Template talk:Infobox settlement/Archive 5

This is an archive of discussions which took place at Template talk:Infobox Settlement from April to October 2007. Previous archives in this series were named Template talk:Infobox City/Archive 1 thru Template talk:Infobox City/Archive 4.

Google Maps & Earth external links inside the infobox
Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia whose contributors are the readers themselves today I attemped to produce an easier connection (which I really thought it was needed) between the article of a city and the major external services relating to its geographical coordinates. At the present State of the Art Google is a sort of standard in this respect and I've thought that now it's time to have this link directly embedded into the infobox. It is true that a complete external service is already permanently linked on the top right side of many city articles, under "coordinates", by means of the templates of the coor and geo* families and http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/geo/geohack.php?, but as a user I did find not very practical having to open that link and to scroll the long and always growing list of geohack in search of the maybe most requested today (in its 2 most popular versions): Google Maps and Google Earth. So I've thought -maybe wrongly?- that a discussion wasn't even needed if I was simply trying to use some parameters (latitude and longitude) already present in the city infobox and attempting the best layout of their easy and (today) needed quick link. Under the infobox city title seemed to me the best and practical place (for its immediate use), but if it is too invasive for the eye the same can be done under the map and the geo coordinates below. So now, if you agree, following the suggestions received, I'll try to move the code I produced to that location inside the infobox. Sorry for my bad English, but I was and I am really trying to help :)--Florenus 20:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Florenus. I certainly understand you were only trying to help. Personally, I don't think these two links should appear in the infobox. It is unusual for external links to appear outside of the external links or references sections. Although these may be commonly used mapping services, different users may have different preferences, and these are all available by clicking the coordinates themselves. Furthermore, maps of the locations are already shown in the infobox to provide a general overview of location. This is just my opinion, and maybe we can get other editors to weigh in here. I'm fine with them being added if that is the consensus. --MattWright (talk) 20:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, I just put them for a trial in the lower location I previously announced.

I personally think that it is very useful for any user a quick location of a Geo subject to Google Earth or Maps, possibly -in my humble opinion- close to the city name, but where it is now it's equally fine, I think. I might improve also the layout to make it more 'gentle'. Some suggestions for this? I don't have much time now, but I can try to make soon 2 small icons to substitute the 'SEE' and that way can be less intrusive. What do you and other users think? :)  --Florenus 21:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm still against it -- especially since one of the links requires some special software to be installed (Google Earth) to make use of it. I'll leave it up to other editors whether to revert or leave it. --MattWright (talk) 21:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is a very useful addition to the infobox at all. It's too prominent and arbitrary in its use of google earth and google maps. I'd say remove it or provide a very good reason before adding it to one of the most commonly used infoboxes. There is a perfectly good alternative for those users who want to view maps or satellite images. Right clicking on the coordinates provides an list of all available possibilities, not just two arbitrary ones. Leaving it like it was doesn't offend the common user and doesn't limit other users in their possibilities to view maps. I see no reason to keep it, I can only agree with MattWright. --Eric Bronder 22:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * How about trying something like this out at Template:Infobox City/Test first? &mdash;MJCdetroit 04:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, I'm not a Google Agent and I give it up. --Florenus 07:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Flag, Seal/Coat of Arms/Emblem
Can the flag image be set a bit wider than the seal/coat of arms/emblem, as in Template:Infobox Country? I believe that template uses 125px for the flag and 85px for the emblem, and I think it looks better that way. &mdash; Kelw (talk) 22:32, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You can manually adjust the size of all four images fields with .  &mdash;MJCdetroit 01:39, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Simple x y dot map
I installed a simple xy dot map to the template. It is based on superimpose. I found a need for this and I thought that this would be useful for situations where an exact map was not available or the pushpin location map was not available or applicable. This does require that a blank map be available and that the editor use the dot_x and dot_y parameters to superimpose the dot in the appropriate location. I found some good blank maps over at Wikimedia Commons.

The new fields are:.

I'll put together an example and an explanation for the table on the "doc" page soon. &mdash;MJCdetroit 01:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Blank Info
Can there be more of these Blank Info spaces?

--Sonyuser 04:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Based on your last edits, I don't have a problem with adding a couple more blank fields, but we probably shouldn't go beyond that. Anyone object?  &mdash;MJCdetroit 17:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

hCard microformat
I've added some HTML classes, to cause an hCard microformat to be included in the generated mark-up. See also WP:UF Andy Mabbett 16:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Should we include further hcard markup? Such as replacing

with

and even and (but the last two make some assumptions). --Qyd 19:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No one seem to mind, so I'm going to go ahead and implement the changes. --Qyd 17:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Requested change
Commented out to make talk page look better. — Alex(T 02:36, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This should fix the image issue in case coat of arms is long. — Alex(T 05:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Test it out in the test template: Template:Infobox City/Test first. &mdash;MJCdetroit 00:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Done. For some reason I thought this page was under full protection. — Alex(T 02:36, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Berlin
MJCDetroit has been working on removing single-use manual infoboxes and has come across a sticking point: Berlin. Meanwhile I have been working on the template Infobox German Bundesland which covers the 16 German states (of which Berlin is one). Berlin is the only place where there is a problem with the template - an editor of the Berlin page is not so keen to let go of his version, and swiftly reverts any attempts to implement something else - usually with less-than-flattering edit comments for such good faith edits.

