Talk:Raqqa

Untitled section 2005
I wish to add the following city map Map of Raqqah but I do not own the copyright. If you have an opinion on this, let me know. Thanks. --Zelidar 20:55, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

"Islamic State" is not a state.
The so called "Islamic State" is not recognized as a state by any country or international entity. It is misleading to refer to Ar-Raqqah even as a de-facto part of a country called the "Islamic State" because the Islamic state is not a state or country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.12.146 (talk) 23:49, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree, and the repeated adding of ISIS to the country section by some users comes very close to vandalism, in my opinion. Wackelkopp (talk) 00:17, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Basis for a single standard name?
I keep running into mentions of this same city with so many different spellings... WHY isn't there a single standard English language spelling for one single city in Syria that hasn't moved anytime recently? Is there any way we could agree on a standard and just impose it on every item in "what links here"? Wnt (talk) 17:17, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The standard name is "Al-Raqqah". This is how it is literally transliterated from Arabic. "Ar-Raqqah" is a pronunciation of the name. In spoken Arabic, often the article "al-" is pronounced differently according to the word that it is describing. Thus instead of al-Sham, people could say "ash-Sham", or instead of al-Thawra, people could say "ath-Thawra" and the same goes for al-Raqqah. --Al Ameer (talk) 00:08, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

The capital of the Islamic State
Ar-Raqqah is de-facto the capital of the Islamic State
 * Control is mentioned in the last sentence of first paragraph of lead, but the way you are writing it as if its a real country is not right, and against consensus, so please stop. BollyJeff  &#124;  talk  15:20, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * It is not mentioned in the sentence of first paragraph of lead Ar-Raqqah is de-facto the capital of the Islamic State — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.99.81.149 (talk) 15:29, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Because there is arguably no such thing. You are edit warring. You should leave the article as it was, and let consensus be reached here first before changing it. IP editor 145.129.95.114 has provided a nice compromise, let's go with that.  BollyJeff  &#124;  talk  15:36, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 14 December 2015

 * 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.

No consensus to move. bd2412 T 15:32, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

– There are many different transliterations for this town's Arabic name, and they are basically all correct and common, so it's upon us to take a decision. Note that I'm fine with whatever the discussion brings forth, as long as it is a conscious decision that can be consequently implemented. If all versions are equally correct, quantity of usage is an aspect. By total Google hits ar-Raqqah is clearly more common than the others with ar-Raqqa being second, al-Raqqa third and al-Raqqah only fourth. For Google books, you have about the same picture. And while the Encyclopedia Britannica uses al-Raqqah, ar-Raqqah is the preferred transliteration per GeoNames. "al" or "ar" is an indefinite article like "the" in The Hague. When transliterating Arabic, it is common to drop the article in compounds such as "Battle of Raqqa" or "Raqqa ware." It however seems, the most common form – compound or not – is simply "Raqqa", whether by by Google hits, Google Books. While simply "Raqqa" isn't outright wrong, it is a simplification, and within the article text, it is fine. I would still tend to include the indefinite article in the title wherever appropriate. So as a compromise bringing together WP:COMMONNAME, with the precision everybody expects at Wikipedia (ahem…), and consistency, I'm proposing "ar-Raqqa" for the town, the governorate, the district (and the "Newroz killing", which isn't a proper name but an artifical page title), and "Raqqa" for the compound names, such as "Battle of Raqqa" or "Raqqa ware". I'm unsure what to do with "Rakka Eyalet", as all sources seem to spell this historic name with "kk". It however seems okay to leave it as is. -- PanchoS (talk) 21:49, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Al-Raqqah → ar-Raqqa
 * Al-Raqqah Governorate → ar-Raqqa Governorate
 * Al-Raqqah District → ar-Raqqa District
 * Raqqah Newroz killing → ar-Raqqa Newroz killing
 * Battle of Raqqa → Battle of Raqqa
 * Peter III of Raqqa → Peter III of Raqqa
 * Al-Raqqah Museum → Museum of Raqqa
 * Raqqa ware → Raqqa ware
 * Rakka Eyalet → Rakka Eyalet
 * As a native Arabic speaker, I can assure you that 'Al-Raqqah' is a better transliteration.Makeandtoss (talk) 10:56, 19 December 2015 (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.

RfC: Title Al-Raqqah is wrong - move to just Raqqa

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The name Al-Raqqah is not the most common usage (required by MOS:TITLE), nor is it basic transliteration (see WP:MOSAR), so it should be moved.

Simple google hit count estimates (when google says About 383,000 results) gives 755k for "Raqqa" -"al-Raqqa" -"al-Raqqa", and from 85k to 572k for other options. Google's estimates are pretty wild of course. Google book search gives 644 actual results (ie after tediously paging through the results until it actually runs out of real result), compared with from 107 to 334 for the other options. So unlike above, I recommend moving to just Raqqa everywhere. Batternut (talk) 13:01, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Full googling results: Batternut (talk) 13:01, 3 February 2017 (UTC)


 * This page has been moved 6 times since 2007, never with discussion (and never to just Raqqa!) This discussion would benefit if those (non-retired) movers gave their current views or past reasons. Without decent discussion WP:BOLD is the norm... Batternut (talk) 14:32, 3 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Support move to Raqqa As PanchoS says above: 'While simply "Raqqa" isn't outright wrong, it is a simplification' and that's fine for me. In the English speaking world we don't generally keep an indefinite article ahead of a place name and I really think COMMONNAME overrides concerns about what the correct Arabic transliteration is. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 17:13, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Support Just to be clear, I don't favor removing the article "al-" as a rule, we can have that discussion elsewhere. I support the move to "Raqqa" per WP:Commonname. --Al Ameer (talk) 19:21, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Support per Chris troutman, commonname takes precedence over 'correct' transliteration. Pincrete (talk) 00:55, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the comments. Proceeding now... Batternut (talk) 11:55, 10 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Broken image template
In the section "Control by Syrian Democratic Forces (October 2017–present)" there's a broken image template. I've attempted to fix the issue myself and even though the image template shows up when I do the preview, it appears as a broken text once I click to publish the changes. Elishop (talk) 16:50, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ There was a missing bracket higher up in the page. I recommend turning on the Syntax Highlighter gadget in your Preferences in order to be able to find problems like this more easily. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:22, 31 August 2021 (UTC)