Talk:Administrative divisions of Ukraine

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Page under construction! This article is based on existing Regions of Ukraine page and supposed to be its replace as soon as all necessary links transferred. So please DO NOT MAKE ANY OF THEM A REDIRECT TO OTHER AND DO NOT RENAME THEM until special notice from our team. Thanks everybody for understanding, AlexPU

P.S. HELP! Would someone please drop here a link to explanation how to make a table inside the page. AlexPU

Sure: m:Help:Table or Wikipedia:How to use tables

Could we change the name to "Subdivisions of Ukraine"? "Subdivision" could also be a verb, and sounds a bit like Partition of Poland. The equivalent Russian article is also called Subdivisions of Russia. Update: I did it. —Michael Z. 22:22, 2004 Sep 23 (UTC)

"Oblast's" looks like a mistake every time I glance at it, even though I'm used to reading transliterated Ukrainian. Perhaps we should consider the transliteration of Ukrainian (oblast', pl. oblasti) to be a different entity from the English translation (oblast, pl. oblasts). —Michael Z. 21:35, 2004 Sep 17 (UTC)

Contents 1 Oblast names updated 2 Wikiproject 3 Oblast capital? 4 Writing Ukrainian 5 Drogobych and Izmail Oblasts; Moldavian ASSR 6 Naming of oblast articles 7 Raion names 8 Possible templates 9 Cities and towns 9.1 Intermediate summary 9.2 Closing summary 10 Proposed Kiev Template 11 Cities of Oblast Subordinance 11.1 Subordinance suggestion 12 List of raions 13 Expanding further

[edit] Oblast names updated

I've finished updating the names of oblasti, and added Alex's tables to the article. Please proof-read the tables.

I think we're almost ready to eliminate Regions of Ukraine (or will it remain as a shortcut page: List of regions in Ukraine)?

What next? Historic regions of Ukraine? An authoritative List of cities in Ukraine (is there a formal definition of city)?

Here's a map I've been working on.

It will take more time to get it ready. I'd like to put a larger one with labels here, or on Regions of Ukraine, and smaller ones on each oblast' page, with the oblast' indicated.

—Michael Z. 21:11, 2004 Sep 23 (UTC)

I've added some redirects to all the oblasti. Now e.g. you can get to (e.g.) Cherkas'ka oblast' if you type Cherkaska oblast or Cherkas'ka Oblast'. —Michael Z. 16:44, 2004 Sep 25 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject

Should we start a formal Wikiproject? There are links to similar projects at Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries and Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Templates/Navboxes. —Michael Z. 20:07, 2004 Sep 24 (UTC)

I've created WikiProject Ukrainian subdivisions. I'll move some of the in-progress discussion to the project's discussion page. —Michael Z. 04:00, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)

[edit] Oblast capital?

I've removed this sentence about the oblast' center as it made no sense to me: This, however, is not a rule of social or cultural development, environmental or crime issues.. Does "this" refer to the city, or to the way "most developed" is judged? Are economically most developed cities chosen? Or was it intended to mean that each capital does not administer its respective province's education, police and other internal affairs? -Wikibob | Talk 19:04, 2004 Nov 30 (UTC)

[edit] Writing Ukrainian

I've noticed that some Ukrainian words are written directly in Ukrainian while others show at Unicode entities. Which is the proper way for these characters to be entered into the article? Vivafelis 13:54, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Current entries are to be written directly. Unicode ones are old, yet unconverted but anyone. Feel free to do that, though. Regards, --Irpen 14:29, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Drogobych and Izmail Oblasts; Moldavian ASSR

I have a few old atlases which say that in fact in the 1950's two more oblasts existed in UkSSR. From an excellent collection of topographical maps here is a 1940 atlas, which on Ukraine's map (don't worry its the site that has the permission) clearly shows the Drogobych Oblast and the Moldavian ASSR, as well as the original 1939 border. I have a few late 1940's atlases which show the Izmail oblast as well (basically the part of Odessa oblast that was annexed from Bessarabia in 1940). So how should we present this quite important information? Kuban kazak 00:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Naming of oblast articles

text moved here from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Subnational entities/Naming Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:36, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

(initially moved from User_talk:Tobias Conradi)

