calculate.

To quote 'Jackiespeel':

''What is the precise function of this page - and why several entries from one country (eg PRC). If it is retained it should be organised in a logical manner (eg - alphabetic by entry or by country: or largest subnational entity in each country). Not saying there shouldn't be an entry: useful for crosswords, Christmas quizzes and other such amusements.(g)''

Well, I like the idea of one MoFo list of all the sub-national entities. The list is tough to maintain, but I can't imagine it getting any easier - the use of "hashes" for numbered lists saves the user from numbering and renumbering and renumbering.

Finally, there should be some cut-off. The de-facto is "100,000", so why not make it de-jure as well?

--Tphcm 08:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I had a whack at editing the list. I got down to New South Wales. That's when I encountered the tricky problem of Krasnoyarsk Krai. That's basically when you've got one entity containing two others - yet all three considered Federal subjects of Russia. Do we list all three, or just one?

--Tphcm 09:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Consider 'em all; they're gonna merge in 2007 anyway.&mdash;Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 06:04, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I've been working down the list, and got as far as number 65. I've added footnotes to the effect:
 * 1) Whether you count autonomous okrugs are part of the Krai or Oblast they're part of. My rule of thumb: if the a.o's are small, you count them; if not, you don't. This is inconsistent. Anyone got a better policy?
 * 2) Unverifiable figures. A lot of the figures are unverifiable from their respective Wiki pages. I've made a note of the ones.
 * 3) The status of Irian Jaya.

My policy is to check the figures with their respective Wikipedia page - round to the nearest square kilometer, and then update them in the list. Is this a good policy?

--Tphcm 11:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I've made some cleanups, notably I've made the footnotes use the new Cite.php format. It looks a bit strange for the unverified note since there are so many, but I think we can live with that and it also makes it easy to find the unverified entries for those wanting to fix them. I also fixed a few red links, and crossed out a few of the unverified numbers, mostly for Kazakhstani provinces based on the numbers in the Provinces of Kazakhstan article. If there's anything wrong with these numbers for any reason, then please tag them as unverified again. I also changed the cleanup tag to a verify tag, and I put it at the bottom and not at the top. No reason to scare the readers only browsing the first 100 or so entries when those numbers should be quite accurate, I believe. Shanes 03:29, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I just slimmed the article down a lot. That should make it more readable. The Little Internet Kitty 23:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Not to nitpick or anything, but isn't lowering the list down to thirty a little much? I agree that the list was far too long, but I feel like thirty is not enough. Would 100 sound reasonable? LouisianaFan 03:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

A hundred is still too big IMO. How about fifty?The Little Internet Kitty 15:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it's pointless to just compare 1st level subdivision of the top 6 nations. It's much more meaningful to see the top 50 or 100 first level subdivision by area, from ALL countries. As we see in the map. --Kvasir (talk) 17:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Scope?
Hmm. Why is the title of this article "List of the largest administrative divisions by area"? Based on the article's content it should be "List of the largest administrative divisions in Russia, Canada, United States, People's Republic of China, Brazil and Australia by area", considering that places like Greenland are omitted and so on... --KFP (talk | contribs) 21:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I would also like to add that none of the Russian entities in this list are "administrative divisions". I would suggest that the article is moved to its previous title ("...subdivisions by area...").—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Seems arbitrary
How is "country subdivision" defined for the purposes of this list? It seems to be pretty arbitrary. For example, Krasnoyarsk Krai is at #3 on this list, yet the Siberian Federal District (which contains Krasnoyarsk Krai, among other territories) is a much larger administrative entity, so why is it not on the list instead? The same thing applies to the #1 entry on the list, the Sakha Republic, which is part of the Far Eastern Federal District. -- Hux (talk) 10:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

According to the Federal Districts of Russia

"The federal districts are a level of administration for the convenience of the federal government. They are not constituent units of the Russian Federation. The constituent units of the Russian Federation are called federal subjects."