Now, this is not a matter of "my way" vs "his way". I'm always ready for improvements to the templates that I've done, and admittedly there were some aspects that I wanted to fix up anyway. Together with this user, I've bashed out a number of modifications, and the appearance of the template has considerably improved. But now an agreement still hasn't been reached. The remaining sticking points are varied, some which seem owing more to personal preferences, but others have wider-ranging implications for geographical infoboxes.

Instead of repeating all the points, I'll just direct you to the discussion here. In the interests of consistency, and taking on a few new ideas for infobox design, I would like as many people as possible to get involved. - 52 Pickup 13:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

GDP per capita
how about a GDP per capita field? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ninthroad (talk • contribs)
 * There are "blank fields" that you can use for stuff like that. &mdash;MJCdetroit 16:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Flag and coat of arms
The links to the flag and coat of arms articles are displayed at different levels, which looks ugly and disorganised. Could someone familiar with this template fix it so that they are on the same line? Also, a line separating the symbols from the location map would make things neater as well. It seems a bit strange not to have that, when we have a line separating the picture from the symbols. Thanks for your help.--Hadžija 20:44, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe that the links at different levels has to do with the size of the images. I adjusted the size for the COA at Belgrade (the last city you edited before this comment) in this edit .  I don't know of a way to make the links at the same exact level every time given the nature of the images.  As for the separating line, that seems like a reasonable request to me.  &mdash;MJCdetroit 14:22, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Linking to redirect pages
I am still new to Wikipedia, so I may be off base. I am under the impression that linking to redirect pages rather than linking to the actual page was considered a bad practice. Yet this is exactly what is being recommended here. The real template is yet the suggest title to use is   Can anyone explain this? Dbiel (Talk) 01:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll try...and this is from memory, so without looking up what happened when, I'll do the best I can to explain.


 * This infobox started out as Infobox City and as it envolved it was placed on articles that were actually villages, towns, hamlets, et ceteria. Some people did not like the fact the infobox "CITY" was the infobox.  So we came up with the parameter, Settlement_type.  However, the title Infobox "CITY" still didn't sit well with some.  Copies of this template were renamed infobox village, infobox town, etc.  In an effort to standardized the infoboxes to one general stardard, the infobox settlement was created as a redirect to infobox city.  That way this infobox could be used on any type of settlement. Infobox village, town, place and many more were then depreicated and redirected to infobox city.  It was pointed out by User:CapitalR that we should make the most general of these, infobox settlement, the "master" page and have all others as redirects.  We discussed this option and then kind of forgot about it for a while.  I just recently switched the pages so that infobox settlement is the so called master page and infobox city (town, village, place, borough, etc) are redirects.  There are other reason why these pages redirect to one standard template but there's no sense in over explaining something.


 * You can use whatever you and the editors of an article are comfortable with. I would recommend using Infobox Settlement; as it is the most general. However, if someone says, "This isn't a settlement, it's a city", then use infobox city.  In the end, it all displays the way that the editor edits it to display.  Hope that clears it up a little and doesn't confuse you more. &mdash;MJCdetroit 01:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Definitions needed
It seem that we need a better definition of terms used in this template. The ones currently giving me and several other users problems are:
 * Total =
 * metro =
 * urban =

Note: these terms are used related to a number of different variables (population, land, density)

Normal thinking would yield a formula that would look like: Metro + Urban = Total.

But the example would not support this formula as Metro is greater than the Total.

A clear definition of terms would be very helpful Dbiel (Talk) 01:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I hope I can clear some of this up...some. Total, as in area_total_sq_mi is simply the area (in this case square miles) of all the land plus all the water.  In the case of population_total, it is the total population of the settlement "proper" &mdash;for example the city of Detroit.  For the "total" fields, the label will change depending on what is typed in the settlement_type field.  If nothing is typed, the default is city; as shown in the infobox for your hometown.  The field population_metro would be the population of the entire metropolatian area (usually defined by some government agency)&mdash;for example Metro Detroit.  The article Urban area gives various definitions for urban area which may help explain that.  The metro and urban fields are normally filled in with some type of reference.  How's that? &mdash;MJCdetroit 01:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Your input does help some but remain problematic expecially in Southern California. You have clearly defined "Total" and the defination of Metro is clear as to including (when speaking about cities) not only the city itself but also the greater metropolitan area it is considered a part of.  But Urban is still undefined as to what it is in reference to, that is the urban area of the city itself or the urban part of the metropoliltan area to which the city belongs.


 * To summarize a bit: all cities within a single metropolitan area such as Los Angeles or San Diego would have the exact same totals for all metro entries. Their individual total entries would vary based on the recorded totals for the city itself, excluding any surrounding metro areas.  In Southern California, most cities would be considered 100% urban and I am unsure if one could define a finite urban area that would contain and surround individual cities.