Would you stop renaming oblast' until you freaking hear the objections of other Wikipedians Please stop and revert your renamings, than go to the oblast' and WikiProject Ukrainian subdivisions, substantiate your opinion and wait for the whole discussion. Otherwise, you'll be considered a vandal with all consequences. AlexPU

You're given a 24 hour term to fulfill my denamd until you'll be posted in vandalism in progress and banned users pages. AlexPU

• As I told you, I cannot revert. Tobias Conradi 07:32, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I will. And you'll be regarded vandal (and your ass watched) for all your freaking Wikilife. Asshole... AlexPU

Tobias, das war keine gute Idee von dir. Hier haben sich Leute Monate Gedanken über den Namen der Artikel gemacht, ein Projekt aufgelegt, die Oblast-Seiten einheitlich gestaltet (auch in Zusammenarbeit mit der deutschen WP) und dann kommst du und meinst hier umsortieren zu müssen. Die Verwaltungseinheiten der Ukraine (und anderer ehemaliger UdSSR-Staaten) heißen Oblast und nicht Provinz. Ich hoffe, du wirst bei weiteren Aktionen vorher erst mal versuchen, einen Konsens zu finden mit den Leuten, die wesentlich am Aufbau der Artikel beteiligt waren. --Steschke 07:34, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)

You do not have to tell me whether it was a good idea or not. Or do you have the whople wisdom of the world? Even if some wikipedians thougth about it for several month ... maybe they did not think about it enough? I do not know whether my idea was really good, but I saw a lot of different writings for subnational entities, something what is really annoying. Even in Ukraine you did not standardize all, because sometimes you were speaking of regions. Furthermore this is english wikipedia, for thai or japanese provinces nobody uses the local name. It is really nice to have the name. Maybe it would alos be a good idea to standardize on local names. But than - do it for all. (my opinion.) I will not always look for consensus if I think there is something to improve. We would not have wikipedia here if we would allways make consensus. So you can hope for this, but it will be in vain. Tobias Conradi 17:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted the changed articles from the form Kirovohrad Province to Kirovohrads'ka oblast'. What a big waste of time for all of us! Please folks: if you're going to change a body of work that a group of wikipedians has discussed and executed, whether you are right or wrong, talk to them first.

If you want to change this, I suggest you first get consensus from the participants in both Wikipedia:WikiProject Ukrainian subdivisions and Wikipedia:WikiProject Russian federal subjects. —Michael Z. 2005-03-6 01:19 Z

...and with the Ukraine-Mafia on de:WP too. --Steschke 13:19, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

thx for pointing this out :-) Tobias Conradi 18:20, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Raion names

I can't find what, if anything, was decided about naming Ukrainian Raions on WP. Should I follow the oblast naming convention and name the raion after the central city, e.g. Chernihiv Raion as opposed to Chernihivs'kyi Raion? Or do we transliterate the raion name, e.g. Chernihivs'kyi Raion? I'm not arguing either way, just want to start building some templates. This particularly affects templates, where cities are sometimes listed along with raions and the 2 lists would be indistinguishable without the suffix on the raion names. So far, the completed templates I've seen indicate that we do not imitate the oblast naming convention when naming raions. Correct?--tufkaa 18:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer to go with the raion's seat location name as more telling to the reader what this is all about. But I don't feel too strong about it. Also, I am not sure whether there are Raions with non-city names, like in cases of Oblasts the Volhynian, Transcarpathian and (former) Crimean ones. If we adopt the convention, we should be consistent. --Irpen 19:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, compare Template:Cherkasy Oblast with Template:Donetsk_Oblast. The Donets'k version seems to make more sense to me. I belive that for the most part, people have been entering empty raion links into the body of WP articles with the suffix, but I may be wrong.--tufkaa 19:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

More: Template:Donetsk Oblast spells raions ending in yi (apparently this is more prevalent on Google), while Template:Kherson Oblast finishes them with y. Also, no template so far has a Міста обласного значення section. In reading the Kyiv article, it mentions that Kyiv is a municipality. Is this similar? Lastly, some templates include a Towns section. Is this for CMTs?
I know, I know, "be bold". But I would like to here other's thoughts. I'm playing with the Chernihiv Oblast at User:Tufkaa/Sandbox.--tufkaa 15:06, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Speaking about the raion names, the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers site uses y. I don't really know why I used yi on the Donetsk Oblast template, but it doesn't matter to me which ending we should use for the raion names. About using either Uman Raion or Umansky Raion, if we use the first way then that might confuse some because there are two of the same names on the temp, which is why AlexPU recently changed the Ukraine template, to create disambiguity. But we could list the raions as Zhytomyr Raion instead of Zhytomyr which links to the same article, but that might make the template look too big.