The constutuent Krais, Oblasts and Republics have been around for donkey's yonks, and a lot of them date back to when Russia was the RSFSR. Federal Districts were invented for the convenience of Vladimir Putin, I suspect. The bloody things have been around only for eight years. --Tphcm (talk) 11:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Federal districts, while serving an administrative purpose, are not considered administrative divisions. According to the Russian laws, "administrative divisions" exist only at the federal subject level (thus including the raions and cities under jurisdiction of the federal subjects, which is a fact this list completely ignores.  Federal subjects themselves are, according to the Constitution of Russia, constituent members of the Federation, and it is incorrect to call them "administrative divisions".
 * I can only hope that the definition is more precise for other countries which show up in this list. If they are not, the whole thing is quite pointless.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

First-level?
This is first level of subdivision? Else see for example: Taymyr District (second-level, 879,900 km2). --Insider (talk) 00:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

WTF happened?
The version of this article was sane until about the first of May, 2008. It had the first 50 administrative divisions in - more or less. It had footnotes. It had large regions such as Greenland. It needed some tinkering, but it was pretty reliable.

Then "Transhumanist" screwed this list. I don't understand why. Simply put, having Macau in "List of the largest administrative divisions by area" makes no bloody sense at all.

I'm a little annoyed; I went to a lot of trouble editing this list in 2006.

Shall I revert it?

--Tphcm (talk) 13:43, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Since there has been no comment (for or against) in two weeks, I will revert to the version of 00:07 1 May 2008.

--Tphcm (talk) 13:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You might very well also restore this article's original (and more correct) name.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:16, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I note, more than a year later, that Greenland is not on the list, even though it is highlighted on the map. Which list would Greenland be on? Robert K S (talk) 03:36, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Map Error
The map is incorrect in that it shows Greenland as the same color as adjacent Nunavut. This suggests either that Greenland is a part of Nunavut (it is not), or that Greenland is in the Top Five Largest Areas (it is not listed at all). Since Greenland is not included in the list, it should be colored grey on the map. I suggest this solution since it appears no one has conclusively agreed whether Greenland is a first order national subdivision or not. Mike5816 (talk) 14:50, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I put Greenland back in the table for now with a footnote indicating its disputed status. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.215.154.27 (talk) 06:23, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

50 States plus Puerto Rico?
It's usually 50 states plus the District of Columbia. If one includes Puerto Rico, then why not the US other unincorporated insular territories? The US has five inhabited territories (Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas and American Samoa) plus a number of uninhabited ones as well (Johnston Atoll, Midway Island, and others) The District of Columbia should be included with the 50 States before Puerto Rico, and if Puerto Rico is included, then why not the other insular territories? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.251.140.225 (talk) 20:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Only big subdivisions are listed here. This means the size of California or bigger. 167.107.191.217 (talk) 15:15, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Measurement units
How about square miles? People creating over 20% of the World's output, plus a much larger % of readers, plus in the home country of Wikipedia HQ use the English System. Moreover, for English readers, over 3/4 don't use metric.
 * What does the |Wikipedia Manual of style have to say on the matter?
 * "In general, put the units first that are in the most widespread use in the world. Usually, these are International System of Units (SI) units and non-SI units officially accepted for use with the SI; but there are various exceptions for some measurements, such as years for long periods of time or the use of feet in describing the altitude of aircraft."
 * I can't see any objection to adding an extra column showing the country subdivision areas in square miles - at the end. But being in the 1/4 of English readers that do use metric, I can't be bothered. As for removing the column showing areas in square kilometres - that's just not on. --Tphcm (talk) 07:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Land Area or Water Included?
I question whether this list, which includes "territorial" water, is an accurate reflection of size. A list including only land/inland water would be a more equitable comparison. Ryoung 122 19:13, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The level of the subdivisions listed should be specified. 90.171.144.51 (talk) 18:01, 27 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The proposal as listed at WP:RM is:


 * List of the largest country subdivisions by area → List of first-level administrative country subdivisions by area