 * I would have thought that a narrower definition of metro and urban would have been more useful when dealing with settlements / cities. Being useful in measuring the difference between rural and urban areas contain within the city/settlement as opposed to the greater area to which the city/settlement was a part of. Dbiel (Talk) 03:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The most common way of using the urban area entry is to put in the statistics for the urban area (defined officially by some countries) to which the city in question belongs to. In most cases, this would be larger than the city proper (both population-wise and area-wise). In the U.S., the core of each metropolitan area is the so-called urbanized area. A list of U.S. urban areas can be found here. However, seeing the issue with the San Diego suburbs, I would also point out that the urban area and metro area statistics are typically only placed on the central city and not the suburbs. --Polaron | Talk 03:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Edit Conflict...Perhaps, the definition at List of United States urban areas may help a little. &mdash;MJCdetroit 03:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC) Pol said the same thing I did but better...03:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Polaron's statement is much closer to the definition I was looking for and I think should be added as a definition to the template itself. That being, metro and urban entries should be left blank when the settlement / city is consider a suburb of the metropolitan area and should only be included in the central city entry. Of course, someone else should be able to word this much better than I have. Thanks again for the replies Dbiel (Talk) 03:33, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I can see an arguement for including the metro area and metro population for a suburb. That being that the suburb itself does not have a metro area, but that the suburb is part of a metro area.  Just playing the other side the coin. &mdash;MJCdetroit 04:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying suburbs should not include the urban area and metro area data but that, in current practice, this information is usually only listed for the central city. There's no particular guideline either way. --Polaron | Talk 16:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * We probably failed to mention that the definitions of metro area and urban area will vary country to country. &mdash;MJCdetroit 04:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Use for Italian communes
Somebody should add the frazioni, patron saint and feast day entries in order to this can be used for Italian comuni (it's already used at Perugia but misses frazioni list). Can anybody help? --Attilios 21:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * There are "blank fields" for such things. Check out Rome now. &mdash;MJCdetroit 03:08, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Border around the flag
In Bratislava, I was a bit surprised by the shown flag, only after a while I realised that the wedge on the right-hand side is not a part of the flag. But could I know when the image has a visible border? Cf. and.

I guess there should be a way to switch off the  flag and leave it to the image itself.

--Mormegil 09:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Degrees & minutes only
This template fails when geographic coordinates have degrees and minutes only, and no seconds. For example, in the article on Kutkivtsi, 49°8′N, 26°22′E is displayed incorrectly as “Coordinates: 49°8′″N 26°22′″E”, apparently with triple primes.

This should be fixed or the coordinates just removed from the template as soon as possible, because the current situation encourages editors to add zero seconds to templates, which would be incorrect. Adding zero seconds fixes the template's display problems, but implies a level of accuracy which was probably not present in the actual figures in this situation, and unfortunately would probably not be restored to the correct values, unless the editor left detailed notes on the source figures. —Michael Z. 2007-06-26 02:46 Z 
 * I reverted an edit (for the time being) that made some changes to the coordinates template. That seems to help.&mdash;MJCdetroit 11:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Looks better now.  Regards. —Michael Z. 2007-06-26 17:04 Z 


 * Apologies for that; I'm not sure how it can be fixed, but I'll look into it. There must be another, similar, template which has resolved this already! Andy Mabbett 17:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Check the code at Geobox coor (which itself is just a modified version of coord). You can see how it was done.  Good luck Andy. &mdash;MJCdetroit 17:19, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you, but that's beyond my understanding of template syntax. Andy Mabbett 16:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Has this been fixed? If not, can someone do so, please? Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 19:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Two Elevation Equations
Hi by looking at the template code 2 use, I noticed the following: there are two equations for elevation, instead we could use only height ( 3500m  gives 3500m) -- Andersmusician  $  15:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * elevation_footnotes   =
 * elevation_m           =
 * elevation_ft          =
 * Thanks, but I don't think that is needed. In fact, I was thinking of turning the precision down for elevation so that 3,500 m would convert to 11,483 ft and not 11,482.9 ft and vise versa.  &mdash;MJCdetroit 16:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Native name
Excuse me - how shall I understand the "native name"? Is it the official name in the local language or the name in the language/s of the citizens including important minorities - or what? Thank You. --Okino 22:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * that's easy, just take a look at Chicago, you see for example, "Chi Town", but not in native name eq but in the nicknames equation -- Andersmusician  $  00:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Please update help. I was reverted many times. --mj41 19:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, I do not speak English so well - native name sounds to me like the name under which the city was born ;-) - so please can You explain me exactly what is the native name? Thanks once more. --Okino 20:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Native name is what it is called by the residents of the city if English is not the a major/only language spoken. Here are some examples: Montreal, New Orleans, Baghdad. Ho Chi Minh City is an example where Official name (in English), Native name (in Vietnamese) and Other name (that being Saigon) is used in the infobox.  Nickname is a name bestowed upon a city over time (for one reason or another) but is in no way official.  For example Detroit's nickname is the Motor City (or Motown) because of the automotive industry and New York City is sometimes called the Big Apple because it is such a big city (I'm guessing).  Hope that helps some. &mdash;MJCdetroit 20:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The native name is the name of the city in the language locally used. Example: the English language refers to a certain city as Prague but it native (Czech) name is "Praha". Other examples: Warsaw (native Polish name is "Warszawa") or Copenhagen (native Danish name is "København"). If the local population uses e.g. two languages, then by all means list both names. Valentinian T / C 20:51, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Settlement - Geobox Settlement
So is there a move towards merging these? What would need to happen? What are the differences? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It would be best to only have one template and it has been brought up a couple different times but it seems that the Geobox editors do not want to merge. Now that Geobox Settlement trancluses on 1,444 pages (and Infobox Settlement transcludes on 8,889 pages) it maybe more difficult.  Without looking at the codes, it could probably be done, but it would take a lot of cooperation from many, many editors. &mdash;MJCdetroit 19:25, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Apretty hard merge would be because of the current number of pages where both are transcluded. -- Andersmusician  VOTE  03:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's not that difficult for a bot, as long as someone can take the time to determine which parameters from one map to which parameters of the other. Caroig mentioned having a script already - is that still available? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs)  06:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I would support the "geobox setl" to redirect "infobox setl" instead of a merge, IMO this infobox we're discussing on has better and more specific parameter, as well as good conversion tools and pushpin maps. -- Andersmusician   VOTE  04:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Calculating Population Density
Would it be possible to build in automatic calculation of density if one is not supplied so its not up to the individual article maintainers to keep density in synch with area and population? pw 12:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well I know its possible, too many curlies for me to get it right for some reason, anyone else want to take a stab at it? To make it backwords compatible I was just going to have it only calculate if the numbers weren't already present, and also if it has all the necessary inputs. pw 12:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

