Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of countries by number of airports


 * 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. Consensus is that this list is indiscriminate in that it lacks a clear definition to work from with extra helpings of not being particularly encylopedic and being too reliant on a single source Spartaz Humbug! 15:44, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

List of countries by number of airports

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Looks to be an indiscriminate list of facts from a single source with no clear encyclopedic purpose refer Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Contested prod. MilborneOne (talk) 12:26, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Other sources are welcomed on that list. The purpose is clear: an attempt to show the level of development of airtransport in the country, though this parameter doesn't explains everything. Greyhood (talk) 12:36, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * But it doesn't really show that. Larger countries will appear higher in the list and so do some smaller ones that had a large number of airbases due to the Second World War. On the other hand it would be hard to put any more airports in Luxembourg as they would probably be at the peak of airport development in their country. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 13:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with CambridgeBayWeather - this list only shows the number of airports, not the level of air development. It would be very difficult, for example, to argue that Dubai, which has one of the busiest and most advanced central international airports in the world, is actually lagging Chad. Kate (talk) 19:53, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I repeat my comment from Talk:List of countries by number of airports: I have added in the intro how CIA World Factbook defines airports and I have explained my position above. Personally, I don't think that CIA information in the case of airports is quite correct, but if we delete this list, we should as well delete half of other lists of countries, most of which are based on CIA World Factbook and alike sources. Better not do it, because this list and others provide maybe not quite right, but still some information on many subjects, and make this information navigable on Wikipedia. Greyhood (talk) 12:36, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The information is not navigable from the list though. All the links go directly to the country rather than to "List of airports in ...". Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage


 * Comment Perhaps the sister article List of countries by number of heliports should also be considered for deletion as that is also an indiscriminate list with no real purpose. MilborneOne (talk) 12:46, 4 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. This is an un-encyclopedic indiscriminate list. As the source notes the list may include airport that are either closed or abandoned while an open airfield that is not recognisable from the air is not included. Currently in Canada NAV CANADA lists about 1,500 registered and certified aerodromes that are in operation. However, the CIA says there is 1,388 airports both operating and closed. That makes the list misleading and useless for the encyclopaedia but kind of interesting trivia. However, if the list is to exist then it should be based on official figures of registered/certified airports from each country rather than the somewhat arbitrary list provided by the CIA. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 13:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Well, OK, delete the list. And the heliports list too. Anyway I couldn't believe that United States have so many airports under any definition, while other large countries have too much less. Hm, I was too fast on approving the deletion of the articles created by myself. After some consideration and reading the comments, I need to clarify my position in this way: I believe the lists in question pass WP:LIST and can be quite usable and encyclopedic, just like other Lists of countries. We need some aviation-related list on Template:Transport country lists. However, though in most cases CIA provides not bad info, here we have somewhat misleading numbers, in opinion of many people and myself. So I propose either to delete the list by number of aiports, or to keep and rework it, using Airports - with unpaved runways and Airports - with paved runways or perhaps some non-CIA data if there is any.Greyhood (talk) 05:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete - Non-encyclopedic and more than that it doesn't define airport (I know someone linked to the CIA Factbook definition but is that definitive?). If the article was kept you could change the article to List of Countries by number of commercial airports. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 16:40, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete for not being a useful comparison. A list of countries per number of airports per capita would be a bit more useful, and a list that somehow worked in population density as well would be more useful (although I can't work out in two minutes of musing how that would be done). Also the misleading definition of airport apparently used doesn't help matters. Thryduulf (talk) 15:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 15:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 15:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 *  Userfy in order to Weak keep, but repurpose the list as "List of number of aviation facilities by country" (or something like that) - My first reaction was "delete; the existing airport lists are a better resource than this will ever be." However, then I poked around in List of airports and Category:Lists of airports by country, and discovered that Wikipedia has no other master list identifying the number of aviation facilities in each country. A sortable table giving the number of airports (and possibly heliports, if a decent data source exists) in each country, with separate counts for each ICAO Class, could be a useful addition to Wikipedia. --Orlady (talk) 15:53, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment: you might find Category:Airports by country a lot more use. MilborneOne (talk) 18:40, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: That doesn't rank which is what we need. --Triadian (talk) 20:36, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * A sortable table can be sorted by the data in any column, so the countries could be ranked by total number of airports, number of ICAO Class B airports, or any other data column that might exist. --Orlady (talk) 00:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete -- seems a pointless list to me, particularly as it must be highly questionable at the lower end what is and is not an airport, as opposed to a field where aircraft sometimes land. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Airports seem to be just as important a topic as railways and merchant marine, etc so by association, a vote for deletion of this list is essentially a vote for deletion of all these articles which I would argue also pass WP:LIST, keeping WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS in mind. I do not believe that there is no use for such rankings in an encyclopedic setting. It shows the level of infrastructure for countries, as do all similar lists which is important to logistics articles. Does this article need to become more detailed, yes, but I don't believe it should be deleted. I would be willing to accept a previously suggested solution that the article be repurposed as "List of number of aviation facilities by country" or some derivative of that. It doesn't have to be userfied to do that though. As for the solitary source, the definition of "airport" needs to be defined and other sources should be incorporated in the list in adjacent columns. Delete? Nah. --Triadian (talk) 20:36, 5 November 2009 (UTC) I've changed my opinion from "userfy" to "weak keep", but if it's kept it needs to be something more than a regurgitation of the CIA World Factbook list. Inclusion of counts for ICAO Class B and Class C airports (in addition to the counts for airports recognizable from the air, as listed by the CIA) would make this list a much more worthwhile article for inclusion in Wikipedia. --Orlady (talk) 00:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep -- Thus far it seems like I'm in the minority, but let's interject policy here like WP:LIST. It seems to pass all criteria laid out there as much as I understand it. Plus, look at this:
 * Comment - Interesting. Apparently, some people place greater value on rankings than I do. After seeing the other lists on that template, I can think of several interesting rankings for aviation, including annual number of airline passengers, annaul tonnage of cargo, airline miles flown annually by commercial airliners, and total annual traffic movements.
 * Comment - By the way, CIA also has info on Airports - with unpaved runways and Airports - with paved runways. Greyhood (talk)
 * Comment: I concur, Orlady. --Triadian (talk) 06:00, 6 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep, but perhaps rename to something like CIA list of countries by number of airports to emphasize that the list uses CIA criteria. This rename may mollify some of the concerns raised above. -- Pink Bull  01:17, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment the problem is it is not a list of airports. It's a CIA list of active and inactive aerodromes by country that are visible from the air. It does not include active aerodromes that are not visible from the air. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 13:17, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete both - raw number of airports/heliports is an absurd and irrelevant statistic; and the fact that it's extracted from a single source leads me to believe that it also fails WP:NOT. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  03:40, 14 November 2009 (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.