 * Too clunky, if even clear, and probably over-precise if that (WP:PRECISION). Current title is functional, and the proposed name is not an improvement. ENeville (talk) 00:03, 5 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose. What ENeville said, plus the fact that some of the entities in this list (such as, for example, the Sakha Republic) are not, technically, "administrative divisions", but are rather political entities. So the proposed title is both overprecise and not at all precise at the same time :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 5, 2012; 12:08 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Greenland
Greenland is NOT a country subdivision of Denmark. It is an autonomous self-governing unit. Apart from foreign affairs, all other government functions are handled domestically within Greenland. It is a POSSESSION of Denmark and its large size makes it the largest possession of any country. The concept of national subdivisions refers to entities which are fully under the central or federal mandate. They consist of several types. Using Canada as an example, the ten provinces have a large measure of delegated power but are under direct federal jurisdiction. The three territories have very limited self-government and are more directly run by Ottawa. Greenland is altogether different and does fit in this category. Docjanos (talk) 21:12, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There are footnotes in the article which address this: "Due to the nature of the Kingdom of Denmark it is uncertain whether its dependent territory Greenland is better classified as a country subdivision or as a country in its own right. If Greenland would be listed as a country; its two largest municipalities (Qaasuitsup and Sermersooq should both be listed as numbers 26 and 35 with 660,000 and 531,900 km² respectively, being then the first order subdivision." We include Greenland in List of countries and dependencies by area. As a dependency, it's a real outlier. Most other dependencies are comparatively small islands. I'll amend the lead to accommodate Greenland. It doesn't appear to me that any other dependency would make this list. Wbm1058 (talk) 23:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Missing
Hi listen i found some divisions you missed.

And some others — Preceding unsigned comment added by $200inaire (talk • contribs) 16:30, 12 May 2012
 * California, currently #50 on the list, is 423,970 km2, so Newfoundland and Labrador is too small to make the cut.
 * Darfur is a region containing 5 of the 18 States of Sudan. I think we should take the states to be the highest-level subdivision. Darfur Regional Authority was established by a peace agreement and the regions seem to indicate territories controlled by warring factions rather than formal government boundaries.
 * Azawad is an unrecognized state. Tombouctou Region is the largest of Mali's eight regions, at 496,611 km2 (if Wikipedia is accurate). It's included in the list.
 * Looking for a reliable source to confirm the size of the Borkou Region. – Wbm1058 (talk) 00:36, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
 * An online source confirms that Borkou is the largest region of Chad, but says it's just 260,000 km² – Wbm1058 (talk) 00:44, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Katanga Province
As of 2015, Katanga Province in the DRC is no longer a province, having been split into several smaller ones. This table should reflect that change. Dylanvt (talk) 15:59, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Source
Statoids.com is a good source (at least in my opinion). They even have a list of the largest divisions here. The list was last updated in 2014, but it would still be a good starting point. I notice even in the top 10 there are some major discrepancies compared with this article. --Lasunncty (talk) 02:08, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

California should not be highlighted
California is not included in this article's Top 50, but the map indicates that it is. Presumably, this means some other subdivision in the Top 50 is not highlighted, though I have not gone through the whole list to be sure. In addition to being inaccurate, the map is at the top of the article and is likely to be the first thing noticed about the page. My guess is that many readers will look only at the map and not necessarily scroll the whole list, so accuracy is especially important here.

It would be helpful to recreate this map according to the information in the article, assuming it is accurate. Perhaps the editor could upload the new version as an SVG file so that it could be more easily edited if/when borders change in the future.

I may do this myself at some future point, but I'm not sure when. Maybe someone else has the time and interest in fixing this sooner.

I have posted a similar message at the image file's Talk page in Commons.

--EightYearBreak (talk) 15:33, 11 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I just noticed this as well, and was about to make a new section on the talk page about it, but just saw that you'd already done so. Hopefully someone will fix it soon.  Vontheri (talk) 10:34, 3 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I just figured out which one is missing from the map that California is taking the place of. It is New Valley Governorate In Egypt. Vontheri (talk) 10:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Rank among subdivisions that have that rank in their country?
What exactly does this mean? This column in the table is worded oddly and has no explanation as to what it means exactly? For Western Australia and Queensland, they're both ranked #2. But both second out of what? For Alaska, it's ranked 5th. 5th of what? It's the largest American state, I don't get what it's the fifth of. Sorry if this is something really clear that I'm just not getting!2A02:8084:2842:E80:C04B:9DAD:BFE3:E637 (talk) 23:58, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Answering my own question here. Think I figured it out, but now I'm not at all sure why this column is necessary. The last two columns are linked to each other. Sakha Republic is the biggest biggest "state" (for simplicity I'll say state). Western Australia is the second biggest biggest state. Greenland's the third biggest, biggest state. Nunavut 4th. What relevance does this column have, besides trivia?

