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AONBs are no more

Hi all, seems out of nowhere (to me at least), the Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, including those in Wales are to drop "Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" for "National Landscape". Not sure on the legal side of things, if they are legally AONBs still. Sources are split whether it would also apply in NI (some just saying "England and Wales", if not possibly a re-split?) I would bring it to the actual talk page there, but as there are many AONB articles and references to them in many articles, raised it here for awareness.[1][2]

Ideally, WP:NAMECHANGES should apply for any moving of articles like Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, but if it is quickly adopted then surely won't take too long as it is like a descriptor most of the time.

Kinda annoying considering Wales spent years discussing whether to change to the same name, but leading to nowhere, until today.

Thanks DankJae 12:46, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

See https://national-landscapes.org.uk/news/welcome-to-national-landscapes. PamD 13:03, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@PamD, in its first sentence seems to say those in NI will not change, but other sources on conflicted on the matter. DankJae 13:09, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

My local (England) AONB and one in Wales have updated their websites to NL, while two I sampled in NI (here and here) have not. Small sample but supports the "E&W" statement. PamD 13:16, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

And this official page would surely have been updated if the change applied in NI? PamD 13:18, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

But it could be to do with lack of a government in NI, so no-one updating websites? PamD 13:20, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I've posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Northern Ireland#AONBs to ask if anyone knows about any change. PamD 13:24, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@PamD, still in the early hours following the announcement, so may be corrected or clearer soon, and yes there is a lack of gov in NI possibly hampering the change (plus the law? may be E&W only), however as you stated that source states E&W. Surprised nonetheless of the name, especially as Wales tried to do it a few years ago, but seems to not be involved in this recent decision? AFAIAA.

But if it is clearer NI will not rebrand, may be the article has to be split again (I have to split the map again). DankJae 13:25, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Seems the first proposal to rename them was only discussing England,[3] however Wales probably was open to it as they proposed it too and the "Wye Valley" would complicate it. DankJae 13:37, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

The re-branding design team, seem to only show rebrand for England and Wales.[4] So slowly growing case that NI is not included. DankJae 13:40, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Oooh, good catch @DankJae. I like the rebrand a lot, I have to say. "Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" was always a mouthful, so "National Landscape" is a huge improvement on that front. The change does seem to have come out of nowhere, though!

I do think we'll need to change some article names eventually, but there's no massive rush as we wait for more information about the rebrand. Many of the AONBs either don't have "AONB" in their title or are covered in the main articles about their namesake geographic region, so we'll only need to consider:

• Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
• East Devon AONB
• High Weald AONB
• Isle of Wight AONB
• Nidderdale AONB
• Norfolk Coast AONB
• Shropshire Hills AONB
• South Devon AONB
• Surrey Hills AONB
• Tamar Valley AONB

(None of the Welsh AONBs use "AONB" in their article title)

I have some ideas about what to do with each, but I won't jump the gun. A good approach may be to work out what to do with Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, then work on moving the individual AONB articles, then work on content within the articles. How does that sound? A.D.Hope (talk) 14:36, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@A.D.Hope, this Nation.Cymru[5] source (which I apparently missed a few days ago) said that a report said The title National Landscape does not remove or replace the legal definition of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in law, but is a simpler common name without a complicated acronym. So AONB may remain the legal title, with this just being a (well-needed) rebrand, however there is an argument if the rename becomes more common that the AONB article be renamed. (once again no idea how NI fits into this). N.C. also stated that while England was announced today, an announcement for Wales is in the coming weeks, nothing on NI though.

Yeah none in Wales have it (nor NI, and as a few in England), although I made a group article at Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Wales (so would move that to match any move of the main). Had plans make the other AONB articles in Wales, (with AONB in the title), but seems I would have to use National Landscape instead. :) DankJae 14:48, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't want to be hasty but I also anticipate that "National Landscapes" will become the common name in England and Wales very quickly – it's a full rebrand and a shorter name, so likely to be picked up by reliable sources. Maybe we should revisit the issue in a month and see where the land lies. A.D.Hope (talk) 15:01, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

It's still early days, but the National Landscapes website now contains a page which explicitly includes Northern Ireland, and the BBC has also reported that the rebrand applies to NI. It clearly hasn't been implemented yet, but it's reasonable to assume it's on the way.