Also, while I was working on the templates, I included the Міста обласного значення into the cities section like in the Donetsk Oblast Template. Am I correct? —DDima ^(talk) 17:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Other than eating up a little more space in the template by including the word "Raion" after each Raion name, it makes sense to do it with Raionsbut since we do it with Oblasts already. Also, using AlexPU's precendent in the Ukraine template, we can include Міста обласного значення in the raions section, like he did for Kyiv (Kyiv City and Kyiv Oblast). So I'll construct the Chernihiv template like that, and then move on by fixing old templates, or creating ones for oblasts which just have "Cities in..." templates.

Any thoughts on CMTs? --tufkaa 17:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that will work out nicely:))). —DDima ^(talk) 17:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I share the view that in any template each item sould be stated once. Therefore, I don't think it's a good idea to dublicate information, like first listing "Raions: Cherkasy City", and then listing "Cities: Cherkasy", with both directing to the same page (as it's in Cherkasy Oblast template). Also, take a note that at the Verhovna Rada website "mista oblastnogo znachennya" are grouped with "mista rajonnogo znachennya" into "mista". I think this is the preferred way, rather than listing "mista oblastnogo znachennya" twice, first as raions, and then as cities. To avoid misunderstanding "Raions" may be listed as "Agriculture Raions" or "Rural Raions", or just "Raions" with explanation provided at the linked page. MapLover 00:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible templates

With the goal of standardization, should we create an Infobox template for Ukrainian Oblasts and/or Raions based on the following?

• Template:Infobox U.S. state
• Template:Canadian province or territory
• Template:Crimean region
• Template:General geographic template

Let me know what you think!--tufkaa 19:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems like a resonable idea. Because now they only contain basic info, no governors or whatever they call them, year of oblast formation, geographic details, time zones, etc.... —dima/// 19:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

What about Template:Infobox oblast? From the constitution it seems that there are "Oblast Councils" with the councils picking their respective "Council Chairmen" from amoungst their members. (I should probably change it to "Chairperson", now that I'm reading it over...) So I've incorporated this information into the Info box and removed and added what I think worked. Let me know what you think!--tufkaa 20:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Ukraine is all one time zone, so I don't know if it counts as vital information as in the North American templates.--tufkaa 20:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I like the looks of it and am trying it out right now. But I feel it needs more work, maybe adding licence plate codes (we can get from RU wiki) and other corrections... —dima/// 21:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I tried it at Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (which was just a stub). We can definitely improve it. I've palced the syntax in the template's talk page. Have fun!--tufkaa 22:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that maybe we should rm the oblast detail map, just put it into the article by itself., because the article looks too bulky. What do you think?? Also, what about GDP...where are we going to get the information? —dima/// 23:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice template, guys! Few remarks:

• Oblast map is needed in addition of the oblast being mapped on Ukrainian map. Ideally, it should be a small map with borders of raions, and cities of oblast subordinance.
• "Council seats" is something that nobody cares of.
• I would add "Governor" in addition to "Council Chairmen". As of now, governors are less important, so Council Chairmen goes first, and Governor name in the second line.
• There are no data for GDP per Oblast in Ukraine. Also, such data, if available, should be called Gross Oblast Product (GOP), similarly to Gross State Product (GSP) for each state in the U.S. But give that it's not available, instead I would use average monthly wage income. Average salary can be given for each year, then the rank of the regions according to the index, and also the salary growth rate compare to the previous year.
• For population it would be nice to add annual population growth rate.
• I'm not aware of ISO3166-2 and FIPS10-4 abbreviations for Ukrainian regions. I would put there postal code, phone area prefix(es), and regional internet prefix (like "dn.ua" for Donetsk, "dp.ua" for Dnipropetrovsk, etc) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MapLover (talk • contribs).

