Talk:Census divisions of North America

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[edit] Keeping countries separate

From User talk:Kmsiever#Census-related articles:

I think at the very least a clear discussion should be made about moving Canadian subdivision articles to North America articles and the affected articles should have merge notices posted so more discussion and a better consensus can be reached. --Kmsiever 18:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Like Kmsiever says, first we need a discussion on whether this massive reorganization is needed on the appropriate talk pages. In my view, it is absurd to put all of them in Census divisions of North America. "Census division" has very clear but distinct meanings in the US and Canada. They are statistical artifacts with no legal standing created by the respective countries' statistical agencies — albeit extremely useful to social scientists. At best, this should be a disambiguation page. Census agglomerations (Canada), micropolitan areas (US) and Census metropolitan areas (both countries), Census subdivisions (i.e municipalities and equivalent in Canada) are different animals, nothing to do with census divisions. Why they would all be on the same page makes no sense. The work you are doing is clearly original research. Luigizanasi 17:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this article (at least as it currently stands) is unwise; how would you feel about separate Census divisions of the United States and Census divisions of Canada articles (and, if viable, Census divisions of Mexico, Census divisions of Cuba etc) where the Canadian article would consist of the "Census division" and "Census subdivision" sections (less the US "census division") plus {{Census metropolitan areas by size}} and link to List of census agglomerations by province or territory...?  Regards, David Kernow (talk) 23:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I fully agree that subdivisions article should be merged into the divisions article as a section. --Kmsiever 03:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

While merging the Canadian Census subdivision article in the Census divisions of Canada article would be OK given that there is very little material in the first, the Census agglomeration, Census metropolitan area, and United States metropolitan area should be treated separately. They are not ever anywhere in North America referred to as census divisions (or anywhere else in the world as far as I know). There is no need to have a separate list article for census agglomerations unless the article gets considerably bigger. The Census division article should be a simple disambiguation page referring to respective countries' articles on Census divisions. If Cuba or Mexico or any other country have census divisions, by all means put them in the disambiguation article. I believe Australia also has census divisions; they correspond mainly to electoral districts. If countries don't have them, don't engage in original research and invent a term that does not exist. Luigizanasi 04:47, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

If administrative division is the generic term for administrative country subdivisions, what is the generic term for census-related country subdivisions...?  Thanks, David (talk) 05:36, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Statistics Canada uses "Census geographic units"; see [1]. The US Census Bureau uses "Census geographic entities"; see [2]. Luigizanasi 15:35, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

...Okay, I've revised Census divisions of Canada and now suggest the present article is deleted once the US "census division" mentioned within is moved to a standalone Census divisions of the United States article. Hope you agree.

Also, I was planning to add the templates now appended to Census divisions of Canada to each article mentioned within them, respectively; what do you think...?

Thanks for all your input, David (talk) 00:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't delete the current Census division article, turn it into a disambiguation page pointing to the respective ones in each country. Also, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations are composed of a number of census subdivisions and can cross over census division and provincial boundaries, so that needs to be fixed in the article. There are a number of other inaccuracies in the article. The largest unit is province or territory, each province and two of the three territories are divided into census divisions, and the census divisions into census subdivisions (i.e. municipalities, reserves, unorganized areas), and subdivisions usually have one or more dissemination areas (which in past censuses were the same as enumeration areas). For the list of census geographic units in Canada, see [3], and look up the details on each one. Also, don't call the article census divisions of Canada if you're talking about census geographic units. This will only cause confusion in people's minds. The article should be renamed Census geographic units or Census geographic units of Canada if you're going to include CMAs & CAs. Note that I personally am a major user of Census data and last year spent more than $7,000 buying special tabulations from Stats Can, so I do have to know the terminology. Luigizanasi 04:18, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Yikes!  I'll try to digest the above and your amendments to Census divisions of Canada (yes, looks likely this will need renaming) anon. Hopefully some feedback from a general user without such investment in this area will be useful... Yours, David (talk) 05:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Update

Article now deleted in favo/ur of Census geographic units of Canada, Census divisions of the United States and Census division. David Kernow (talk) 09:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)