Talk:List of municipalities in Washington

List of cities in Washington (by population)
What good is accomplished by the existence of the List of cities in Washington (by population) when this page already lists populations, and in a sortable table? I had previously redirected the page to this one (as all of its information can already be found here, a merge is unnecessary), but it has been recreated. — The Man in Question (gesprec)  ·  (forðung)  22:32, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Rainier, Washington
Rainier is a code city, according to the Municipal Reserarch and Services Center and the lady answering the phone at the city. I'm unable to find this documented online though. There was a referendum in 2000 on becoming a code city, which apparantly lost.

Jestapher (talk) 23:32, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I have been researching this for days, looking for official confirmation of the status of Rainier, Washington as a city, and everything I have found confirms this to be the case. Like you, I found the MRSC site, which the [state website uses to catalog info about cities and towns. I too called the office and was informed that it is City of Rainier, and this was also confirmed on the [official webpage]. While the 2000 Census gives Rainier as a town, the change to a "code city" apparently happened soon after. The status of "City of Rainier" is also confirmed by numerous official state documents, like reports from the State Auditor's Office, the Office of Financial Management, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Ecology, etc., and any number of documents on the Thurston County website. To this end, I am removing Rainier, Washington from List of towns in Washington and adding it to List of cities in Washington]]. Rising*From*Ashes (talk) 09:16, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

MRSC
The Municipal Research and Services Center (MRSC) generally appears to have the most up-to-date listing of cities and towns in the state. The following places are listed as cities there but not by the 2010 U.S. Census:


 * 1) Mattawa, Washington
 * 2) Millwood, Washington
 * 3) Ruston, Washington
 * 4) Tieton, Washington

They all must've become cities relatively recently (within the past few years). —Mrwojo (talk) 04:04, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Other data that's more up-to-date than the 2010 Census includes the place population estimates tables (which don't seem to be completely available in FactFinder, unless I'm missing them), the Census boundary changes, and GNIS data ("Civil" feature type). —Mrwojo (talk) 03:44, 27 November 2012 (UTC)


 * New Full list of cities/towns in 2012 Estimate here --Rossdegenstein (talk) 00:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

2014 Estimate
Hi, Updating and click to http://www.census.gov/popest/data/cities/totals/2014/SUB-EST2014-3.html. New 2014 EStimate. You can edit and thank you. --Rossdegenstein (talk) 01:36, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Class (or code)?
I would think it would be informative and sensible to include a column in this list showing whether each city is a first-class city, a second-class city, a code city, or, in the case of Mattawa, an outlier. The information at this page is suggestive but inadequate/incomplete. --Haruo (talk) 16:56, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
 * This list from the Municipal Research and Services Center has code/class lists as well as incorporation years. I'll work on integrating both into the list over the next few days.  Sounder Bruce  01:28, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * City classes have been added. I think I might take on this list and transform it into something FLC-worthy in a way similar to List of cities and towns in Alabama (maybe merging the towns list as well).  Sounder Bruce  22:42, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, SounderBruce! I think merging the towns list makes very good sense. I'll only be working on this topic, to any great extent, in eowiki, but I will indeed work on it there with the goal of integrating the various kinds of urboj and urbetoj into a single list that shows which class they are. I might even add in the CDPs, neighborhoods, and other inhabited-place toponyms. --Haruo (talk) 14:03, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Merging CDPs and other unincorporated entities might be a bit too much. Towns at least are defined under the Revised Code of Washington alongside cities, and there's precedence with other state lists.  Sounder Bruce  22:40, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This struck me as irrelevant minutia that detracted from the article, almost to the point where I deleted it. What value do you see in having this information here? It seems of no interest to anyone, save perhaps a lawyer who specializes in such details. 130.44.142.234 (talk) 11:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Proposed merger of List of cities in Washington with List of towns in Washington
Similar to the combined city-town lists for Alabama, California, and Montana. It'd be simple enough to implement, with the Type column being the main method to differentiate between the two.  Sounder Bruce  01:10, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I certainly have no objections; it seems like it should be much more helpful than troublesome for typical users. Whoever they are. --Haruo (talk) 02:53, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * |List_of_towns_in_Washington About 750 total between the two lists isn't too shabby.  Sounder Bruce  04:34, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I've been working on these lists, trying to bring them all up to featured list status (including 2 of the 3 you mentioned!). I was planning on doing these mergers for any state that divided it's incorporated divisions into multiple pages (where reasonable). I'm also doing the reverse and creating new pages for non-incorporated places (CPDs) or the lists would be way too long. I support this merger. Mattximus (talk) 19:01, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I would be happy to lend you a hand in getting this list up to featured status, as it has been on my mental to-do list for quite a while.  Sounder Bruce  23:42, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Sure, that sounds great. What do you think about the format I chose for Montana? I know the data from 2010 is a bit out of date, but I still prefer using actual counts over estimates. I also used templates so that the census in 3 years will be able to be inputted quickly and accurately, bringing the whole list up to date. If you like this format, I'll set it up and we have have a go. Mattximus (talk) 13:17, 3 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Ok so I expanded the lead and moved images to galleries, I think we need to do 3 main things to bring this article up to standard:
 * 1. Clean up the lead and include sources, some are found in the external links, some will have to be dug up.
 * 2. Merge the two list pages into one.
 * 3. Format pictures (find better pictures?), including captions. If possible find a map that has the municipalities outlined, but this may be hard.
 * 4. New list format, what do you think of this proposed one?

What do you think of this plan?
 * A map of municipalities could be made using Census data. As for the list format, I think it looks good, but I would use a colspan for the Population to save a bit of width. Also, I believe that using estimates would be a better indicator of population than 16-year-old census data, since Washington state and her cities are growing at a very fast rate (especially Seattle and her suburbs between 2010 and now).  Sounder Bruce  04:16, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Colspan sounds good, I can incorporate that into the list. Now I agree that that statistics from 2010 are 6 years out of date, however there are a few problems with using estimates. First, estimates are not really considered "encyclopedic" and will likely not pass at featured list review. The tradition there is to use the latest census or official registrar data (it's just unfortunate the USA only collects once every 10 years). In a few years the data will be up to date. The 2000 data is just to show longer term trends in population growth. It wouldn't be very informative to include change over a year or two, since that goes up and down all the time. Second, the program I wrote that automatically pulls from the United States Census page can only pull from official censuses, the formatting of the estimates is different (for some reason) and it messes up the pull. If we did choose estimates, it would have to be done by hand, which would take hours and hours... What are your thoughts? Just as an example, this morning I tested out the bot on List of municipalities in Wyoming, it made the table in seconds. Mattximus (talk) 18:25, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Image captions don't match table
Rankings in the city images captions do not match the table. For instance Everett is seventh in the 2019 estimates, not sixth. I wonder if including the rank in the caption is more trouble than it is worth, given probably annual changes in the list. - Bri.public (talk) 21:58, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I believe the rankings are based on the census data? We really shouldn't be including 2019 estimates anyway, and stick with census counts. New one coming in a few months! Mattximus (talk) 22:04, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Recent Edit Reversals
I agree with SounderBruce but for another reason: when updating from the census, the municipalities are listed alphabetically, and so updating this list becomes a headache if listed by population. Also, their original reasoning, that it can be sorted with a click, is also reason enough not to rearrange. On a side note, it would be great to merge the two tables into one to make the sorting more comprehensive. Mattximus (talk) 01:37, 14 September 2023 (UTC)