I think that those changes can be done...—dima/// 01:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, how about adding official language...? Because Russian is official in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast's and Magyar has Some official rights in the Zakarpattia Oblast... —dima/// 01:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I omitted putting in an Offical Languages sections on purpose. IMO, I think we should strive to have these templates as non-controversial as possible. Bringing up the topic of Official Languages would bring out the trolls, and there is no need to stoke those flames...
As for the Oblast map: I looked at U.S. states, the Provinces of Canada, and the States of Germany, for comparison purposes. None of their infoboxes included anything past a national map with the state/oblast highlited. Detailed maps were included in the separate section of the article devoted to the area's subdivisions.
If there is no GDP information available, why don't we just list the major industries of the oblast? Ranking oblasts by avaerage salary seems weird to me. I would like to include soem economic infomation, however maybe we shoudl just write something generic like list the oblast industries.
Let's do indeed add population growth rate. That's a great idea.
I included links to find out the actual ISO3166-2 and FIPS10-4 abbreviations within the template itself. The Infobox will probably be the only place where the article will link to such information, so I say keep it in. We can add the phone area code and regional internet prefix as well.
I have NO IDEA about oblast government, but did deduce the information about the council from the constitution. If there is in fact a governor (which is alluded to in periodicals, but is not mentioned in the constitution for soem reason?!?!) we should add him/her, but I think we should also list the size of the council. If my state were being run by 5 people, I think I would like to know.

Those are my thoughts for now.--tufkaa 03:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

For me, national map with oblast highlighted looks nice, I like it. The second official language is a hot issue in Ukraine now, I don't mind including languages into templates, but the legitimacy of such actions by local councils is questionable, so it’s not clear which languages we should put in. It’s also hard to define major industries for each oblast. People will try to add the industry they work for, claiming it’s the main one. Average wage may not be the best indicator, but this is one of few available indicators per oblast. In fact, I think this is the best available economic indicator, which allows differentiating oblasts economically. In Ukraine, people are talking about this indicator, comparing average salaries in their regions with salaries in Kiev. Finally, Governors are appointed by the President, and Oblast Councils are directly elected by citizents. These are two elements of the system of power on Oblast level, so both should be mentioned. I also think about some indicator of the dominant political patry in the region. In some regions there is a rulling coalition, so it’s not clear which single party is dominant. But, as one idea, we may list the party of Council Chairmen, which is a good proxy for the rulling political party in Oblast. MapLover 07:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The size of Oblast Concil is 100, or 120, or 80 members, or something like this. If it were 5 members, people would probably care, but as of now they don't. I don't mind keeping this information, but I wanted to point out that it's not essential. Proposing something to be added ito template, I felt obligated to propose some for exclusion too. MapLover 07:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I first want to say that I've learned more about the way the Ukrainian government functions in the last few weeks than I ever thought I would care to know about. Very fascinating about the system of appointing governors and the size of the oblast council. As a starting point, I would still prefer to list the size of the council in the Infobox, primarily because it's an interesting fact I never knew about, nor would I even know where else I could find out about this information. Eventually such information could be included in a "Government of x Oblast" subheading, or even an individual article.
You've convinced me about including average salary indicators. I'll put something in.
Great idea about including the political parties of the governor and the ruling council.
Remember to check out both the Template:Infobox oblast as well as the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast article to see how this will actually look.--tufkaa 15:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so is the "governor" of an oblast the "Голова облдержадміністрації"? Or is that the "council chair"? If the "Голова облдержадміністрації" is in fact the "governor", is the "Council Chair" the "керівник апарату обласної державної адміністрації"? Confused...--tufkaa 17:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Using some crude translation services, uk → ru → en,

I get: Голова облдержадміністрації → Председатель облгосадминистрации → Chairman oblgosadministratsii

And: керівник апарату обласної державної адміністрації → руководитель аппарата областной государственной администрации → The head of the device of regional state administration.