map_caption redisplayed as pushpin_map_caption - bug or a misfeature?
Could someone take a look at Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union? I discovered that in the absence of any value for pushpin_map_caption, the infobox generates a repeated display of the map_caption, which was used to caption image_map. Such repeat display of a caption strikes me as a bug. An ugly way around it is to specify a nonbreaking space in html on the pushpin_map_caption line. I decided to supply a nontrivial pushpin_map_caption instead, because it will make more sense on a textual browser ("Location of the union on a map of Poland"), which in reality duplicates the title attribute of the pushpin map graphic, but I think the default behavior ought to be not to generate any caption when none is provided, instead of copying the one from image_map (map_caption). Thoughts?

Incidentally, when viewed in a textual browser (Lynx), the locator red dot image shows up as link to a graphic with the name of the article (Below, link number 20). But that follows the link to the map with the name: name of the article (name of the pushpin map) (below, link number 19). And the two are followed by the text label of the locator red dot ("Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union", below). Below all that is the value of pushpin_map_caption I was forced to add as described already. Then the coordinates follow. The whole fragment looks like this:

[19]Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union (Poland) [20]Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union Location of the union on the map of Poland Coordinates: [21]50°15'N 19°00'E¿ / ¿50.25, 19 Which is weird. Could the link describing the red locator dot be renamed to "name of the article (red locator dot)" or something?

Also note the spurious display artifacts in the textual browser rendition of the external link to the coordinates mapping tool: the upside-down question marks separated by blanks embedding a slash and the partial restatement of the coordinates that follows. --Mareklug talk 10:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * From what I can remember, the map caption used to be the only parameter for both map and pushpin map (which was silly). So we added the pushin map caption line to improve the situation. However, we left it so that for articles that used the map caption with pushpin map it would not be affected.  So I guess it is a quirky feature.  It looks fine in  Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union infobox.


 * The red locator dot link is not generated at this template. It is within the code at Location map.  Take a look at Zürich which uses Template:Infobox Swiss town.  Infobox Swiss town also uses Template Location map.  The map at Zurich also has that link to the red dot.  Perhaps someone over at Location map can change this.  &mdash;MJCdetroit 14:32, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Demonym
How about adding a row for demonyms? I noticed that the country infobox has this, but not settlements. Carson 23:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You can use one of the blank fields as was done in Tingwick, Quebec. &mdash;MJCdetroit 04:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Would probably look even better in the population_blank1/title field (in the Population section). --Qyd 05:16, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Already following your lead. :) Carson 06:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Logo/Coat of Arms
This infobox has started to be used in the United Kingdom, which is raising questions on certain details.

If one looks at Manchester, under "|city_logo = " is the coat of arms of Manchester City Council, however it's being presented as a "logo" as the city itself which isn't technically true.

We need a coat of arms field, or some other method of saying that it is the coat of arms of the local government, if this template is to be used on the districts of the UK. Jza84 18:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The field is actually called image_shield. I am not sure why it started out being called "shield" but the title under the image is "coat of arms".  I'll fix Manchester.  &mdash;MJCdetroit 19:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi. Can we add a 'crest' field. Kingston upon Hull has neither a shield nor logo, it has a crest and so the current fields are inappropriate. The crest is the three crowns seen on the city's page. Thanks. --TFoxton 12:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll see if I can come up with something, but it won't be a "new" field. Maybe just a way to modifiy the existing logo field to change the title under it.  &mdash;MJCdetroit 14:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Many thanks, keep me posted. --TFoxton 16:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Template:Infobox Settlement/testcases look at the infoboxes at the bottom. &mdash;MJCdetroit 20:17, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that works sound. Nice work. Do you need to edit the real thing now? TFoxton 21:02, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. I didn't add a new field, I just deprecated city_logo in favor of a blank_emblem field where Logo is the default type.  I updated Kingston upon Hull's infobox.  See the table on the template page for new field names. &mdash;MJCdetroit 17:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Bold format on Location equations
Can somebody please remove the value from the main location equations? these make the infobox look compact.-- Andersmusician  VOTE  01:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

