Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of cities by surface area (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Stifle (talk) 19:46, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

List of cities by surface area

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This list does not provide any useful information, and there is no way to modify it to be useful without original research.

Currently, this is a ranking of administrative areas that use the word "city" in their name. My objections are:
 * 1) Administrative areas from various jurisdictions and at various levels in the administrative hierarchy are inherently not comparable.
 * 2) The criterion that the name contains the word "city" is completely arbitrary, as many cities do not identify themselves as such, while many non-cities do. This results in the list being populated by large rural areas that most people would not consider cities.
 * 3) The list also fails as a ranking of administrative areas, since those that do not happen to call themselves a "city" are excluded. Furthermore, if it were to serve this purpose, the name of the article should be changed.

Some old discussion suggested changing the criteria to better match what people consider cities, but concluded that it would not be possible to do so without creating substantial ambiguity and requiring original research. Thus, the list is forced to use self-identification as the inclusion criterion, which completely fails to capture the intent of the list. Imagine having a list of states in the United States that only contained 46 entries, because Kentucky, Massachussetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia self-identify as commonwealths rather than states.

Note that this is a different reason to the previous nomination for deletion, as the article has changed substantially since then (from a badly-sourced list of cities to a well-sourced list of non-cities). A couple of people on the discussion page have voiced concurring opinions. - Pirsq (talk) 21:44, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete I understand how the present situation came about, but its absurdity demonstrates the difficulty of turning this into anything remotely encyclopedic. The article shows that different countries have different local administrative arrangements, that even English speaking countries use the term 'city' in radically different ways, and that there are in consequence some very large administrative units which are termed cities and yet not urban, have low population densities, and cover a large area. Which is quite interesting in its way but better covered elsewhere and has more to do with the vagaries of legislative arrangements than anything else. The only way it could have any sense as a comparative list is within a country where the same legal definition of a city applied uniformly. --AJHingston (talk) 00:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 01:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete due problem of standardising definitions and OR. Buckshot06 (talk) 01:52, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete - There may be a way to create a category of cities by area (if it doesn't already exist) but this isn't the way to do it. Not related, but it would be a nightmare to verify, qualify, debate (do 'burbs count? Burroughs?, etc.), plus a lack of standardization, so the article never could be accurate.  Also "surface area" is an odd way to call it, as 220'x220' = 1 acre, but if it is hilly, it will have more surface area, etc.  Dennis Brown (talk) 18:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.