So, if these translations are correct (which I am 50% for and 50% against), I believe that the Голова облдержадміністрації is the chairman and керівник апарату обласної державної адміністрації is the governour??? —dima/// 18:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, according to the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast website, the "Голова облдержадміністрації" - Roman Tkach - is a member of Our Ukraine, while the "керівник апарату обласної державної адміністрації" - Vasyl Tymkiv - is a member of the Ukrainian National Assembly. If, as MapLover stated, the president of Ukraine appoints the "governor", wouldn't it be Tkach, a member of his own party? Something to think about.--tufkaa 19:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I know for sure that the governour is appointed by the President of Ukraine, see bottom paragraph in the first section of RU wiki. So, I guess that what you said is most likely correct.. —dima/// 19:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

My opinion: I thoroughly support non-inclusion of such an inflammatory and uncertain field as "Official language". Should that have been at least certain, it the mention would be warranted. As long as the legitimacy of these decisions are up in the air (no matter how supportive the public is), this does not belong to the infobox. What can be done, is a mere mention of those decisions in the text flow, but not in the infobox.

"Голова облдержадміністрації" is best translated as the "Head of the Oblast State Administration (Governor)". I would add the "Governor" in parentheses to make it easier for the non-Ukrainian reader to understand the closest similar English language term. I would also add there "Appointed by the President by the recommendation of the Prime-minister" and add his party affiliation. Also note, that if he is a member of small party that is affiliated with the larger party, it is better to give the larger party, e.g. "Sobor" or "UNA" -> Our Ukraine

"Kерівник апарату обласної державної адміністрації" is not the post important enough to be mentioned at all.

Oblast map indeed not to the infobox, but to the appropriate section.

"Chairman of the Oblast Counsil" is of course needed as well as his party affiliation. Distribution of the counsil membership by parties is useful.

Economic and demographic indicators are a great idea. --Irpen 20:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

"Governour" = "Голова обласної державної адміністрації" = "Head of Oblast Administration"

"Council Chairmen" = "Голова обласної ради" = "Head of Oblast Rada"

For example, in Donetsk Oblast, Анатолій Близнюк is голова Донецької обласної ради, elected by Oblast Concil (Oblast Rada) on April 25, 2006 [1], and Володимир Логвиненко is голова Донецької обласної державної адміністрації, appointed by the President on May 16, 2006 [2]. FYI, website of Donetsk Oblast Administration is [3] and website of Donetsk Oblast Council is [4]. -- MapLover 20:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

One important detail, according to the changes of the constitution, the governors are appinted by President by recommendation of the prime-minister. This is very important to add. If Ukraine is indeed getting a PR prime-minister, without such addition the readers would wonder how come a president like Yushchenko appointed the governor like, say, Kushnaryov. As such, this additional info about the appointment mechanism is important. --Irpen 20:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cities and towns

Hi, folks! I've noticed that the Ukrainian administrative divisions templates list cities and towns separately, but I couldn't figure out how you distinguish between the two. From what I know, they are all called "мiста" in Ukrainian. What criteria do you use to separate them? Are those criteria official, or is just for convenience sake? If there was a discussion about that in the past, I would appreciate a link. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

From what I know: мiста is translated as city and селище міського типу = Urban type settlement are towns. But I do believe that they are official...Hope that helps, —dima/// 19:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, I didn't notice that before, but I am afraid you are right. Do you folks have any plans to correct that? Technically, urban-type settlements are not towns (even though their populations are classified as urban). They are not considered towns in modern Russia, nor were they in the former Soviet Union. Ukraine continues to list them separately and none of the смт's have an official "town" status—things are pretty much the same as they were in Soviet times. All this leads me to believe that calling them "towns" is just plain wrong. Why don't you just call them "urban-type settlements"? The term is established in English, and we have an article about that term, and there is a section pertaining to Ukraine in that article. Are there some other reasons I am not seeing? Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think [[Urban-type settlement|town]] came about because of space-constriants in the context of the template. I know that we've retired the term townlet, but should we not ever refer to a CMT as a town? I guess we should be more precise about listing things as towns vs. urban-type settlement, but I am not sure of the importance as town has a general meaning much like municipality.--tufkaa 20:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly my thoughts...—dima/// 20:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Support. --Irpen 20:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't mean to push my views on you, but rearranging templates' layouts so that the designation (i.e., "city", "district", "urban-type settlement") is at the top of the group as opposed to the left of it should take care of the space constraints. The reason why I am hesitant to apply the term "town" to smt's is because smt's do not have town status. I am not aware of how it is done in Ukraine, but in modern Russia a settlement is not a gorod until it is granted status goroda (town status). Hence, calling urban-type settlements "towns" is simply illogical, not to mention confusing. Even if you segregate between "cities" and "towns", the former being cities proper, and the latter—smt's, it wreaks minor havoc in articles in which one has to compare administrative structures of the countries of the former Soviet Union (think "a town is a town in Russia but not really a town in Ukraine").