City template automatically links name of mayor
Is it possible to toggle that field so that if the mayor is notable, s/he can be wikilinked, instead of having to put   tags around the name of the mayor? Most mayors are not notable by Wikipedia standards and the links often end up pointing to the wrong article. Katr67 16:43, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * From the explanation table on the template page: Tip: Names are automatically wiki-linked if an article exists; if the target is not the intended one, insert a character such as "& nbsp;" to disable the link. How often can this happen? You can always manually link the page if the article exists. &mdash;MJCdetroit 16:55, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Question to include collapsible lists
Hello. It is possible to add to infobox information about town parts or districts? When some town is divided into e.g. 7 districts, I would like to mention and link them from the infobox. - Darwinek 12:30, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think it is. Send me a link. &mdash;MJCdetroit 13:19, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Geobox seems to has this option, see e.g. Ostrava. Has Infobox proper parameters? - Darwinek 13:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I figured out how to force Collapsible list to always stay collapsed and to hide its borders. I think it is better to use that template within this template instead of making a hard-wired section within the code.  See examples at Vancouver, Hamilton, Ontario, and Halifax. &mdash;MJCdetroit 03:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello and thanks for your answer. I see that change in the code but collapsed options (or links) or some hide/show button are not visible in normal article view. Am I missing something? - Darwinek 07:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * ???Not exactly sure what you mean by normal article view. I checked it in FF 2.0 and IE 7.0.57 for Windows XP and both work just fine.  I've checked it in the monobook, classic, and simple skins without any problems as well. I'll double check on my MAC when I go home. &mdash;MJCdetroit 12:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It works fine in Opera but doesn't work in my IE 6.0.28 on Win 2000. Do I need some additional driver or patch? - Darwinek 13:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello. I downloaded the latest Java and enabled the settings. It seems to work now. My bad, sorry for bothering you. - Darwinek 13:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Never a bother! I am sure that you probably unknowingly helped somebody else out. Thanks &mdash;MJCdetroit 13:46, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Deprecated parameter names
The following deprecated parameter names have been removed from the template:

city_logo citylogo_size logo_link area_total area_land area_water TotalArea_sq_mi LandArea_sq_mi WaterArea_sq_mi area_urban UrbanArea_sq_mi area_metro MetroArea_sq_mi elevation population_density population_density_mi2 population_density_metro_mi2 population_density_urban_mi2 All of these parameters were switched over to the current names using a bot. Please see the table on the main template page or the doc page for a description of all parameters used. &mdash;MJCdetroit 16:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Adjacent Communities
I saw an infobox once that allowed adjacent settlements to be listed in a table (for instance, Town X has Y to the west, written left of X, Z to the east, written right of Z, etc. Read as Y X Z). Any possibility that can be incorporated into this template?  Andrew 647  18:53, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that idea was floated before and shot down. You can always use Template:Geographic Location (8-way) in addition to this template. &mdash;MJCdetroit 20:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That looks good. Thanks for the advice, I didn't know about that template before.  I didn't figure people would shoot down something like that, I thought it was a good idea...then again, all of my ideas are good to me...oh well...  Keep up the good work!   Andrew 647  01:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

This template displays pushpin maps incorrectly
For some reason, this template seems to be displaying pushpin maps incorrectly. At Geneseo, New York/map test, you can see the results of creating the map with this template, with Location map, and with Geobox2 map. The latter two have the correct position, but the dot on the infobox-created map is too high and too far to the left. Can anyone explain and/or fix this behavior? Thanks! bdesham ★  05:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe I've fixed the problem. The positioning calculation was incorrect. (Caniago 17:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC))


 * Yes, it seems to have been fixed. Thanks!  bdesham  ★  19:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Please add Mean Home Price and Median Home Price variables
These would be very valuable additions to the infobox, I feel. I am not familiar with Infobox markup, though, so I will leave this task to another editor. Dave Runger 20:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * At the bottom of the template are two sets of "blank" fields. You can use them for those two fields, if you wish. However, I think that adding those two will create headaches, since they will be subject to constant editing with sources of questionable accuracy. Unlike population and city area, which have reliable citation sources such as the US Census Bureau (or its equivalent in other countries), housing costs are extremely fluid and not tracked by any reliable source. Horologium t-c 04:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Good points. I agree that it might not be best to implement median home price fields for most cities, but the reason I asked is because I wanted to add the astoundingly high median home price for Monterey, CA ($775,000, according to realestate.yahoo.com) to it's infobox. I think it will be more good than bad for Monterey's article. Thanks! Dave Runger 04:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

