Talk:San Miguel de Allende

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Demographics on foreign nationals
There have been several modifications concerning the percentage of foreign nationals in San Miguel, for some it is 50%, for others it is 5%, and after one correction that sets the data near the 50% comes another correction that sets its near 5%. Since this has been a matter of dispute, and no consensus has been reached, I propose that the last person who changed it, and future changes be accompanied by a link to a reliable reference (could be INEGI, if they have that information, or the city's official web page). If no data can be found, then it would be safer not to write any percentages, and just say "a considerable percentage of the population is foreign, mainly from the United States". --J.Alonso 14:52, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

POV edits
f There have been several recent modifications to the history of san miguel which seem to promote a particular political/social agenda which is not neutral and certainly is not in keeping with encyclopedic content. Furthermore these changes are quite dramatic and really have nothing to do with the history of the town, which is the title of the section in which they are published. Someone needs to do a major clean-up of the article, because, franky, it is pretty much unreadable at this point, due to the addition of a large quantity of self-promotional trivia.--Tomasdiazh 15:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Website COI?
The website Falling In Love with San Miguel -- a free web blog, forum and hints for those interested in living or living in San Miguel, has been removed several times. The site is free and forums are extensive--wmhwilson


 * (Remember to sign posts to talk pages with ~ .) That particular link has been inserted several times by someone closely related to it, a conflict of interest that is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. Aside from that it has several problems: its aimed is to promote a book, blogs fail the WP:EL guideline, as do forums, and Wikipedia is not a travel guide nor does it give advice (WP:NOT). I removed the link. ✤ JonHarder talk 23:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to remove most of the last section
The final section detailing the changes to the community is totally not in keeping with wikipedia standards. It belongs in a forum discussion not here. I will remove it unless someone can summarize it in a couple of sentences Johnor (talk) 03:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I am unable to edit section "20th century to the present"
There seems to be a problem (software? disk storage?) in the section 20th century to the present. My editing screen goes blank when I try to edit this section. --Wkboonec (talk) 18:56, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Contradictory information on weather/climate
The page has climate information both in form of the climate chart and the weather box, but the temperatures in the climate chart are -vastly- cooler than those in the weather box.

If this is because the weather box and the climate chart use data from separate reporting stations in/near San Miguel de Allende, each should indicate the sites of the their respective weather stations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 313 TUxedo (talk • contribs) 10:37, 29 December 2012 (UTC)


 * They are indeed based on data from different sources. One is from MSN Weather UK, the other from the Servicio Nacional Metereologico, and this is indicated below each of the boxes. I'm not sure why the climate chart uses data sourced through the UK, but those ranges look suspicious to me - my experience in San Miguel Allende during the summer is much closer to what the SNM reports. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 02:30, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Sister Cities
The Spanish version of this article includes a more up-to-date list of San Miguel's Sister Cities, could someone add them up? I'm not that Wikipedia-savvy to do it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.234.118.132 (talk) 00:39, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Imaginary Location
Someone care to fix this?

" Nearby is the Zacateros Market, which is a traditional Mexican market with typical crafts of the area such as objects made of brass and glass. The market contains a fountain dedicated to Ignacio Allende.[30"

There is no such market, nor does the linked article suggest that there is. What the article refers to is a number of shops in the street near Instituto Allende. I'd do it myself, but I'm sick of gettng into edit wars with control freaks. DoneThelmadatter (talk) 00:31, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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I have just modified 2 external links on San Miguel de Allende. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100213100713/http://www.sanmiguelallende.gob.mx/municipio/historia.html to http://www.sanmiguelallende.gob.mx/municipio/historia.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101113224909/http://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/san-miguel-de-allende-paradigma-del-encanto-provinciano-guanajuato.html to http://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/san-miguel-de-allende-paradigma-del-encanto-provinciano-guanajuato.html

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Translation of Spanish-language sources
I’m contacting you as recent editors to this article. While my reading skills in Spanish are maybe at an intermediate level, I have read some of the Spanish-language sources for this article. There are questionable areas of translation in this article into the English word, “city.” These result from the generally accepted translation of the Mexican second-level administrative unit municipio. I admit that this is a settled matter of a complicated question in terms of Wikipedia consensus, but I think this article demonstrates why this decision has not helped the English Wikipedia articles on Mexican places.

