Talk:Geography of the United Kingdom

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	To-do list for Geography of the United Kingdom:	edit - history - watch - refresh
	'The United Kingdom continues to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.' How can we change this so that it's not time sensitive? Jerry 03:41, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC) 'As of 2004'? 'In [date] the UK committed itself to continuing ...' I'm afraid I don't have the facts to hand. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:33, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC) Contents 1 New task 2 Issues 3 Where to start 4 From 'todo' 5 Geology - caves link 6 External links 7 Political and human geography 8 Geology map 9 Last minute amendments 10 Some suggestions 11 Observation and a proposition 12 Population Centres [edit] New task Help reduce some of the red links on the page: a high amount of red links is a factor that may stop this article becoming a Featured Article in the future. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 01:09, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC) [edit] Issues Geology seems topheavy, compared to the level of detail in the rest of the article (for example: demographics; natural resources). Rather than pruning geology more, the others could do with exanding. Many sections are just lists (e.g. hills and mountains, rivers and lakes) some of which are by no means comprehensive (inlets, headlands) Environment is a bit of a mess: Current issues only mentions greenhouse gases, landfill and recycling. What about industry, pollution (air, water, soil), demand for house building, conservation, coastal erosion, habitat loss, intensive farming... The second section is just a list of agreements from the CIA Factbook - does it add much? Can the unlinked ones be linked to anything useful? Could the agreements themselves be stated instead of the issues - e.g. Convention on Biological Diversity has a wiki page. --Flit 19:41, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC) Could do with some nicer images -- ALoan (Talk) 16:16, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Geography of the United Kingdom has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Geography of the United Kingdom was the UK Collaboration of the Fortnight for the fortnight starting on October 10, 2004. For details on improvements made to the article, see Past Collaborations and History

[edit] Where to start

See Geography of Ireland for ideas on where to start! -- Graham ☺ | Talk 18:09, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks - I pinched the structure :) Good luck on WP:FAC. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:33, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] From 'todo'

Does that first sentence 'located in a nation' make any sense at all? The idea that the UK is inside a nation is a bit to deep for me to grasp. If so, I'd be grateful if someone could clarify what it means. If not it should be changed but I didn't want to do so without checking first. ('Located in North West of the European continent' I could understand.) Jerry 02:59, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fixed - the UK is the nation. It comprises one main island, part of another island, and many smaller islands. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:33, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

' (although, being a fractal, the length of the coastline will increase as the unit with which is it measured decreases).' Is this correct? Sounds like Zeno's paradox. Is the coastline theoretically of infinite length? Jerry 03:37, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes and no (you can't have an infinitely small ruler - there is a whole section in fractal on this). -- ALoan (Talk) 11:33, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

'Parliament of the United Kingdom, and is divided into four main political regions, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Each of these has its own brand of regional government:' Another ungrammatical and vague sentence, but I'm afraid that I don't have time to fix it! As of now, the whole article could do with a good copy edit. Jerry 03:46, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for being ungrammatical and vague. At the moment, I am concentrating on gathering the material together. Please copyedit at will! -- ALoan (Talk) 11:33, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Aloan - and apologies from me for suggesting that you were - I appreciate that it's best to get the material in place first! I'm afraid I'm suffering from Larium (an anti-malarial) induced insomnia and was feeling a bit ratty when I posted that comment. Jerry 14:58, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks - no offence taken. I've just been doing quick 'dumps' of information already on Wikipedia without too much of a quality check. Copyediting and fact-checking are definitely required! -- ALoan (Talk) 18:35, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Geology - caves link

Do we really need a link to the list of caves page so prominently in the main geography page? Caves are just one of hundreds of types of landforms that we could potentially list, it doesn't make sense linking just one of them at the top of the geology section. --Joe D 13:03, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Moved to 'See also'. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:31, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] External links

For the length of the article, we should be able to find more see also's and external links that apply to this subject? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 15:31, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, I've had a start with the 'See also's. Someone also needs to work on the categorisation - Category:Geography of the United Kingdom just contains Geography of the United Kingdom at the moment. Presumably some of the "main articles" could be added there, as well as Category: Geography of England, Category: Geography of Wales, Category: Geography of Scotland, Category: Geography of Northern Ireland. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:31, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Political and human geography