City names are appearing small
City names displayed at the top of the infobox appear smaller than normal. This is recent. vid 02:32, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Nothing appears to have changed in the last few hours, despite User:Tomruen's "tests". Perhaps it is coming from somewhere else.  These "tests", brings me to another question: with this infobox transcluding on 14,607 pages, is it time to fully protect this template? &mdash;MJCdetroit 03:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It's back to normal now. Maybe it was a setting by administrators across the entire site and I only noticed it on these infoboxes? I would support protection for this page as well, I'm sure some idiot would get satisfaction is he knew screwing with this would effect 14,600 pages. vid 19:32, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks whoever fixed it, but now there's another problem—the cities that have filled in (Nanjing comes to mind) barely have no line break between the English name and the native name.  What would be the probable cause of this problem? —O (说 • 喝) 21:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Town or village
Quick question: Is there an accepted standard for distinguishing between a town and a village? I've been assuming that since the U.S. census generally divides the communities it recognizes into cities and towns that anything else below that threshold would be considered a village, but wasn't sure. Thanks! Huwmanbeing 17:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, the definition of what is a city, town, village, etc., is set by the sub-federal jurisdiction, or even a jurisdiction below that. In Ontario, we don't have villages at all. We have cities and towns, incorporated and unincorporated townships and municipalities, etc. In Koochiching County, MN, any settlement with a municipal government is a city. Mizpah, Minnesota has barely 100 people, and is legally a city. (Least populous city in American, iirc.) The census uses more technical terms, 'census divisions' for county-level, 'census sub-divisions' for any municipalities, unincorporated settlements are simply 'designated places'. You should check the community's website and see what it's legal name is. "The Town of ______" or "The City of ______", etc. Hope that helps? :P vid 19:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll research a little and see what I can find. Most people in my area (western Indiana) refer to all small local settlements as towns, but of course that's vernacular -- when you live in a very rural area, even a couple streets with a sign get called a town.  (To be fair, some of these nearly extinct settlements used to be much larger and more prosperous before waning during the 20th century, so history confers some distinction they might otherwise lack.)  I doubt I'll find anything authoritative on the community websites, and there's nothing at all from the census, so barring any other guidelines I'll just use my best judgment and pick. :)
 * Incidentally, Stockwell, Indiana is a good representative of the kind of community I'd like to add an infobox to. Huwmanbeing 20:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I remember hearing somewhere that, at least in Illinois, whether a particular municipality is a city, town, or village is determined by the kind of gov't. it has. But I don't have any authoritative source for that. You might note that the village of Glen Ellyn, IL has a population of more than 22,000, according to the Wikipedia article. I DO know that in Japan the definition is determined by population. There is also no distinction between incorporation and unincorporation there. Or maybe I should say- there is no such thing as unincorporation there. RNavigator 21:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Unused fields
If I apply the Settlement Infobox to an article and there are a number of fields that are empty (and likely to remain so), do you recommend that I keep those empty fields, or can they be deleted? Huwmanbeing 19:08, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Whatever you like, I suppose. With the exception of official_name, any of them can be deleted.  However, if you do remove the unused fields, I would recommend that you place the editor's note of:  next to the first line of  ... Just in case.  Regards,&mdash;MJCdetroit 20:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Example: Stockwell, Indiana. The only [minor] problem with removing the unused fields is that someone in the future may not know to look at the Infobox Settlement page for the full list of available fields.&mdash;MJCdetroit 20:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Horizontal rule above sister cities
A minor thing -- when I add a reference to a community's sister city using the "twin" attribute, the horizontal rule that appears above it is incomplete. (It goes only half way across.) Lafayette, Indiana is an example. Could this be tweaked to make it a full-width rule like all the rest? Thanks! Huwmanbeing 11:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Someone forgot a td colspan="2". It has been fixed. &mdash;MJCdetroit 12:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Empty lats/longs fields
When coordinates are provided without seconds (lats/longs), such as for Johannesburg, there is a small display issue: the coordinates are displayed as, e.g., 26°08′″S 27°54′″E. The ″ symbol should only be displayed if seconds are provided. Could someone more familiar with the template please fix this? Thanks in advance. Pruneautalk 11:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed by reinstating Geobox coor which was replaced in this good faith edit. ...and the saying goes, "If it ain't broke&mdash;don't fix it!".  Happy editing!&mdash;MJCdetroit 01:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Infobox for http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page
I am Eiyuu Kou and I am requesting a template I can copy for this so I can give locations in the game information for usage. There is not too much information based off of the game's locations, but for just enough. I may not pick up the template here, but send it to User Talk:Eiyuu Kou. --69.239.175.29 18:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed fields
Would anyone else find these optional fields useful? They're certainly not priorities, but they're things I'd use. Thanks! Huwmanbeing 21:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Founder. I see in the Politics section that one can already document the year of a community's founding by using the "Established" fields, and can show the current leader, but not the original founder of the town.
 * Named for. The U.S. County infobox includes this, and it's a handy way of noting the origin of the place's name.