The rebrand was ultimately instigated by the 2019 Landscapes Review. The subsequent government response did not support all of the changes, most notably rejecting the creation of a 'National Lanscapes Service' to unify the national parks and AONBs under one body. Nevertheless, it did support rebranding AONBs as 'national landscapes'. The rebrand is also part of wider changes to the role and function of AONBs, which I haven't quite got my head around yet but which we will need to update the AONB article to reflect. A.D.Hope (talk) 12:50, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Surrey Hills AONB website now says National Landscape, haven't checked the others yet, but we can probably go ahead and change the article names. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 13:01, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

It's still very much a work in progress, I'd guess because the individual AONBs are run by fairly small teams and until now haven't had unified branding. The likes of Arnside and Silverdale and East Devon seem to have fully implemented the rebrand (on their homepages at least), but the Lincolnshire Wolds and Chilterns are still AONBs. There's also a few semi-rebrands – Nidderdale is currently a 'National Landscape Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty', which is wonderfully chaotic. A.D.Hope (talk) 13:17, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

The websites FAQ’s state “What is a National Landscape?

A National Landscape is one of 46 areas within England, Wales and Northern Ireland safeguarded in the national interest for its distinctive character and beauty. The legal designation is 'Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty'.”

So I have a feeling it is supposed to apply to NI, but possibly because of the lack of government the AONBs cannot be updated nor any laws amended? So as PamD stated may be the reason for the delay, and they decided to just do E&W for now. Well technically just England now, as it seems Wales (ex. Wye) would be fully rolled out in a few weeks per N.C above. Although still very early days. DankJae 13:47, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I think we now have an example of 'national landscape' being used in the wild in a story unrelated to the rebrand. There's also a new English national park on the way, incidentally – I wonder if it or the Clwydian Range will be established first? A.D.Hope (talk) 13:04, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@A.D.Hope CRDV replacement (yes promoting my creation) won't be until almost 2026 under the current schedule. So likely will apply the unified branding even if for less than 5 years. I guess there is a race for a new NP, Scotland is looking at one too, while idk what is happening with the South Pennines Regional Park. DankJae 13:36, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The South Pennines should be at least a national landscape, they're the only part of the Pennines without any form of protection. As a side note, I've never quite understood why they're called the 'South Pennines' when the Peak District is more southerly.

I'll keep an eye out for other 'national landscape' mentions, in a couple of weeks we might be in a position to make some changes. A.D.Hope (talk) 14:07, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

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"City of..." in infobox district lists

Not the most pressing matter, but is there a reason why we often note city status in infobox district lists (e.g. Norfolk) but not borough or district status? Considering the context is clear and most districts with city status don't include that in their official name (e.g. 'City of Norwich' is just 'Norwich' in legislation and according to the ONS), could we drop it? A.D.Hope (talk) 09:47, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

@Rcsprinter123, pinging you over from North Yorks if you're interested. A.D.Hope (talk) 09:48, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

We shouldn't display "City of" in articles with the possible exception of cases when other districts being merged are discussed, see this and my reply. All NMDs and MDs seem to use "X" and "X District" as an alternative per the Ordnance Survey. Wolverhampton does use "City of" however all unitary districts with the exception of York use "City of" though but in most cases like in the county articles listing the districts it should be [[City of York|York]]. The TOID has been withdrawn so its harder to show this but you can see if you look on Ordnance Survey maps the likes of "Lancaster District" and "City of Plymouth". Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:27, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I’m pretty good with local government acronyms, but I might just need a translation there, Crouchy! A.D.Hope (talk) 21:26, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

@A.D.Hope: NMD=Non-metropolitan district and MD=Metropolitan district. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:11, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

TOID? Murgatroyd49 (talk) 09:30, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

@Murgatroyd49: TOpographic IDentifier, see TOID. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:35, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Doh! of course. I knew it rang a bell. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 17:39, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

So, to get back to the original question, @Crouch, Swale are you saying that we shouldn't use (for example) 'City of Lancaster' except where it would cause confusion with the settlement of Lancaster? A.D.Hope (talk) 20:09, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes we should, in most cases we would write something like "Carnforth is a town and civil parish in the Lancaster district, in the county of Lancashire, England". We would make it clear we are referring to the district by putting "district" as an independant modifier before or after the link. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:12, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

