Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements
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[edit] What are we writing about?
In the UK what a "settlement" is can be quite ambiguous. There are several types of official administrative areas that could be described as a settlement, but these often do not perfectly represent what people think of as their town or city. An encyclopedia has to tell us about each aspect of a settlement.
A city may spill out of its administrative boundary. Where this occurs suburbs, significant places of interest and employment outside the city boundary should be mentioned in the article, but it should be noted that they lie in a different administrative areas.
Smaller settlements may come with a civil parish or council ward. With country villages you may wish to mention significant places within the parish but that you might not immediately consider part of the village. Hamlets that are within another parish could have their own articles, but if there is no more than a couple of paragraphs that could be said about the hamlet it may be better to merge the articles.
Within cities areas and suburbs are often difficult to define. The same name may be used for both a current or former civil parish and a larger council ward. The same (or similar) area may have two or three different names - that of a ward, church parish and local names with no official use. Depending on how much can be written, it may be best to merge.
[edit] Introduction
(this is designed mostly for towns and villages, the intro for cities may need to be slightly different)
This is the opening 3-5 paragraphs. Articles that are 3-5 paragraphs long should look similar to the introduction section of longer articles. This section tells us where the place is and then summarises the article. On longer articles that are sectioned, where possible notes and references should be in the main text and not the introduction.
The opening sentence/paragraph of the introduction should establish what and where the settlement is. Is it a hamlt, village, market town, county town, new town, suburb? Use references to physical geographic features and/or neighbouring towns with distances in miles and km (put "x miles in km" into google and it will calculate it for you) where relevant. The county and home nation must be mentioned (see this page for a lengthy discussion on the matter), mentioning local government areas is encouraged and mentioning the UK is optional. The county mentioned in the introduction should be the modern administrative, and if different, i.e. in a unitary authority, the ceremonial county. If the traditional county is different from the ceremonial county this should be mentioned somewhere in the article, but does not have to be mentioned in the introduction. You may also include coordinates using the {{coor dms}} and {{gbmappingsmall}}.
E.g:
- Exampletown is a market town in Exampleshire, England. It lies on the Example River, A123 road and Example Main Line Railway 5 miles (8km) south west of Countytown in the West Exampleshire district and parliamentary constituency.
The introduction should introduce important facts about the town. The population is required. The rest should be a summary of the key facts from the rest of the article.
[edit] Infobox
[edit] infobox England place
Example:
{{infobox England place|
|Place= Shepperton
|Population = 10,796
|District= [[Spelthorne]]
|County= [[Surrey]]
|Region= [[South East England]]
|Ceremonial= [[Surrey]]
|Traditional= [[Middlesex]]
|Constituency= [[Spelthorne (constituency)|Spelthorne]]
|Ward= Shepperton Town
|PostalTown= SHEPPERTON
|PostCode= [[TW17]]
|DiallingCode= 01932
|GridReference= TQ080672
|Police= [[Surrey Police]]
|Euro= [[South East England (European Parliament constituency)|South East England]]
}}
There are several options for adding a map to the template. Please use one of these only. Unless there is a good reason not to you should use of the first two options.
|MapX= 1 |MapX= 1
These are pixel eastings and southings for the yellow dot on the map - modify the numbers to move it around.
|LocalMap= County/area name |LocalMapX= 0 |LocalMapY= 0 |UKMapX= 0 |UKMapY= 0
This adds two maps, a local and the UK map above. Note:
- There must be a plain map image "<LocalMap>4dot.png" uploaded. Currently you have the following options for local maps (or make your own, there should be maps on the county articles that you can modify):
- Dorset
- The UK map is a smaller thumbnail than that used in the first option, therefore the X & Y coordinates must be modified.
|Map= Imagefile
Where an image file suitable for a 180px thumbnail has been made. This is discouraged, as the other formats are more suitable in most situations.
|Image= HTML/markup
This can be used where a 180px thumbnail is not appropriate, or where you want to include two maps, for example one showing the location in the UK and one showing the location within the county (see Dorchester, Dorset for an example of this).
|Image= <tr><td colspan="2">{{location map|Greater London|label=|position=left|width=290px|lat=51.40 |long=-0.46|caption=|float=right}}</td></tr>
Used for London places.
[edit] Sections
A good article will have several sections, each with between two and eight paragraphs each. Note: if the article is less than around eight paragraphs long do not break it into sections unless you intend to expand them soon after. The same goes for breaking up sections further into subsections: we don't need a subsection for every paragraph. See the guide to layout page for a more generic style guide.
The suggested sections below are the sort of sections commonly found on good UK place articles. They are roughly ordered by how common they are, and also coincidently by the order they are typically found in an article. Sections nearest the top are therefore more "manditory" for a good article, while those near the bottom are optional.
