Talk:Cantons of Switzerland

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[edit] Discussions moved from User talk:Docu

I see you've been adding the Swiss cantons to Cantons of Switzerland (nice work BTW) and List of capitals of subnational entities, as well as changing Basle back to Basel. The issue is that we have decided to use English terms for places where available. In adapting the template to Switzerland I have followed the English placenames used by the Swiss federal government, see here. I know, "Basel" is often used in English, partly because native German speakers would use it when writing English (the city website does so as well), partly because the difference is minimal, but the fact remains there is a separate English name for the city. Likewise for Argovia, Thurgovia, Saint Gall, Grisons, etc. Is there any reason we should not follow the names given by the federal government? Danke/Merci/Grazie/...I don't speak Romansh ;) -Scipius 19:22 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the praise. "Anglicisation" mentions Torino and recommends using what would be the least surprising to a user finding the article. I suppose naming in the line with media or local/national tourist office usage should be ok. Possibly the choices used by the federal government pages linked on the suggested reference under "Key Data" (also here) may be a good thing. I did notice that Basel had recently been changed to Basle, a form not used by the 1911EB. Interestingly the new accords named after that city are spelled Basel (formerly Basle). I tend to think that "Argovia" is an Italian or Latin word. -- User:Docu 20:17 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

I was the one who changed that as I was following the federal cantons page. As said, Basel is not that much of an issue, since the difference is minimal, even if "Basle" can still be used. As for others where the difference is larger (Grisons/Graubünden), it's best to be consistent is naming the canton and if there is a different English form, then why not use it? Redirects take care of the rest. It's certainly the case that there is a tendency to use local names, but it can easily become a slippery slope (which do we anglicise and which not?), so my opinion would be to be a bit conservative. As for "Argovia" and "Thurgovia" seeming Latin, that is entirely logical. English often uses either Latin names or French names (see Grisons), especially in areas close to where French is spoken. This is the case in Belgium, but also for cities like Cologne. -Scipius 21:27 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

I went through a series of current English language travel guides on Switzerland, just one mentionned "Argovia" (but together with the name Aargau), thus I think we should change it back. --User:Docu 08:23 Mar 30, 2003 (UTC)

(Moved here from User talk:Docu):

Is it really necessary to create xxxx(canton) and redirect them to Canton of xxxx? -- wshun 23:04, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As it may be easier to write "Schaffhausen (canton)|" instead of "Canton of Schaffhausen|Schaffhausen" .. yes -- User:Docu

I don't think that is so much differences. Anyway, do you start to rewrite all articles Canton of xxxx. Now many xxxx(canton) are just doubly redirect to xxxx, which do not work well in Wikipedia. wshun 01:29, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Where necessary (name of canton=capital), the articles will be at "Canton of xxx"). Thank you for fixing the links. Not much to rewrite though, rather to write. -- User:Docu
In most contexts though Canton of Schaffhausen is more useful than Schaffhausen (canton) .. -- User:Docu

[edit] add Latin [was: remove Spanish and Esperanto]

Shouldn't we remove Spanish and Esperanto from the Names in other languages section? I mean this table is potentially very large because there are many more languages that have designated names/spellings for Swiss cities (at least some of them). Having the four "official" languages and English (the language of the encyclopedia) seems reasonable to me. To me having the Spanish/Esperanto names belongs to the Spanish and Esperanto version of Wikipedia respectively. Any views? diwiki 13:54, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

I think it can be helpful to have them on one page and may make it easier to maintain. There are similar lists for other fields. BTW it's just limited to cantons, not cities, and Latin is (still) missing. -- User:Docu
Fair enough. However, there is a list of places/cities List_of_cities_in_Switzerland. The thing if you include Sanish and Esperanto, you should also include Portuguese, Swedish etc. etc. Latin, on the other hand seems reasonable to me (history). diwiki 16:26, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

Feel free to translate this article into spanish or esperanto if these are your favorite languages. However, they are not swiss languages and have nothing to do on this page. No more than chinese, swaheli or bulgarian anyway. --212.254.96.12 11:45, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

You shouldn't have gone ahead and removed them, especially anonymously, before a long-enough discussion had found a consensus.
Esperanto is one of the languages of Radio Switzerland International, and as for Spanish it is one of the most important international languages. Much more so than Bulgarian or even Swahili. Probably more so than Portuguese. Chinese has more locutors but not in as many countries. I'm in favour of keeping here the information about the names of Swiss cantons, certainly in Esperanto and, why not?, in Spanish too. Maybe even Chinese if there are Chinese names for them. — Tonymec 13:39, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

What's left of "Swiss Radio International", namely: www.swissinfo.org uses english, deutsch, français, italiano, español, portugês, japanese, arabic and chinese on their homepage, FYI. So don't try to advocate esperanto by using false information. And a consensus for such questions has been found a long time ago: it's called wikipedia guidelines. It has never been wikipedia policy to add information to the english wikipedia in another language just because "it's one of most important international languages". Spanish has its own wikipedia because "it's one of most important international languages"! As I said: They are not swiss languages, so feel free to translate this article into spanish or esperanto like it's done everywhere else in the wikipedia.