The defenders of the status quo point out (correctly) that there is no perfect translation for the Mexican municipio into English. If I understand this correctly, the federal government designates municipios, and not the states. This distinguishes the concept from American counties and parishes, which are second-level entities designated by state governments. In English, the meaning of its cognate, municipality, is more varied. Its broad meaning is “local district.” However, many Americans read “municipal government” as “city government.” This is a false cognate with Mexican Spanish. Cities of Mexico can reside within or be coterminous with their municipios. This describes the same relationship of American cities to counties. (I leave it to others to offer interpretations about non-American English readers.)

Please take a look at the Spanish-language sources for the geographic and demographic descriptions, and check for the appropriateness of the translations of "municipio." Thank you, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 16:18, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Oldsanfelipe, it appears to me that the current revision of the article consistently uses "municipality" as a translation for "municipio". I would support this continued usage (although I am perhaps biased by the fact that I read "municipality" as referring to some arbitrary level of local government above city level), and feel that the current copy of the geography section makes the size and population of the municipio quite clear independent of the term used.Rosguill (talk) 17:10, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for responding, Rosguill. For one example of an incorrect translation, see this from the source cited by footnote 3, "La población del Municipio de Allende para el año 2000 se encontraba localizada mayoritariamente en zonas rurales. Como vemos en el siguiente gráfico, el 53.7% de la población municipal se localizaba en localidades cuya población no alcanza los 2 mil 500 habitantes. Mientras el restante 46.3% se considera población en zona urbana, y que corresponde principalmente a la cabecera municipal y a la localidad de Los Rodríguez. De los 134 mil 880 habitantes con los que cuenta el municipio, el 29.03% se localiza en localidades cuya población es menor a los 500 habitantes, el 24.67% en localidades de 500 a menos de 2 mil 500 habitantes y el 46.3% de la población municipal se localiza en localidades mayores de 2 mil 500 habitantes, la cual se considera población urbana." This says that the 46% of residents of the municipio live in two localidades: the city of San Miguel (cabecera municipal) AND Los Rodriguez. The article incorrectly says that 46% reside in "the city." The 46% also represents the population of the zona urbana, which is again stated as two localidades, while the rest of the population resides in the zona rural in the municipio. Therefore the translation is wrong. I attempted to change this months ago and my edit was reverted. Sincerely, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 17:49, 3 August 2018 (UTC) Edited once by Oldsanfelipe (talk) 17:52, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The demographics section also says, " The majority of the municipality lives in the town of San Miguel proper, which has a population of 59,691." As stated above, and stated in the article (correctly), the majority of the population of the municipio residences in communities of fewer than 2,500 inhabitants. So this quoted section also needs to be changed. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:03, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah I see, good catch! I support your interpretation, although it's worth noting that given Los Rodriguez's rather small population compared to the city of San Miguel, the real percentage of residents of the city (according to this source) is 44%. The comment about the majority of the population could be rephrased to "while the majority of the population of the municipality of Allende lives in a collection of small towns, the largest single population center is the town of San Miguel de Allende, which houses 44% of the municipality's population, while the next three largest towns..."
 * Reading through the sections again, it seems like all of the other statistics are reported correctly. However, another question arises: if the article is about the town of San Miguel de Allende, is it misleading to report statistics about the municipio of Allende?Rosguill (talk) 18:12, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think we can just use your text. Two percentage points is not huge, but is enough to be notable. When I am reading and the numbers don't add up, I wonder if I am misreading the article. Second, like you, I have wondered about mixing the city with the municipio. My understanding of Mexican administrative law is pretty thin. However, at least in the case of the San Miguel de Allende, the fact that it is a cabecera complicates things. The mayor's office, in addition to all of the departments of the municipio, are all under the administration of the head of the ayuntamiento. To answer this better we would need an expert, I think. But the question is valid, and might help with improving many other articles about Mexican towns and cities.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:42, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Is this article for the city or its municipio?
Is this article about the city or the municipality? Also see Rosguill's comment above. The name of the article suggests that it’s about the city. We have articles about Dallas, but we title articles differently when their subjects are more inclusive, such as with Dallas County, Texas and Dallas-Fort Worth metro. In English Wikipedia, there is not enough coverage of Mexican places to split articles in this way. However, Spanish Wikipedia has adopted a naming standard of San Miguel de Allende and Municipio de San Miguel de Allende with a redirect from San Miguel de Allende (municipio).