The bottom line is that current system may work fine when contained to Ukrainian topics, but does not work really well when you start comparing countries and try to work out analogies in terminology. IMO, re-introducing the term "townlet" for Ukrainian topics would probably be a better solution than continuing calling smt's "towns".—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ezhiki, you are pushing for "gorod" been translated as both "city" and "town" with artificial division between them. You are even going to such extreme as introducing terminology "superlarge towns" for cities with over 3 mln. population [1]. This is not a common English meaning of word "town". Commonly "town" applies to "residential community of people ranging from a few hundred to several thousands" [2]. According to both criteria: (1) population and (2) type of settlement (urban vs. rural) "town" matches "selysche mis'kogo tupy", and only loosely it may apply to any "misto" ("gorod"). Speaking on status, "gorod status" stands for "city status", which is going back to Magdeburg city rights. The best advice would be to bring Russian terminology, which currently uses the word "town" in place of "city" closer to the commonly recognized terminology, and leave "towns" available for "poselok". MapLover 21:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ezhiki, it was previously discussed [1] and [2]. As a summary of the discussion, "an SMT is a small settlement of urban character — in common parlance, a town." MapLover 21:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this goes back to Ëzhiki's earlier question about the distinction between cities and towns. The short answer, is that we relate "мiста" with cities and "селище міського типу" with towns. Basically, since a town is generally thought of as larger than a village but smaller than a "city" and can represent a population from a few hundred to several thousands, it approximates the description of a CMT. Am I to understand then, that "город" would not be used for a Russian city, like "мiстo" would be used in Ukrainian? --tufkaa 21:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Whatever we end up with, we must make it clear what means what in the context of these articles. If we adopt a universal approach that Misto=City and SMT=Town, there should be not only consistensy, but clarity on what is meant. I don't like the solution to add (selyshche miskoho typu) in parantheses to all articles as it is a meanigless and annoying clutter for all readers. --Irpen 22:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It was partially addressed in Category:Cities in Ukraine, Category:Towns in Ukraine, and Category:Villages in Ukraine. But, I don't see a problem if inside an article in the first paragraph some additional description is given, like "city of oblast subordinance", "small city", "a part of metropolitan", "large urban type settlement", etc. MapLover 22:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I am surprised with so many responses. Did I touch a loose nerve here or what? Anyway, let me try to respond to all of the concerns raised so far, hopefully I won't miss anything.