I'm not talking about Swiss radio international on the web, but to their shortwave radio programs; and I'm seeing opinions pro and con up and down the present talk page about these "Spanish" and "Esperanto" columns: that's no consensus. It's also just in a table titled "Names in other languages" to boot. Are "other languages" chafing you so much that you want to remove them in a list which is explicitly about "other languages"? — Tonymec 10:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree that Spanish and Esperanto should be removed from the table. This is English Wikipedia, which should feature English and the native language(s) of the subject. It seems to me languages beyond these belong on their respective Wikipedia pages. If not, more languages should be featured, not just the odd choice of Spanish and Esperanto. By the way, Swiss Radio International ceased broadcasting shortwave in 2004. --skew-t 21:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, stick to the languages of Switzerland. -- Al™ 02:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Spanish is included on Languages_of_Switzerland#Languages. -- User:Docu

Remove Stick to wikipedia guidelines. Stay on topic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ? (talk • contribs).

Which guideline? They could go in a separate table, but they are clearly on topic.
BTW Latin is missing in the table. It should be added. -- User:Docu

Agree Remove Spanish and Esperanto. At least put them on a seperate page "List of swiss canton names in all languages" or so. There you could include even latin. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ? (talk • contribs).

Why make it a separate page? -- User:Docu

[edit] Links

There's a link to canton at the top of the article, but neither here nor there a proper definition of a canton is given. I think we should remove the link to canton and provide a proper defintion in the Swiss context at the top of this article. Any thoughts anyone? diwiki 21:55, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sure. We could even enhance the French definition provided there. -- User:Docu

[edit] Spellings

I suggest we use the following spellings:

Appenzell Innerrhoden, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Aargau, Basel Stadt, Basel Landschaft, Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Glarus, Graubünden, Jura, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Thurgau, Ticino, Uri, Valais, Vaud, Zug, Zürich

See Talk:Switzerland for more. Kokiri 18:38, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Municipalities in Geneva

The number of municipalities for Geneva is shown as being 44; what is the source for this number ? I'm 99% confident (diplomatic way to say 100% ;-) that the correct number is 45. Canton of Geneva lists 45 names. I was going to make a change but was wondering where the total comes from: should I add 1 to it as well, or does it come from another source ? Schutz 00:09, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wondering how that happened. I changed it to 45 (as per [1]). I doubt the number increased since 2000. -- User:Docu
It definitively didn't increase -- it's been 45 for about 70 years... I've also updated the total, which was short by one after the change.Schutz 10:38, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

More generally, should we try to update this table ? Some numbers are very outdated: in Fribourg, many municipalities have merged in the meantime: according to [2], the number was indeed 242 in 2000, but only 202 in early 2003, and still going down... Schutz 10:38, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Personally I'd prefer if the data is all from the same year, even if it's not the most recent. Afterall, it's y2k just once. Unfortunatly, during the last update, it was even omitted to update the the population density in accordance with the population number. -- User:Docu

[edit] Number of Swiss cantons

There is a mild error in the number of Swiss cantons. There are 23 of them, not 26. The error is due to the half cantons which were counted as full ones.

Basel-Stadt and Basel-Land are two half cantons forming the canton of Basel. Appenzell Innerrhoden and Ausserrhoden are two half cantons building the Appenzell. Nidwalden and Obwalden are two half cantons forming Unterwald.

This has a political signification, since each canton sends two deputies to the States' Council. While each half canton has the right to send one deputy, not two. -- 83.228.183.253


The different ways to count are explained further down in the article. -- User:Docu

[edit] Names of Swiss cantons

Docu, I don't understand your reversal of my latest edit.

Why do you insist on having e.g. Zürich (Zurich) and Basel-Stadt (Basle-City) but Lucerne and not Luzern (Lucerne), Geneva and not Genève (Geneva)?