That makes sense. Is there a proper consensus around that form of words, or is it just how we tend to do things? A.D.Hope (talk) 20:15, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think there is a specific consensus about precisely how to word, "in the Lancaster district, of the county of Lancashire", "in the Lancaster district of Lancashire" etc seem to work. I use the 1st but I'm fine with any of the others. The only think that we don't use is "ceremonial county" unless we are talking/in unitary districts. We do indeed need to use the work "district" before or after [[City of Lancaster|Lancaster]] to make it clear we aren't referring to the settlement. For Forton for example it would probably be acceptable to write "It is 6 miles south of Lancaster" without clarifying its the settlement though. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:34, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Why are we complicating things, just drop the piping and use City of Lancaster. Keith D (talk) 23:57, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

For the most part the districts with city status are just called 'settlement', not 'city of settlement', but we use the latter for article titles as it's handy for disambiguation between a district and its namesake settlement. To maintain the example, that means 'Morecambe is a settlement in the district of Lancaster' is more accurate than 'Morecambe is a settlement in the City of Lancaster district'. A.D.Hope (talk) 00:06, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Why not just say "Morecambe is a town in the City of Lancaster"? Does the "district of Lancaster" still even exist? (Sorry, my knowledge of Lancashire local government is minimal but if I apply your logic to a case I know best: Olney is a town in the district of Milton Keynes is arrant nonsense because the "district of Milton Keynes" ceased to exist over 25 years ago. That is why the article says "Olney is a town in the City of Milton Keynes --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:46, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

The districts of Lancaster and Milton Keynes aren't called 'City of Lancaster' and 'City of Milton Keynes', just 'Lancaster' and 'Milton Keynes'. We use 'City of...' in the titles of the articles about the districts to disambiguate them, but 'city' is a description rather than part of the name. A.D.Hope (talk) 00:57, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

If the above is a bit confusing it might help to compare Lancaster with Hull, because for whatever reason Hull's official name is 'City of Kingston upon Hull'. On an OS map Lancaster is 'Lancaster district' and Hull 'City of Kingston upon Hull', and on the ONS districts map they're 'Lancaster' and 'City of Kingston Upon Hull'.

I believe the only other examples of cities with 'city' in their official name are City of Edinburgh, Glasgow City, and Derry City and Strabane. All the rest are plain 'Worcester, 'Norwich', 'Cardiff', etc. A.D.Hope (talk) 10:31, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I live in the City of Lancaster district, in Lancashire. I do not live in the city of Lancaster, which is half an hour's drive away from my village. The most helpful thing for our readers is to use the clunky "City of Lancaster district", in the initial description of a place, because that clarifies that the place is in a local government area called "City of Lancaster" which is not the same as the town of Lancaster. On checking, I'm relieved to find that the article on Silverdale, Lancashire does indeed use that formulation. PamD 10:39, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

It's interesting that you call Lancaster a town and a city in the same paragraph, it does highlight the problems that giving city status to districts with the same names as towns causes!

I do see what you mean about 'City of Lancaster', but the district is definitely called just 'Lancaster'. The Silverdale article would be correct if it read 'Silverdale is a village and civil parish within the Lancaster district', just as Charnock Richard is correct to open 'Charnock Richard is a small village and civil parish in the borough of Chorley'. Even though Lancaster and Chorley are also settlements, the use of 'district' and 'borough' should indicate to readers that it's the local government districts which are being referred to. A.D.Hope (talk) 11:02, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

But the same OS map does not say "Milton Keynes district", it just says MILTON KEYNES. And the "ONS Districts map" (actually "Local Authority Districts (May 2022)" says that the local authority is "Milton Keynes" without qualification (but note the date: city status was conferred three months later, so no conclusions can be drawn). So I have to repeat: the District of Milton Keynes was abolished on 1/4/97 when it became a UA. No doubt there are other examples, making it simply wrong to use the term "district" in these cases at least. (MK is still formally a Borough, though usage has totally fallen off the radar.) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:16, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

A unitary authority - and indeed a borough - is a type of district. Yes the old District of Milton Keynes (note the capital D) was abolished, but replaced with the new district (small D) of Milton Keynes. It's still a district. WaggersTALK 13:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I think we should help the readers by clarifying that the district is not the same as the town/city. In general conversation I would never refer to Lancaster: if someone asks where Silverdale is, I just say "Lancashire" or "top left corner of Lancashire", or "extreme north west corner of Lancashire" if I'm feeling more formal. It may be useful for a reader to know what local government area a place is in, and we need it for completeness in the encyclopedia so we have to mention Lancaster, but we must clarify that the "Lancaster" which Silverdale is in is not the settlement called "Lancaster" but a different entity, the district, with a much wider area. PamD 22:39, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not saying you are wrong but as usual "it's complicated". The Unitary Authority article seems to say that UAs are not districts:

The Unitary authorities of England are a type of local authority responsible for all local government services in an area. They combine the functions of a non-metropolitan county council and a non-metropolitan district council, which elsewhere in England provide two tiers of local government.