1. MapLover. The division of towns into small, medium, big, large, larger, and superlarge was not my idea. It actually came from the old edition of the Russian Land Code, which inherited these definitions from Soviet times. I do, however, agree that the term "superlarge towns" sounds plain bad in English (I've just edited the definitions to sound better).
2. MapLover. I want to point out that in common parlance the difference between a city and a town is determined by population size, not by official status. This difference is often well-perceived, but is very rarely documented. In any case, such difference is only applicable to English-speaking countries. Once you try using both terms ("city" and "town") in languages that only have one word to describe the urban concept ("мiсто" in Ukrainian, "город" in Russian), you are bound to run into problems. The solutions are quite limited:
   1. use one word and never use the other (i.e., use exclusively "city" or "town"). This does wonders for consistency and standardization, but leads to awkward constructs such as "superlarge towns";
   2. use both words collectively (i.e., always spell out "cities (towns)"). This partially avoids awkwardness of the previous solution, but introduces a new one—having to read that "Vladivostok is a city (town) in Russia, and Mykolaiv is a city (town) in Ukraine" may get quite annoying after while;
   3. introduce some sort of artificial division between a city and a town. That's what's currently done for Russia (settlements with town status with population below 100K are called "towns", over 100K—"cities"). It's consistent and logical, but the downside is that it is on the verge of original research and may become a point of controversy later (people argued about more stupid things than that in the past). Another possible solution is to refer to oblast-level settlements with town status as "cities", and raion-level ones as "towns". It's also logical and consistent, but no less artificial.
3. MapLover. Now, you seem to have found another solution—seemingly a good compromise based on item 3.1 above. You proposed (and implemented) the system where settlements with town status are called "cities" and urban-type settlements are called "towns". Let me explain why I see this as a huge problem. MapLover states that this system is based on the definition of a town as "a residential community of people ranging from a few hundred to several thousand", as defined in the Wikipedia town article. Tufkaa's further comment adds the definition of a town as something "larger than a village but smaller than a city". The following were immediate red flags for me:
   1. Describing the administrative structure of any country based on a statement that "a town is larger than a village but smaller than a city" is pretty much the same as building theoretical physics based on a statement that "an atom is larger than an elementary particle but smaller than a molecule". Both statements are factually correct and give an uninformed reader a very good understanding of a concept. Problem is, none of these statements is good for anything more than a basic overview. The first statement is perfectly suitable in an very generic overview article such as town, but once you move further than a basic level, you need details and additional facts. You cannot give readers understanding of more advanced concepts of theoretical physics if you keep referring to an atom as a "small molecule"; you are bound to misinform and confuse them. Truth is, a "city" ("town") take different meanings in different countries. In Russia, for example, the definition of a "city" ("town") is set independently by each federal subject. A settlement that meets city/town criteria in Kaliningrad Oblast wouldn't have a chance in, say, Moscow Oblast. I don't know whether it is done in the same way in Ukraine, or if there is one definition applicable to all Ukraine's subdivisions, but I am quite sure it is also legislated and well-defined. Whatever the definition is, the term "town status" is bound to show up there.
   2. Speaking of town (city) status. Like I said before, unless you folks intend to continue with "small molecules" the [[urban-type settlement|town]]s construct, you will have to move to a more detailed level. In general, the town (city) status is the main criterion that distinguishes one sort of "residential community of people ranging from a few hundred to several thousand" from another. In Russia, there are plenty of urban-type settlements of "several thousand", as well as towns of "a few hundred"; there are probably a few examples in Ukraine as well. This alone shows that size cannot be the only decisive indicator. I simply fail to understand why you are so hesitant to use a far more precise term "urban(-type) settlement", which describes exactly the specifics of smt's/pgt's, and prefer to use a vague term such as "town", which, among many other things, is not even an accurate translation! Just for kicks, I checked my Oxford Russian Dictionary. Here is what it says under "посёлок":

      1. settlement (of urban type); (new) housing estate; 2. (in former USSR, name of administrative unit) settlement

Lingvo defines "посёлок" as a "settlement, village, community". I doubt a Ukrainian-English dictionary would give you a much different translation. The closest match I was able to find was Oxford's translation of "township" as "посёлок". Still, "township", not "town", and this variant is to translate an English term into Russian, not a Russian-specific term into English!

Anyway, the bottom line. I am not demanding that you make immediate changes to conform with my views, lest you got that impression. However, I personally think it is very amateurish to use a vague and poorly applicable term (think about "small molecules" again) to describe a very specific and well-defined concept such as urban-type settlement. I also realize that other available solutions (3.1 through 3.3 above) are far from perfect, although if I thought of 3.3(2) (oblast-level=city; raion-level=town, as opposed to a set population threshold) earlier, I would have probably adopted it for Russian locations. I very much disagree with Irpen's statement that the misto=city, smt=town convention is going to bring consistency and clarity. It ensures consistency only as long as you are confined to internal Ukrainian topics and don't have to make comparisons with other countries, and it brings no clarity because readers truly interested in the topic (i.e., needing more than a very basic overview) are bound to be confused by the difference between so-called "towns" in Ukraine and towns in the rest of the world. I am also not aware of the "smt=town" convention being used anywhere else outside Ukrainian topics in Wikipedia (I'll be glad to be prooven wrong here, though)—did someone say original research?

So, have it whatever way you feel necessary. It hurts my eyes to see smt's being referred to as "towns", but since I am not planning on getting involved in editing Ukrainian topics too much any time soon, I just don't feel it's morally proper of me to push you into a major overhaul just for the sake of enforcing consistency in a very specialized topic. You all probably have better things to do than that.