 * I would agree that both of those would be useful fields. Good ideas! Omnedon 12:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Flag of the UK
Any idea why the United Kingdom's flag is showing up within the Franklin, Alabama infobox? It uses Infobox city which redirects here, but I can't quite figure out where the flags are coming from. - auburn pilot   talk  20:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Its showing up in all articles that use Infobox city and all articles using Infobox Settlement. I think someone made a mistake or vandalised the template. And I don't know how to fix it.  Some one please help! -- Ltvine | Talk 21:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Scratch that, it doesn't appear to be showing up in ALL articles using Infobox city, see Helena, Montana or Los Angeles, California. I have no idea what's going on. -- Ltvine | Talk 21:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I just removed UK from several places within the code. It was added by here, with the edit summary "Unit conversion tweak". Not sure what the purpose was, but I'm guessing it wasn't to add the UK's flag. -  auburn pilot   talk  21:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I added that on July 4th and there is/was no reason for it to all the sudden go crazy. I've spent an hour or so trying to figure it out what was going wrong, but I can't figure it out.  The only thing I know for sure is that if that this was a direct result of the July 4th edit it would have been reverted in about 3 seconds after I hit 'Save page' because NYC was also showing the union jack.  It was definitely something that happened today.  I think it is coming from the   template itself or something associated with it.  In anycase, it is best to just leave UK out of the code and continue to think WTF? &mdash;MJCdetroit 02:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

documentation on use of population fields
Is there any way to clarify how the various population fields, particularly "urban" and "metro", should be used? Those fields are currently blank in the documentation. -- Sfmammamia 16:47, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Font size is different in IE and Firefox
The font size for this template appears different to me in Firefox and IE. This caused a few problems for me because I do all my editing in Firefox, but when I looked at pages in IE, I noticed some lines wrapped when I did not intend them to. This could easily be solved by shrinking the current font-size for the "infobox geography" class in MediaWiki:Common.css from 90% to 89%. By reducing it by just 1%, the browsers make the infoboxes look basically the same. What do others think about this proposal? It will also have an effect on a few other infoboxes that use that class, but this is the major one so I figured I'd ask here first. Take a look at the testcases in IE to see the difference (the sandbox version has the font size manually reduced to 89%). Personally, I think the slightly smaller size looks much better and is more readable because the words and lines aren't quite so mashed together. --CapitalR 06:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Remove postal code fields and area code fields from this infobox
I don't understand why this information was added to this infobox in the first place. There was a discussion on this topic about a year ago, and no consensus was reached to add it in. The information should be removed from the infobox because:


 * Wikipedia is not a directory
 * There are far too many postal codes for most cities, and their addition will clutter up the infobox.
 * It's presence serves no practical use to the encyclopedia. Particularly since the zip/postal codes must be associated with some geographic map or location in the city in order to be of use (a list of these codes alone is useless).
 * The information is readily available, and in a much better and more useful form, from www.usps.gov. There's no reason to duplicate this.
 * Ditto the above for area codes.
 * Did I mention clutter yet?