(FWIW, the Borough of MK [and all other UAs on creation, I assume] was legally established as a county, though I suspect that was done as an administrative convenience, to save having to amend hundreds of earlier Acts. I am reminded of the Wales and Berwick Act 1746!) Is Cornwall a "district" according to your definition? (if not, why not?) Do we have a statutory definition of a district? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:57, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Although the Milton Keynes order is less clear on the district status the Cumbria one is and the Bedfordshire one is even clearer. A unitary authority area is a non-metropolitan county concurrent with a non-metropolitan district. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:51, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the old district of Milton Keynes still exists, but when the area was made unitary the district council gained county council powers and a new non-metropolitan county with the same boundaries was created. I can understand why @Waggers thought the old district was abolished, but that's not what happens in these sorts of cases. A.D.Hope (talk) 19:21, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

[edit conflict]

@Crouch, Swale:, as you say, the (recent) Bedford(shire) order is clearer and I can see how I was misled by the (old) MK one. I have to concede that the Central Bedfordshire one settles the argument and not in my favour:

Single tier local government in Central Bedfordshire
4.—(1) A new non-metropolitan county and a new non-metropolitan district, each to be known as Central Bedfordshire,

So I don't want to prolong the agony but (separately, new topic) I'd appreciate being pointed at a statutory definition of the term "district".

@A.D.Hope: I think that Waggers was saying that the "district status" never changed but only its formal title (from District (capital D) to Borough). --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:47, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Waggers could well have meant that; I'm certainly not here to pull anyone up on their understanding of English local government, it's very complicated and I make plenty of mistakes myself. I think you'd have to look back to the Local Government Act 1972 for the statutory definition of a district, specifically part 1, sections 1.3 and 1.4 and (for non-metropolitan districts) part 1 of schedule 3. A.D.Hope (talk) 20:26, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I was only repeating what JMF had said in the previous post. Of course the district wasn't abolished - I guess technically you could argue the previous council was abolished and a new council, comprising of exactly the same people and governing exactly the same area, was established. The only point I was trying to make is that the district of Milton Keynes very much exists, even if it is no longer called "District of Milton Keynes" by OS. Also worth noting OS is not the authority on these matters. WaggersTALK 09:50, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I misunderstood you, apologies! I agree regarding the OS, it's more a follower than a leader when it comes to place names, which makes sense when you think about it. A.D.Hope (talk) 10:32, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

To get back on topic (retrospective arbitrary break for editor convenience)

To get back on topic, regardless of the exact composition of counties and districts in an area it's very rare for any of them to be officially called 'City of [X]'. My preference would be to move away from the name entirely, using e.g. 'Lancaster (district)' or 'Milton Keynes (unitary authority area)' for article titles and e.g. 'district of Lancaster' and 'Milton Keynes unitary authority area' in body text. If the city status of the area needs to be mentioned it should be lowercase, e.g. 'the city of Lancaster'. In the few cases where an area is called 'City of [X]' we would follow that, e.g. 'the City of Edinburgh'. A.D.Hope (talk) 19:32, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

As I said above most unitary districts with city status are named "City of X" on the Ordnance Survey like City of Peterborough so I think that title is correct. I don't know about Milton Keynes since the TOID may not have been updated anyway before it went. In terms of what Preston district is called in sources. "Preston" or "Preston District" in Ordnance Survey, Preston District in GeoNames, Preston District in Vision of Britain, Preston Local Authority in NOMIS and Preston District in Geopunk. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:53, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

