Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of countries without rivers


 * 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The result was keep, withdrawn. Non admin closure Edgepedia (talk) 12:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

List of countries without rivers

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Is this useful or patent nonsense? All items listed are, of course, tiny nations, but do we really need a list for this? Regardless, it's completely unreferenced and largely unread.  Night w   05:55, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - It has a lack of reliable citiations, but if it is factually accurate, it's just the sort of thing that Wikipedia excels at: easily accessible and exhaustive data on arcane topics. - Davodd (talk) 07:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I doubt it's factually accurate. A river is defined as any natural watercourse flowing into a body of water. Even the smallest island nation will have a water source flowing into the ocean.  Night w   08:37, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - I did the research for this using Geonet as the source, islands without any natural watercourses are actually not all that rare. The purpose of the article was to eliminate the permanent red links on the various "lists of rivers" templates. Kmusser (talk) 10:59, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Also note the article did have a reference until the nominator relabeled it as an external link. Geonet is a U.S. government database, I don't see any reason to consider it unreliable. Kmusser (talk) 11:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * For that, please see Citing sources. A link to the homepage of a website (with no information related to the content of the article) is not, in any way, a reference. The source is reliable, but the specific page linked to contains no information related to this subject. Is there a more specific link?  Night w   11:46, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The source is the database, not the webpage - I'm not sure how cite a database query with the currently available citation tags. Kmusser (talk) 14:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 00:20, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I was able to quickly find supporting citations online for all but two of the countries just by searching "[countryname]" + "rivers". All of the sources I found are very unequivocal in stating that those countries have no rivers (ex: Tuvalu, in the CIA World Factbook: "since there are no streams or rivers and groundwater is not potable, most water needs must be met by catchment systems with storage facilities.")  I think it's true of Monaco as well but have not yet found a clear source on that, and I think it may not be true of Tonga, but was again unable to confirm quickly.  I still haven't searched for most of the dependencies.  postdlf (talk) 01:35, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Now those are references. I still think it's a nonsense list that should probably eventually be redirected to a water resources by country article, but I appreciate the effort you've taken, so I'll withdraw the nomination.  Night w   07:33, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Withdrawn.  Night w   07:37, 28 June 2011 (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.