The pie chart seems to be taken from the CIA world book figures, but according to the Office of National Statistics (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=764), they are wrong and under-represent the number of non-white residents. On the other hand, the ONS figures don't break it down by English/Scottish/Irish etc so I'm not sure what to do. Redlentil 16:00, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think to divide the figures by English/Scottish/Irish/Welsh is a bit daft anyway because most people are a mixture of two or more of the above. It is important to properly represent the figures of ethnic minorities in the UK though and because of the numbers involved, perhaps a separate pye chart illustrating the breakdown of ethnic minorities in the country? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 17:29, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not to denigrate the helpfulness of a pie chart, it loses a bit of definition at the (roughly) 5% level. The statistics speak for themseleves (whether CIA or census) - perhaps just a table setting out both sets of numbers? -- ALoan (Talk) 18:31, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK. here's the census data in table form. I'm unsure about (ie I DON'T KNOW sob sob) how to insert it so that it floats on the left, so if someone else would like to help out ... (Still can't believe only 2% are Black or Black British, but that's to do with where I live).

Ethnic groups in the UK

White	92%
Mixed	1%
Asian or British Asian	4%
Black or Black British	2%
Chinese	0.5%
Other	0.5%

Redlentil 19:52, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

(I edited this into wikimarkup and added style="float:left") --Joe D 20:00, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

C o o l. I've replaced the pie chart with the table but now we need someone with a more stylish eye to tidy it up. To change the subject - back at the top of the page, the word Chunnel: does anyone actually use this? Redlentil 20:21, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Chunnel: now I haven't heard that word for a number of years! -- Graham ☺ | Talk 21:27, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Small point, but Slough is not and never has been a New Town.Icundell 20:45, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Geology map

I've uploaded this old, but generally accurate, map of GB and don't know whether to add it to this page because I'm not sure if it would add anything to the page, and I'm not sure if this page should have any maps of the UK missing NI. Any comments? --Joe D 18:40, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think it is worth it, until something better comes along. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:43, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've cleaned it up a bit.Naturenet 12:49, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Last minute amendments

Are there any last minute amendments that anyone would like to make before this is nominated for FAC? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 22:07, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I applaud your enthusiasm, but it is really not good enough yet! In particular, geology is quite good because I cribbed it from the excellent Geology of the United Kingdom, but there are lots of gaps in the rest of it. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:59, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Some suggestions

One of the factors that really seemed to make the Irish article work was the fact that the geological development was set in a contect of continental drift, so that the climate factors that went ointo the formation of the landscape really made sense. I was fortunate in having on a shelf at home Reading the Irish Landscape, which was a great source for this information, and I'm sure that similar data is available for the UK (should be almost identical, in fact).

Also, the idea of the climate table which came up during the FAC process was a great improvement and might be worth replicating in a UK context. I would also suggest that some of the sections that are currently mainly lists need to become prose in as much as they can.

Hope this makes sense; it's always easier to suggest improvements than it is to make them. The core of a really good article is already there, but I feel it does still need some work. Filiocht 12:10, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC) Filiocht 08:34, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Observation and a proposition

The heading Political and Human Geography is tautological. Political geography is a subset of human geography (if it is not physical goegraphy, it is human geography). That is my observation. I came to this because I was unable to find a sensible place to fit in an Economic Geography section, which I would quite like to draft. Thus my proposition: Change the heading Political and Human Geography to Human Geography, Local government to Political Geography and add Economic Geography once the aritcle is written (Demographics is fine). Climate should probably by under Physical Geography by the way.Icundell 15:35, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So will anybody take mortal offence if I go ahead and do this? Icundell 18:25, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Be bold, I don't have a problem there. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 23:55, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Population Centres

Why are some of the population centres listed cities, and others conurbations? For example, Greater Manchester is counted as one item, but Leeds and Bradford are separate. Birmingham is listed in its own right, separated from the West Midlands conurbation. What do contributors feel shoud be here? Or should it simply link to other articles? Steven J 16:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)