The Ordnance Survey seems to be inconsistent, @Crouch, Swale; some UA cities use 'City of...', but others (e.g. Derby) don't seem to have local authority area labels at all. The Peterborough unitary authority area isn't labelled on this OS map, but is 'Peterborough' or 'Peterborough district' on GeoNames, Vision of Britain, and Nomis (although for some reason four settlements use 'City of Peterborough'). Geopunk uses 'City of Peterborough'. A.D.Hope (talk) 20:13, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I was going to say the same yesterday - a preference for "X (district)" or similar instead of "City of X" - but then I went and read the guidelines, specifically WP:NATURAL, and changed my mind. WaggersTALK 09:55, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure 'City of...' is a valid alternative name for WP:NATURAL purposes in all cases. My understanding of NATURAL is that the alternative title should be a valid title in its own right, albeit less popular than the first-choice title. If we look at Lancaster, although 'City of Lancaster' is used on occasion it doesn't seem to be in very wide use. Conversely, it is prominently used by Lancaster, Pennsylvania. That sways me toward 'Lancaster (district)' for the title of the UK district. A.D.Hope (talk) 10:44, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Districts like Eastleigh in my neck of the woods were Eastleigh (borough) for quite some time. In 2012, @SilkTork moved a whole bunch of articles, so that one is now Borough of Eastleigh. I know that was 11 years ago but even so I think we need to avoid undoing that mass change without a really good reason. WaggersTALK 11:28, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Here's the discussion that formed the consensus for those moves: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_UK_geography/Archive_12#Boroughs. WaggersTALK 11:33, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Complete consistency across all the English districts might be a pipe dream, but SilkTork didn't actually move that many articles. I wouldn't oppose a shift back to '[Name] (district)'. A.D.Hope (talk) 11:34, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Would there be any point in looking to see what the councils call themselves? Lancaster City Council. Wolverhampton City Council, Preston City Council, Milton Keynes City Council are some mentioned in this discussion that lend themselves to "City of" titles. Not all do, Blackpool Council for example so that would have to be something else District/Borough. I agree with PamD (talk · contribs), Morecambe is in the City of Lancaster, Lancashire is unambiguous enough for me and I suspect the average reader. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Esemgee (talk • contribs) 11:07, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I see what you're getting at. Generally speaking, however, I'd treat council names as secondary sources. For example, if I wanted to find out whether Lancaster had city status I'd look for evidence of the letters patent granting city status rather than relying on the council's name. A.D.Hope (talk) 11:54, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Aren't we supposed to use secondary sources? If I wanted to find out about city status it ought to be part of the the "City of" article not something in an infobox list. I don't think we should try to shoehorn everything into some kind of uniformity surely that's why articles are linked and, as an editor said above, they can be piped. Esemgee (talk) 12:17, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

We are supposed to use secondary sources, my point is that council names alone don't tell us anything the primary sources don't. A good secondary source in this case would something like a news article about the Lancaster, which would tell us something about common usage. I think we agree on infoboxes. In the list of Lancashire's districts, for example, it's fine to use plain 'Lancaster'. A.D.Hope (talk) 12:25, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I still think what the council uses is the easiest and least controversial way to describe it. Lancaster to most people means the settlement and "City of" differentiates it from the settlement. Do you mean Lancaster or Lancaster? Esemgee (talk) 13:17, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

'City of Lancaster' is more frequently used to mean the settlement, I think. A.D.Hope (talk) 17:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

No, I'd add "district". I'm beginning to move to favour Lancaster (district) as better than City of Lancaster, after looking at the city council website, which refers to "Lancaster district" consistently as far as I can see. PamD PamD 11:55, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

First, an aside re "Borough of": at least two (Swindon and MK) described themselves using that form. No turning back™.

As the counter example to PamD's, MK refers to itself as "City of". According to Gooogle search, the phrase "District of Milton Keynes" appears not even once on milton-keynes.gov.uk. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:22, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The more I look, the more it seems that "City of Lancaster" as the district name might be a Wikipedia invention, created as a way to disambiguate the title for the district when the article was first created in 2004. I can find nothing using the name "City of Lancaster" to refer to the district, although I pay my council tax to Lancaster City Council. Looking at the earliest archived version of the city council website (2000) we find pages like this which clearly uses "Lancaster" as the name of the settlement ("...Sports Centre, mid-way between Lancaster and Morecambe") and "Lancaster district" for the local authority area ("Lancaster District encompasses some of England's finest scenery and landscapes. Find details of what the District has to offer to visitors.") with no mention of "City of ...". Where the phrase "City of Lancaster" does occur is on pages like this, where "the historic City of Lancaster" clearly refers to Lancaster, Lancashire, the (ancient) setttlement, not to City of Lancaster. Hmm, probably not relevant to this particular discussion, but I might discuss a possible move on the article talk page, notifying the county Wikiproject. PamD 16:06, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