- History - including the early history (Stone, Iron, Bronze, Roman) of the area now in the parish/ward/city; important surviving historic buildings
- Geography - including geology, landscape, climate. Transport can be included here but if long enough can be split either as a sub-section or a new top-level section. Areas/suburbs and surrounding settlements are also options
- Economy - including major industries and employers (including agriculture and tourism - include statistics on tourist numbers and revenue if available) and, where available, statistics such as GDP and unemployment
- Culture - including arts, media and sport. Local theatres, radio stations and sports teams. Also any important cultural figures, such as artists and musicians associated with the settlement.
- Politics - suitable mainly for cities with their own councils. Include info on the makeup and activities of the local council and westminster representation.
- Demographics - census data (and more recent estimates where available): population (in cities with their own councils include population of the administrative city, metropolitan area and catchment area), population change, age structure, race, religion, etc etc
- References: you should be citing sources throughout the text using the footnotes markup.
- External links: make sure these follow the external links guidelines. Links should give the reader more information on the place, or an aspect of it, in a way that the article can not. Business directories are not very useful. A link to a church website that just says "We have services on sunday" or a school website that just says "Headmaster: Mr Blah, email blah" is not a good way to use external links.
With the exception of references and external links the article should generally be in prose. Lists should be kept to a minimum, especially on articles on major cities where the lists can be moved to sub-articles and a prose summary used on the main article instead.
[edit] Resources
[edit] Resources
- Statistics: Office for National Statistics, Census related resources, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA)
- Population data (see below for England): Ayrshire, East (PDF), Falkirk, Moray, Lanarkshire, North
- Maps:
- Multimap
- OS Get a map
- Ordnance Survey for Northern Ireland
- OpenStreetMap is starting to get good coverage of some parts of the UK (eg Isle of Wight, North London, NW Surrey, Birmingham, Bedford).
- Mapstars–hotel and travel-related mashup of Google Maps
- Ordnance Survey® Election Maps–boundaries of civil parishes, wards, boroughs etc., up to street map scale. The draconian terms and conditions don't seem to prevent GFDL licensing of research by Wikipedia editors, as long as the editors themselves don't use the information for financial gain, and no-one copies actual extracts, mapping data or layers from the maps.
- Books: There is a list of UK geography books and the Wikipedians who own them at Wikipedia:Library/Places#UK. You can request info from the owners of the relevant books.
- Websites: 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica [1]
- Photos : Geograph British Isles project
| England | |
|---|---|
| Bedfordshire | |
| · Luton | |
| Berkshire | |
| Bristol | |
| Buckinghamshire | |
| · Milton Keynes | |
| Cambridgeshire | |
| · Peterborough | |
| Cheshire | |
| · Halton | |
| · Warrington | |
| Cornwall | Parish population data |
| · Isles of Scilly | |
| Cumbria | |
| Derbyshire | |
| · Derby | |
| Devon | East Devon parish population data (PDF) |
| · Plymouth | |
| · Torbay | |
| Dorset | Parish population data (import should be complete) |
| · Bournemouth | |
| · Poole | |
| County Durham | |
| · Darlington | |
| · Hartlepool | |
| · Stockton-on-Tees | |
| East Riding of Yorkshire | |
| · Kingston-upon-Hull | |
| East Sussex | |
| · Brighton and Hove | |
| Essex | |
| · Southend-on-Sea | |
| · Thurrock | |
| Gloucestershire | |
| · South Gloucestershire | |
| Greater London | |
| Greater Manchester | |
| Hampshire | |
| · Southampton | |
| · Portsmouth | |
| Herefordshire | |
| Hertfordshire | |
| Isle of Wight | |
| Kent | |
| · Medway | |
| Lancashire | |
| · Blackburn with Darwen | |
| · Blackpool | |
| Leicestershire | |
| · Leicester | |
| Lincolnshire | Parish population profiles |
| · North Lincolnshire | |
| · North East Lincolnshire | |
| Merseyside | |
| Norfolk | |
| North Yorkshire | |
| · York | |
| · Middlesbrough | |
| · Redcar and Cleveland | |
| · Stockton-on-Tees | |
| · Northamptonshire | |
| Northumberland | Tynedale population data (PDF) |
| Nottinghamshire | |
| · Nottingham | |
| Oxfordshire | |
| Rutland | |
| Shropshire | |
| · Telford and Wrekin | |
| Somerset | Parish populaton data |
| · Bath and North East Somerset | |
| · North Somerset | |
| South Yorkshire | |
| Staffordshire | |
| · Stoke-on-Trent | |
| Suffolk | |
| Surrey | |
| Tyne and Wear | |
| Warwickshire | |
| West Midlands | |
| West Sussex | |
| West Yorkshire | |
| Wiltshire | Population by community 1801–2001 census data at Wiltshire Community History from Wiltshire County Council |
| · Swindon | Population by community 1801–2001 census data at Wiltshire Community History from Wiltshire County Council |
| Worcestershire | |