Should we go one further, to a second order of magnitude and group Sakha Republic, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Northern Territory, Ontario, etc., together as the number 1 rank among subdivisions that have that rank, among subdivisions that have that rank, in their country?

Maybe an explanation in the notes, or a better column title, would work for this; but I don't see a reason besides trivia for this part.2A02:8084:2842:E80:C04B:9DAD:BFE3:E637 (talk) 00:18, 11 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I know this message has been up for a little while, but I saw that recently edited the article page to put "Clarification needed" on this column, so I think it's worth flagging again here too.  I think the above IP user is correct in interpreting what this column means. But I also agree that, if this is the intended meaning, it is pure trivia and not even particularly interesting trivia; it's just totally unnecessary. (Has anyone ever asked the question, "Out of all the subdivisions that are the fourth-largest subdivisions in their respective countries, which one is the third largest? Oh, of course, it's Irkutsk Oblast!")  My suggestion would be to not bother with clarifying the meaning (which itself would be fairly complicated to do) and just delete this column from the table. Do others agree/disagree? --EightYearBreak (talk)  18:16, 5 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks, EightYearBreak, for addressing this issue. Somehow I didn't notice that this had already been brought up on the talk page before I placed the tag.  But since I'm apparently not the first to be confused by it, probably a lot of other people have been confused by it as well.


 * I generally have a bias towards "the more information, the better" when it comes to Wikipedia. My view is that, since Wikipedia is not paper, we can include information that would not be notable enough for a traditional paper encyclopedia, but which is still useful to at least someone.  I often see things removed from Wikipedia on the basis of not being notable enough when I think they should be kept.  When deciding if something should be removed or not, I generally consider three things:  1.  Is the information factual?  2.  Is it written in a neutral, unbiased way?  (And if not, then rewording it in such a way so as to be describing factually and accurately what the point of view is, as it is viewed by people with that point of view, instead of phrased in a way that presents the point of view as fact, is usually better than outright deleting it.) and 3.  Is it information that, reasonably speaking, someone at some time, would ever find useful?


 * That said, assuming the interpretation stated by the two of you is correct, I think this is one of the rare cases when it really is information that is essentially useless. It makes about as much sense as having a ranking for the order of countries if you subtract their area by their population and then add in the number of rivers in the country subtracted by the number of countries that border that country multiplied by the country's GDP divided by the literacy rate added to the the number of active duty military troops subtracted by the difference between the number of UNESCO world heritage sites in the country and the number of forests in the country.


 * If it is going to be kept, however, it should at least be reworded so that it isn't so confusing what it means. Vontheri (talk) 16:34, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Size discrepancy for New Valley Governorate in Egypt
I cannot find any reference other than wikipedia for the stated area of 440,000 sq.km

A more common area attributed both by wikipedia and others, is 376,500 sq.km

There is no surface water in this area so i cannot understand this discrepancy! Paulalexdij (talk) 11:46, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Yukon: a second level division?
How is the Yukon considered a second level division? Nunavut and the NWT are on the first level division list.

Iainsona (talk) 13:20, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * There is a note next to it that explains why. -- Earl Andrew - talk 17:07, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Yukon is on both lists. And I suppose if we created a third-level list (townships) then Yukon would be on all three lists. So special ;) wbm1058 (talk) 12:08, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Divide the article into several sections
Hi everyone, please excuse me for my poor level in English. Rather than canceling the modifications of others without real justification, it is better to find a formatting that is consensual. As I said, I suggest applying the formatting of most of the articles entitled “List of X by area”, where there are separate sections according to the areas of the territories concerned. Rather than having a single table in a single block, this would facilitate navigation and better discern the diversity of administrative subdivisions. What do you think ? Well done anyway for your substantial contributions. Ellicrum (talk) 13:05, 18 June 2023 (UTC)