See new discussion at Talk:City of Lancaster#What's the name of the district?. PamD 17:56, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the title "City of Lancaster" may be acceptable per WP:NATURAL though Lancaster District may be better but yes I think the point is that it should be piped to read just "Lancaster" while clarifying district similar to WP:IRE-IRL saying normally to use [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]]. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:18, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The question originally posed by @A.D.Hope was restricted to the wikilinked name shown for council areas within county infoboxes. Specifically, why when the areas are listed under the heading of "District" within the infobox, "City of X" was included for some named areas, whereas for example "Borough of X" was not. In answer to that question, there appears little point including the "City of " and the wikilink could and probably should be shortened.

However, the discussion rather than concentrating on the original question seems to have moved on to the separate issue of article titles. The two issues though related may not have the same answer. It seems to me, we're attempting here to create or impose consistency across article titles when there doesn't seem to be an absolute consistency among sources in the first place. Wikipedia reflects sources and if inconsistent, so be it. Rupples (talk) 15:19, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I reckon I'm safe to remove 'City of...' from the infobox lists, most of us in this thread seem to agree it's superfluous.

On the wider naming issue, although there's some inconsistency between sources they do tend to be internally consistent and several agree with each other, so I think it's possible for us to agree on a uniform standard. My preference would be to follow the ONS names, disambiguating by status (district, borough, city) where necessary. A.D.Hope (talk) 17:56, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes I think so. I don't think we need to state the likes of borough/city status etc with most districts. Unitary districts maybe but others I don't think so. The fact a district holds borough or city status doesn't make much difference for the settlements in the district or in county infoboxes. Stating that Newton-in-Bowland is in the borough of Ribble Valley or that Carnforth is in the city of Lancaster gives the impression that it has importance/relevance to places in the district but it doesn't. Cannock Chase, Chorley and Lancaster are all non-metropolitan districts the only difference is that the 2nd has borough status and the 3rd has city and borough status. With districts with city status this is relevant to the settlement and distinct but nor normally to the other places in the district. The likes of List of English districts that lists the status is helpful and its also important for the council as it changes the name of the council namely Cannock Chase District Council, Chorley Borough Council and Lancaster City Council but otherwise its trivial and the lead only really needs to say what district its in not normally the type/status. Similarly for say Prickwillow which is in Ely parish which has city status it would probably not be helpful to say its in the City of Ely parish, just Ely parish will do. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:18, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

• I've been pinged here in relation to a discussion 11 years ago. Sigh, this is a difficult issue, and I don't envy you folks in trying to sort it out. I think it's worth repeating what I said then: "Some places are Borough of Foo, some are Foo District, some are just Foo, and a rare few are Foo Borough. When looking to decide which is which it requires a human to do a bit of research." I think that problems occur when us editors try to impose consistency where there is none, and invent names or formats which do not exist. If there are reliable sources which use the format "Foo district" then we should prefer that over the Wikipedia construct of "Foo (district)". I also feel it is more helpful to readers to use the common names and terms for places, even if that means articles are not consistent (which is fine, as most readers are only looking at the one article). And I also think it might be helpful to readers to clarify which are geographical locations and which are council authority areas. Morecombe is not in the City of Lancaster, it is a separate town in Lancashire; but it is governed by the City of Lancaster. The term "district" is vague as it has several meanings, and if used, it may help to clarify that it usually refers to governance rather than location. Good luck on sorting it out. SilkTork (talk) 22:15, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  I'm quite surprised you responded to the call, I have to say! Thanks for stopping by to give your thoughts, much appreciated. A.D.Hope (talk) 22:18, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  And you won't be surprised to hear that I agree with everything that SilkTork said. Mandy Rice-Davies etc. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:24, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Royal Tunbridge Wells

Royal Tunbridge Wells has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:03, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: remove the ethnicity section from the county infobox

I have opened a discussion at Template talk:Infobox English county#Proposal: remove the ethnicity section, to which editors of this WikiProject may wish to contribute. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:00, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Census 2021: custom BUA datasets

Is there a way of pulling up the Census 2021 population data for built-up-areas within a particular ceremonial county (or the relevant local authorities)? I've tried playing around with custom datasets but with no luck, and although the interactive map on this webpage is useful it would be handy to have a simple list for citation purposes. Any and all help appreciated! Ta, A.D.Hope (talk) 23:21, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