Dr. Cash 08:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm just filling in the infobox parameters as much as possible. I have no opinion either way as to whether the ZIP/area codes should be included or not in the infobox.  The bot is almost done with all the US states anyways, so it's a little late to remove them from each article. --CapitalR 06:56, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd like to make a few points in favor of keeping these entries, based on my experience adding them to Colorado:
 * Most places in the US are towns, whether incorporated or unincorporated, and not cities.
 * At least in Colorado, most towns have only one or two ZIP codes, so they are automatically associated with a location: that town.
 * I reference usps.gov for every ZIP code entry I add in Colorado (except for some census-designated places listed on List of cities and towns in Colorado and not listed by usps.gov).
 * Area code areas can be funny shapes. I actually haven't found a good reference for all places in Colorado; but certain areas are obvious on the maps.
 * One ZIP code and one area code don't seem like clutter to me.
 * -- Ken g6 15:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
 * -- Ken g6 15:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * These fields are optional and it is up to the editors of individual articles/projects as to whether or not to use them. So, keep them.  Removing them would cause a riot. &mdash;MJCdetroit 15:23, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * While it probably isn't cluttered for small towns, the fact that they have now been added automatically by a bot, is not making them "optional". Other editors in support of the bot additions are also reverting my removal of this information from some of the city articles that I have been editing, citing "vandalism", which doesn't seem "optional" to me. Furthermore, it IS major clutter for large cities, and just simply won't work for that. Dr. Cash 18:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
 * As the good doctor has been told repeatedly, ONLY small towns will have a zip code listed. If the town has two or more, no zip code will be listed and the field will not come up in the infobox. -  NeutralHomer  T:C 21:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The bot is adding this to cities of ALL sizes, not just small towns. And I do not appreciate your accusations that I am a vandal. This is totally unacceptable. Dr. Cash 23:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * This infobox is also used in settlements outside of the US, and it's useful information sometimes. The parameter is optional. This is not the right place to discuss the issue of including it or not in US settlements. --Qyd 00:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Not ALL sizes. It only added the parameter names but left them empty in my city (diff) &mdash;MJCdetroit 00:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Help needed
I'm trying to "subclass" the Infobox Settlement, in order to map Infobox Serbia municipality to this one, without changing 200 articles. I'm carrying the experiments at User:Duja/Temp. However, I can't get the parameter to work; the ultimate idea is that  parameter maps to, with "Municipality" in the title and metric preference, but I can't get it to display at all. See the usage tests at User talk:Duja/Temp. Can someone gently fix the issue? It does appears in this revision, but with wrong metric preference, and I can't for the life of me figure out what's the problem. Duja ► 10:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Update: presence of / arguments seem to affect the display of area. Now, that is weird. Duja ► 15:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * There's really no need to "map" the Serbia municipality pages. I can have a bot change them over to Infobox Settlement in about 10 minutes.  I did 15 test edits and everything looked good (to me).  &mdash;MJCdetroit 03:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think there is: see the elaboration on my talk page. I'm also a programmer, and I strongly prefer developing an "interface wrapper" to a global change. Apart from minor server effort required, what's the problem with the approach I proposed? Duja ► 07:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * P.S. I think your problem above was that you had listed twice. &mdash;MJCdetroit 03:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot. I still don't know what was the problem really; in the end, I had a few desperate & semi-random attempts to make it work, which apparently included the offending pipe in the argument name... y'know what happens when you try it too hard, too late in the day. I could swear that it didn't work without it either, but it's important that it works now. Duja ► 07:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Made change, need additional help with change
I added a second Postal Code option for locations that wish to break down zip codes by physical location and PO Box. See Clinton, Mississippi to see how it works. Now, that change is working, no problem. The issue I need help solving is with the Area Code section. It's in the same whitespace as FIPS Code and GNIS ID but I think Area Code should be in its own whitespace just like the Zip Codes and Time Zone sections. I'm sure it's got something to do with a table TR or TD option but I'm not that advanced. Anyone? --  ALLSTAR    ECHO  05:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Pushpin map
Hello. MJCdetroit made some edits to pushpin map on 27 October and since then coordinates (red dot) on some maps display wrongly (i.e. in completely other, wrong location). - Darwinek 09:42, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed. The problem was over at Location map and involved the seconds not being conditional within an #expr.  I fixed it over there.  This upgrade will allow users to use only decimals with the pushpin_map.  &mdash;MJCdetroit 20:12, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to move new functions from sandbox
Hi. I've been working on a few minor additions to the template. They ought to have no effect on any existing pages, but provide some extra options based on new parameters (mostly ideas stolen from Geobox). The changes made so far in the sandbox are supposed to have the following effects (please let me know if they do anything they shouldn't - I'm new to this): I know the logic of the last one seems rather strange, but I wanted to make all options available without affecting the display of existing pages. Basically I envisage category as the general description of the entity, with settlement_type continuing to play the role it does now, namely the row header for total area and total population. When the two are the same, that row header is not needed (just Area or Population seems natural). And if you want to suppress the row header but not display the category at the top (for example, when the place is in a country which doesn't distinguish towns from cities, and thus any category is liable to be misleading), you can set category to Town and leave settlement_type empty. Obviously all this can be changed in many different ways if people have better suggestions.
 * New parameters image_skyline_position, image_maps_position, image_dot_map_position, pushpin_map_position, which when set to bottom cause the relevant image/maps to be displayed near the foot of the infobox rather than at the top. This would seem to be useful in cases where multiple images/maps take up so much space that the reader is forced to scroll down to find basic textual information.
 * Automatic calculation of population density, when population_density is set to auto. This could be extended to urban density and so on.
 * A new parameter category (intended to contain values like Town, City, District, etc.) When non-empty this has two effects:
 * It is displayed in the infobox header under the names (in slightly smaller non-bold type). This is suppressed however in the case when category is Town and settlement_type is empty.
 * If it is the same as settlement_type, or equals Town when settlement_type is empty, it causes the total area (if defined) to display on the same line as the word Area, and similarly for total Population - instead of having an extra line displaying settlement_type/City.

Anyway, I'm announcing this here before moving the changes to the live template, to give others the chance to comment. --Kotniski 14:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * They (who ever they are) say a picture is worth a thousand words. SO, can you set up some examples here: Template:Infobox_Settlement/testcases?  The only thing I don't care for is the positioning down of the skyline image, but I'm ok with the maps.  However, let's see what it looks like first.  &mdash;MJCdetroit 14:33, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * By way of demonstration I've altered the Amsterdam testcase to use the new options. (Map moved to the bottom; density calculated automatically; word City displayed at the top of the box but not in the Area and Population sections.) Not all these changes are necessarily improvements in this particular case, but I stress that they are all entirely optional and can be used or not in any given article. I agree it's quite unlikely you'd want to move the skyline (or equivalent) image to the bottom, but perhaps there might be occasional cases where this would be useful.--Kotniski 15:07, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't really care for the area and population same line scheme. If you'll notice in Amsterdan's population, because the date in typed in full, it breaks the line and forces it to wrap.  The extra extra space behind the "Area" and "Population" was intended for the dates and footnotes (I think?).  It looks neater the old way.  The category/settlement type at the top is probably a good idea, but it needs to stand out better than your sandbox version. I don't mind the optional map placement, but if you want to have the option to move the map then the coordinates should also move with it.  They look out of place by themselves.&mdash;MJCdetroit  —Preceding comment was added at 19:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, you're right, the pop/area display doesn't look good in this case. I intended this option for use with more modest infoboxes, like the ones for Polish villages, which contain much less information. But in fact I can probably achieve what I want here without changing the template, just by setting settlement_type to be something like Total or just a dash. When I next get a moment I'll try improving the display of the category at the top, and moving the coordinates with the map. I would also like to simplify the code of the template (by transcluding a subtemplate instead of repeating the same complex code for area and population density many times). That way it will be easier to make changes, such as implementing automatic density calculation for every density position.--Kotniski 10:45, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Having it set to total if your category is full is not a bad idea. Subtemplating is also a very good idea.&mdash;MJCdetroit 11:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)