Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of country subdivisions by population


 * 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. Arguments for deletion are based on notability guidelines and are thus overall stronger than the arguments for keeping, which are primarily based on the fact that the individual statistics can themselves be sourced. WP:NLIST states One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, so coverage for the topic as a whole, not for the individual data points, it what is needed. Hog Farm Talk 05:17, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

List of country subdivisions by population

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WP:OR. This is made blatantly obvious by the fact that it cobbles together figures from different years, from 2017 to 2021 for one table and from 2011 to 2021 for the other. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:57, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Addendum. Fails WP:NLIST too: no other such a ranking, as at least one keep lvoter has admitted. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:42, 15 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. An article with original research issues is not a reason to delete an article. It should be addressed for sure, but deleting the article is unnecessarily drastic. -- Earl Andrew - talk 02:58, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep I apologize, but this article doesn't even have original research issues. Every single population figure used inside the article is cited correctly (in fact the tables used have their own Citation column). To an attributable source. Just click the Citation and you'll see a published reliable official source for the data! If you're talking about area figures, capitals, and largest cities, answers to those are typically found on the country subdivisions Wikipedia page itself. If you'd like me to add the source linking each of those specifically I'd be more than happy to do it (IMO it's overkill but if it keeps the page from being deleted its worth it)
 * And the other point you mentioned (which does not relate at all to the allegation of "original research" by the way), the source using different years for different subdivisions, these are just the limitations we have to work with. Not all countries release population estimates for their subdivisions as often as we'd like them to, or around the same times, and there are no international organizations which reliably make population estimates worldwide for country subdivisions, only countries. There is a methodology on which figures are used (stated in the introductory paragraph of the article), being the latest official governmental figures in every single case. In fact, this is the same methodology used used the list "List of countries and dependencies by population". We can see figures cobbled together between 2019 and 2021 (the only reason some countries don't have figures dating before 2019 in fact is that the United Nations does make reliable estimates for every country in the world, we can't use their estimates for subnational entities because they don't exist) in this list. Would you like to delete that list too?
 * I contend that the current methodology that we have in place is good enough for the article. If you have better ideas for which we can get the same date for every subdivision, I'd love hearing them. Thanks, Abbasi786786 (talk) 04:18, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Have either of you even read WP:OR? You are ranking "most populous administrative country subdivisions" (England???), which nobody else has (2021 apples vs. 2011 oranges). This piecing together of made-up rankings constitutes "analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources". Clarityfiend (talk) 04:31, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * This has only been ranked the way nobody else has the same way the List "List of the largest country subdivisions by area" hasn't been ranked by any organization. While the individual sources themselves on either article do not go by themselves to list every other country or country subdivisions, a larger, more clear picture is provided by putting the sources together with a consistent methodology. Is there anybody who's gonna deny that Uttar Pradesh is the most populated country subdivision in the world? Or that Presidency Division is the most populous country subdivision on the second level? We got sources to back this data up, and these are facts that belong in an encyclopedia. It feels somewhat excessive to follow these rules that we can do zero extrapolation of data to the letter (especially in cases where there are clear conclusions to be drawn like here). If you don't like the definitions that are used for country subdivisions, such as England being one of them, or 2011 data being used (this is the most recent data available) go ahead and debate that in the talk page so we can come up with a better solution. BTW this page has been around for a decade at this point. Why get rid of it now? -- Abbasi786786 (talk) 04:56, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You admit it's original research ("ranked the way nobody else has"), and you're still okay with that? Also, WP:ITSBEENHEREFOREVER means nothing. Lots of examples of vandalism have been undetected for a decade. Should we ignore them too? Clarityfiend (talk) 21:38, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions.

Mangoe (talk) 03:28, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 10:29, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep, everything cited, no real concerns from my point of view, at least. Issues mentioned by the nominator can be fixed without deletion. --littleb2009 (she/her) (talk • contribs) 19:20, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep You can click any of the things on the list and see what the most updated population of them is in their main articles, if anyone wants to make certain its all accurate and up to date. No valid reason given to delete this clearly notable topic.   D r e a m Focus  23:18, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep The list meets the notability criteria because each group is referenced. Lack of population update in some cities is not a plausible reason to delete the article. Per WP:IMPERFECT and WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM. ✍A.WagnerC (talk) 00:25, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Rebuttal. I could rank fictional aliens by number of appendages. That also could be verified (and more accurately than this list). Doesn't mean the ranking is notable. Show me a sociologist or geographer who employs this ordering. Comparisons of like regions, e.g. the 50 United States, make sense; mashups like this don't. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:21, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. It looks like I'm going to be in the minority here, but I find the nominator's WP:NLIST rationale deeply convincing. As appears to be uncontested, no reliable sources have ever discussed the populations of these subdivisions as a set. (The references only cite randomly plucked statistics from individual countries, and my searching finds nothing.) That means that, under NLIST, the article has to go, regardless of any OR issues. I hope the closer recognizes that the notability argument here has gone essentially unrebutted. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:45, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Leaning delete. I currently lean towards delete per WP:NLIST. Administrative divisions are a discussed topic, but this article has no sources defining the "group or set" as needed per NLIST. It even violates its own arbitrary rules by including England, as mentioned above. I did find this paper, and note it explicitly mentions the apples to oranges comparisons that these studies run into, and it specifically curates which countries it does detailed analysis on. Would be interested in seeing other sources, that might identify a group or set that could be used for this article. CMD (talk) 06:19, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per Extraordinary Writ and CMD.4meter4 (talk) 01:26, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   16:42, 23 June 2021 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Berrely  • Talk∕Contribs 12:52, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. I am tempted to say because it is a complete f***ing mess, but I agree with Extraordinary Writ and CMD. This should not be on WP. --Bduke (talk) 07:37, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. This seems like a contrived topic for a list. See also the (semi?-)related Articles for deletion/List of political and geographical subdivisions by population. Geschichte (talk) 04:02, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete List doesn't make sense to me and seems like there no evidence this dataset has ever been used in this fashion. Sasquatch t&#0124;c 02:24, 13 July 2021 (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.