IMHO the cantons' names should either all be listed in English only or all in the language spoken in the canton with English in brackets but not sometimes the one and sometimes the other. -- Tonymec 11:21, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

The titles in English language Wikipedia should already be in English. IMHO, the discussed part of the page should just list primarly these titles and give some of the secondary versions (in English). If you want to change the title of the article "Canton of Zürich", please join the lengthy discussion at Talk:Zürich. For "Canton of Bern", there is one at Talk:Bern (and a previous one possibly elsewhere). -- User:Docu
I'm not talking about the titles of Wikipedia articles but about the cells of the table giving the names of cantons, their capitals, etc. in the body of the article "Cantons of Switzerland". It is not consistent to mention in this table, on this page the German name for some Alemanic cantons with the English name in brackets, and the English name for some other cantons with no mention of the name in the local language. If you want "Zürich (Zurich)", you should also put "Genève (Geneva)". OTOH if you want the English name "Geneva" without the French name "Genève" and the English "Lucerne" without the German "Luzern", you should also write the English names "Zurich" and "Basle-City" without the German "Zürich" or "Basel-Stadt". -- Tonymec 21:08, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia (see Talk:Zürich), "Zürich" is the English language name for "Zürich", as is "Geneva" for "Genève" and "Lucerne" for "Luzern". -- User:Docu
  1. If you believe that "Zürich" is not only the proper German spelling but also the proper English spelling, what is "(Zurich)" doing there? The French spelling? Then why do you mention none of "(Genève, Genf, Ginevra, Genevra)" under "Geneva"?
  2. I'm not going to accept that "Basel-Stadt" and "Basel-Landschaft" are English in preference to "Basle-City" and "Basle-Country". Similarly "Appenzell-Ausserrhoden" (which should actually be Äusserrhoden), "Appenzell-Innerrhoden", "Graubünden", "Aargau", "Thurgau". About "Obwalden" and "Nidwalden" I have strong doubts.
  3. From what I've read at Talk:Zürich and elsewhere on the Wikipedia, there is no consensus as to whether "Zurich" or "Zürich" is the majoritarian English form. Of those in favour of using "Zürich" as the article title, some invoke Google tallies (which, however, vary according to the country where the computer requesting the Google search is located), others argue that since the majoritarian English forms differs only by diacritics from the native form, the native form should be used; the latter argument does not necessarily imply that the form with diacritics is the only (or even the best) English form.
  4. The "New Oxford English Dictionary, © Oxford University Press 1998-2001" lists Zurich without umlaut and with main pronunciation /zjuerik/ (I'm simplifying since I don't have IPA on this keyboard: u should be an upside-down small capital omega, and e should be a schwa [reversed e]). /tsy:riç/ is only mentioned as "the German pronunciation". I infer from there that "the proper English form" according to authorities IMHO more respectable than the consensus of Wikipedians (not all of whom are even native English-speakers), is "Zurich" without umlaut. Note that the same NOED lists Liège with accent and Düsseldorf with umlaut, so the absence of an umlaut on "Zurich" cannot be ascribed to any general anti-diacritics politics on their part.
  5. IIUC, the current Wikipedia policy is to use the native name as the article name when the difference between it and the English name consists only of diacritics. I shall concede that this applies in the case of the titles of the articles on the city and/or canton of Zurich but not to the body of the article on Swiss cantons.
-- Tonymec 21:07, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Update the data ?

Most of the data in the table is 5 years old or more, and should probably be updated. For example, the number of municipalities in the canton of Fribourg is now 162, down from 242 ! However, this need to be a concerted work, but since we just started a new year, I would propose that we should try to update all the data as of 1 January 2006. I know 2000 was the year of the last census, but most of the information should be availabe for the end of 2005 too. Schutz 23:37, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabetical order

Although the list of cantons is in the order it is given in the constitution, it doesn't look like it's in any order at all. Is there any reason why the list can't be in, for example, alphabetical order, order of introduction to the Confederation, area or population? What relevance does the order in the constitution have to each individual canton, and why can't we explain it in a different part of the article to make the list easier to view? ZanderSchubert 00:26, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The explanation about the order has been updated recently, do you like it better? -- User:Docu

[edit] Religion

Denominations in Switzerland (1700)
Denominations in Switzerland (1700)

While it's my understanding that Swiss cantons no longer have officially established churches, it's also my understanding that, before 1848, they did, and that the traditional religious identity of various cantons as either Protestant or Catholic is fairly significant, perhaps nearly as much as language. Would it be worthwhile to indicate whether a particular canton is traditionally protestant or Catholic, either in the table or somewhere else? john k 15:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The relations between church and state varies from one canton to the other. Image:Historische Karte CH 1700 E.png gives the historic situation. -- User:Docu
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