Template talk:Countries of Africa

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Contents 1 Dependent territories / special territories 2 Azores, Madeira, Canaries 3 Template update 4 Nomenclature: Congo Region and Middle Africa 5 Surprising inconsistency 6 French Southern Territories 7 Images 8 UN subregions and other territories 9 Template structure 10 Related discussion

[edit] Dependent territories / special territories

There's currently a discussion at template talk:East Asia over whether the official name of territory, namely special administrative region, and which sovereign State the territories listed belong to, have to be specified in the {{East Asia}} template. Please feel free to join the discussion and express your opinion. — Instantnood 11:46, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Azores, Madeira, Canaries

Should they be included? Most of the atlases I read seem to include them as part of Africa. --Chanheigeorge 08:47, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Aren't they part of Spain and Portugal? — Instantnood 09:07, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template update

I have sorted countries by region and added thumbnail maps to match the Africa Template in the French language Wikipedia. I hope that nobody minds; it just always seemed a bit cluttered to have them all sorted alphabetically in one big box. ergot 16:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

===>I don't mind As I did virtually the same thing myself. It will probably get reverted as mine did, too. -Justin (koavf), talk 16:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Why not? I support this too: apropos, I tweaked the template to bring the country classifications inline with the subregional scheme used by the UN (which is as neutral as we're going get and in a quest of sorts to nix subjectivity from geographical articles). This is also reflected in their respective articles and the continental table below. I'll also tweak the article additionally to reflect this. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 17:04, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks! Sorting by region makes things easier for people who are interested in a specific region of Africa, and just seems to make more sense in general, for that matter. ergot 19:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• Nice work, this is a significant improvement. — Matt Crypto 12:50, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nomenclature: Congo Region and Middle Africa

Today I created the article Congo (region) mainly because I felt that it was missing from Template:Regions of the world. Only afterwards did I discover that Congo already exists, but that this article seems to restrict itself to dealing solely with the two Congos, and not the wider, vaguer subregion. What is the preferred option now: should Congo me merged with Congo (region) and redirect to Congo (disambiguation) instead? Please have your say here. Thanks.

And a related issue: I would argue that the UN designation Middle Africa - which currently redirects to Central Africa - is the least ambiguous name for the region, as listed at Template:Africa, just like Southern Africa is used to effectively disambiguate from South Africa. Please respond here. Thanks! // Big Adamsky • BA's talk page 10:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Surprising inconsistency

Where are islands: Tromelin, Glorioso, Basas da India, Europa? If those uninhabited islands are not to be mentioned, then remove silly Places of sovereignity, and BIOT as well. --24.43.253.97 03:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I added them to the template, but have reverted myself after seeing the listing of France. — Instantnood 09:05, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] French Southern Territories

I see British Indian Ocean Territory and not French Southern Territories?

I added that teritory into a template :) --Goran.Smith2 06:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Is the BIOT African by geography? — Instantnood 09:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I have removed the continental images as they occupied too much space in the template, if they are to be reintroduced, please make it more like Template:Oceania. --Cat out 13:07, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see #Template structure below. David Kernow (talk) 20:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UN subregions and other territories

I propose and recomend creating a seperate template for those. {{Europe}}, {{Asia}} and other continental templates dont use them and I do not see why they should be used here. A seperate tempate for african teritories may be used. --Cat out 12:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Please wait, pending discussion below (and at Template:Oceania and perhaps elswhere...)  Thank you, David Kernow (talk) 20:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template structure

Copied from User talk:Cool Cat:

Hi Cool Cat,

(moved Template:Countries and territories of Africa to Template:Africa: moving back to proper location)

Just noticed your move; please help me understand why "Africa" is this template's "proper location". Thanks, David Kernow (talk) 02:13, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, the intended function of the Continent template navboxes such as {{Africa}}, {{Europe}} etc. was to link to countries (defacto or not) on a spesific continent. There are several reasons for this. Two of the important reasons are:

• To limit the number of entities that appear on the template for practical purposes: There are way too many countries in africa.
• POV concerns: Some people decide to add random "territories" of contraversial regions. If official UN territories are allowed, unoficial ones must be allowed as per WP:NPOV which only creates problems.

There are probably other reasons but I am at the moment focusing on these two.

For teritories a seperate {{Teritories of Africa}} may be used.

--Cat out 12:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply.

1. Unfortunately, I don't see how the name "Africa" will dissuade folk from adding "entities" and/or territories. When working within code, {{Africa}} does not indicate what aspect/s of Africa the template addresses. As the template (still) carries countries and territories, {{Countries and territories of Africa}} seems particularly appropriate.
2. You may not be aware that {{Navigation Template}} alone does not seem to accommodate smaller screen or window sizes, producing poor linewrap. That, at least, is the result here. If {{Navigation Template}} is able to overcome this apparent shortcoming, please advise.
3. As the region names are (currently) no longer aligned, distinguishing between each line of countries/territories is now not so straightforward. I suggest the small images further assisted this useful feature.

David Kernow (talk) 20:04, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Related discussion

Cf here for a discussion pertaining to this template. Regards, David Kernow (talk) 12:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)