@A.D.Hope, Not sure, if there are lists per county, haven't seen any so far (but can be wrong), but I've used this England and Wales one here in a citation, which has the English regions, and I guess you'll have to manually sort it by county. But it isn't a custom dataset (I assume those you generate with queries)? so can be linked in a citation to that webpage with a little note of where in the dataset the value is, like I did at Wrexham. Ofc, the BUA and Parish figures may be different, so best both are added in articles if possible at some point? Happy to do Wales at some point, if you plan to insert it widely, although do hope more info and citeable pages are released, especially under NOMIS if that is still continued. DankJae 13:50, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Jae. It's a bit awkward that there isn't a simple list, but hey ho. I'm not on a dedicated mission to update the figures, but it's good to know where the info is so I can do so in the course of making other edits. A.D.Hope (talk) 14:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I've created a table over at Talk:Area_of_Outstanding_Natural_Beauty#Rebrand:_update about which websites have been updated thusfar. A.D.Hope (talk) 21:16, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

​you supposed to put it under this section? lol, thanks for that nonetheless, quite a bit of work DankJae 21:36, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

I did not, that'll teach me for not looking properly! A.D.Hope (talk) 21:40, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Lordship of Saxons Lode

Could someone take a look at this article, please? 12th century Germanic Pagans in a 13th century historic manor ruled by an inter-tribal Scandinavian Viking Jarl loyal to the Kingdom of England? Cavrdg (talk) 21:13, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Most amusing. It is, of course, a complete fake, none of the traceable references back up the content. I recomend it is summarily deleted. There is a place called Saxon's Lode on the banks of the Severn, it consists of a farm and a couple of houses. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 21:35, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

It's amazing what manages to go unnoticed in the corners of Wikipedia, isn't it? @Cavrdg, did you find it from the links at Worcester, England, Ripple, Worcestershire, or Battle of Upton? They're the only mainspace pages which link to the article. A.D.Hope (talk) 23:49, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

The one genuine bit is that Metin Celalettin is a real scientist. I wonder if he knows he is a Viking Jarl? Murgatroyd49 (talk) 11:30, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it was from Worcester, England. I thought the wording 'a centre for the Anglo-Saxon army or here known as Weogorna ceastre (Worcester Camp) including Saxons Lode station' was a bit odd so I followed the link. I lived in Ledbury in the 1970s and was surprised I had never heard of it! --Cavrdg (talk) 15:30, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I nominated it for speedy deletion but was turned down as it wasn't a blatant hoax (sic). Murgatroyd49 (talk) 15:46, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I can see that you're trying to clean up the article, but to what end? Although the archaeology is worth at least a paragraph, it can probably be covered at Ripple, Worcestershire. A.D.Hope (talk) 12:55, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I've just added a subsection to Ripple covering the above. A.D.Hope (talk) 13:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I thought of converting it to an article about the hamlet itself. Apart from the archeology it has a couple of notable features, the wartime oil depot and the River Severn gauging station. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 13:14, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Personally I reckon those features could be incorporated into Ripple (which isn't a very long article), but if you want to have a crack at bringing Saxon's Lode up to standard then by all means go for it. A.D.Hope (talk) 13:20, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

If it doesn't work, it can be merged into Ripple Murgatroyd49 (talk) 13:27, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I am glad the article is being improved. I have previously complained here about editors who assume readers are familiar with local government jargon. Earlier today, I read that "The Lordship of Saxons Lode ... is a non-metropolitan warlord" with no explanation of how metropolitan warlords have different powers. JonH (talk) 20:23, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

They have to collect the bins, I believe A.D.Hope (talk) 20:33, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

It was almost a pity to have to delete that line! Murgatroyd49 (talk) 21:06, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

The good citizens of Saxon's Lode now have a proper article, well done. I'm sure all six of them will be thrilled A.D.Hope (talk) 00:23, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Essex: third opinion

If anyone is free to chip in at Talk:Essex#Opening paragraph incorrect about whether ot not it's alright to describe Southend, Cheltenham, and Colchester (as opposed to their districts) as 'cities' in the article lead that would be fab. I'm asking with the aim of broadening the discussion rather than canvassing support, of course. A.D.Hope (talk) 18:23, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

That is a total misrepresentation of the issue. Kevin McE (talk) 20:18, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Tameside

Tameside has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm _Talk 21:36, 19 December 2023 (UTC)