Given the lack of coverage of English Wikipedia for Mexican places, perhaps this article remain an article about the city and the municipality. If this is the preference, though, we should also rename the article to San Miguel de Allende (municipality of Mexico), or at least San Miguel de Allende (municipality).

According to the definition of “municipality” in English Wikipedia in use for Mexican towns, this means the second-level Mexican administrative unit between a city or town and a state. Municipality is a translation of the Mexican usage of municipio. The article starts, "San Miguel de Allende...is a city and municipality...." Given this definition, the lede sentence cannot be correct unless the city and municipality are coterminous, which they are not in this case.

The lede sentence, in this scenario, should still be changed to indicate that the city and municipality are not identical or coterminous. For example, “San Miguel de Allende…is the name of a municipality and its principal city, both located in the far eastern part of Guanajuato, Mexico.” Oldsanfelipe (talk) 13:54, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I think that regardless of what we eventually decide with respect to the article's title, your suggested edit for the lead is good right now and honestly you can make that edit without even discussing it here (WP:BOLD). As far as the title, given most English-speaker's lack of familiarity with Mexican administrative units, I would propose that we keep the current name but add redirects from your other proposed names to this article.Rosguill (talk) 06:11, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I had to look this this up, but you reverted some of my edits. For example see your edit of the lede sentence: . My previous edit of the lede sentence was ham-handed, so I am not complaining. This is evidence that these questions I have about the use of "municipality" in the article are controversial. Futhermore, sometimes edits require more explanation than can be provided in an edit summary. Cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 12:25, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

New source to improve article
, I just saw your addition of the book by Lisa Pinley Covert. I have seen this on a book preview and I think it could be used to improve the article. I have it near the top of my stack of books to read. Are you planning on making some improvements? Cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 19:25, 2 November 2018 (UTC) Sorry, I did not use curly brackets for the ping template.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 11:22, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Boundaries for the World Heritage Site
I am contacting you as editors who made significant edits to San Miguel de Allende within the last several months. I have found the UNESCO nomination file and some maps which include specific boundaries for the World Heritage Site. I have cited these files in the last paragraph of the lede section and in the first paragraph of San Miguel de Allende. One issue with the article had been a question about the World Heritage Site boundaries. I think we should be able to answer this now. Cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 11:24, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Spin off municipality
Maybe San Miguel de Allende could spin off all of the sections related to the municipality, making this article only about the town. There could be one article for San Miguel de Allende (municipality), one for Atotonilco, and a third for El Charco del Ingenio. The current article is long and might become more manageable if it covered fewer topics. These other topics might be developed further within stand-alone articles. Thoughts? Oldsanfelipe (talk) 11:32, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I would support this, although in that case San Miguel de Allende (municipality) and this article should have DAB hatnotes pointing at each other. signed,Rosguill talk 14:41, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree on DAB hatnotes. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:39, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * A few things I did not notice before the original proposal. Fortunately neither has any bearing on whether to split. First, there are two other towns named Atotonilco, so that article name will need Guanajuato as a disambiguator. Second, according to this article (in Spanish), the name of the municipio is Allende, not San Miguel de Allende. So we will need to consider an appropriate name for the article about the municipality. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 21:24, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * There is a consensus for splitting this article, so I am closing the split discussion. I am beginning the split process by cutting text about the municipality and pasting it into the new article San Miguel de Allende (municipality). Oldsanfelipe (talk) 11:55, 4 December 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) 05:08, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * San Miguel de Allende collage.jpg