I am still willing to continue this discussion, if anyone is up to it. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intermediate summary

Settlement by Status [5]		Total Number in Ukraine	Current English Name	English Name by Russian wikicommunity
місто		457	city	city, if population is above 100K town, if population is below 100K
	спеціальний статус (Київ та Севастополь)	2	city	city
	місто областного значення	176	city	city or town, per population
	місто районного значення	279	city	city or town, per population
селище міського типу		886	town (urban-type settlement)	urban-type settlement
сільський населений пункт		28552	village (rural-type settlement)	rural-type settlement
	селище	1364	village	settlement
	село	27188	village	village

(Ezhiki: please correct if needed; I'll try to respond late today) MapLover 20:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking time to compile this, you got it exactly right. The only thing I want to add is that Russian rural settlements are called "rural(-type) settlements" only collectively; some of the Russian rural settlement types have Wikipedia entries as well (e.g., selo, aul, khutor, stanitsa, etc.), although using "village" for any of them is acceptable when there is no need to distinguish among these types. Legislative documents of the Russian federal subjects define the term "rural(-type) settlement" via exclusion, i.e., rural settlements are all inhabited localities which are neither cities (towns) nor urban-type settlements. All this, however, does not seem to matter much in the subject we are trying to settle, but I thought you might be interested in knowing it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

(corrected the table; keeping villages for completeness) MapLover 20:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Ezhiki, you wrote that the "in common parlance the difference between a city and a town is determined by population size, not by official status. This difference is often well-perceived, but is very rarely documented." In contrary, there are definitions of town by size: "an urban area with a fixed boundary that is smaller than a city" [6], as well as by status, for example in New England, "In New York State a town is a political subdivision of a county, similar to what are called townships in some other states. Towns cover the entire area of a county, except those areas covered by a city or an Indian reservation." [7], or in Canada "A town is an independent municipal corporation having all the powers and responsibilities conferred on it by The Urban Municipality Act, 1984" [8]

Lingvo online dictionary, which incorporates a set of dictionaries, translates town as город or городок, with the meaning to be в противоположность сельской местности. As one of examples, "company town" is translated as "поселок, расположенный на территории, принадлежащей промышленной фирме".

The terminology "urban-type settlement" is usually applies not only to смт, but also to cities. For example, 2001 Census site states that there are "1344 міських поселення, у тому числі 454 міста" [9]

Also, with respect to the status, you apply the terminology "town status" as a reason for мiсто to be called as town. In fact, there is a clear status for each settlement, the status of мiсто, the status of селище міського типу, the status of сільський населений пункт. The word status is applied in pair in this respect, that is if мicто=city, then мicто status=city status. Similarly, if town=селище міського типу, then status of селище міського типу=town status. The status of селище міського типу is well defined.

Next, you specified two red flags. First, you are puzzled by town status been applied to something, which was not granted such rights. Historically, there were town privileges, "stadtrecht", with literally means "city rights", but neither мicта, nor смт in Ukraine are currently subject to such historical rights. In fact, as of today мicта, смт, села are primary geographic identities with well specified boundaries. Some смт and села are rulled by a local council of that settlement, others are grouped and rulled by one coucil. As of now, both, мicто status and смт status is a recognishion of being a separate geographic unit. These units are recognized by Constitution (chapter: Територіальний устрій України).

Second red flag, in addition to "town status" you are puzzled by the ways to provide more detailed levels of subdivision. As of now, "міста областного значення" are named as "cities of oblast subordinance", "міста районного значення" are just called cities. There are "міста з районним поділом", which are usually oblast centers, which may be named "cities with raion subdivision". Towns, defined as cмт, do not need further subdivision.

Finally, to be honest, the division according to 100K threshold seems to be more original than anything else. It's also not practical, as population is changing, and there is a constant movement of settlements between these two categories, which may be worsened by a potential disagreement on the sources of population data. Contrary to that, the changes of status from смт to мicто are not so common, with clear authority over such changes. Only 3 мicта has been officially added in the last 5 years.

And, again, a town in English is usually understood as (1) urban settlement (2) with population from a few hundred to several thousands. Смт matches these two criteria. The definition used by Russian wikicommunity effectively sets limits on town population between 10K and 100K, which is off the second criteria. MapLover 01:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I've just read this, and looks like we are going in circles. To (hopefully) make things easier, before you read the long rant of mine below, where I'll address the issues raised above, could you please give me a straightforward answer to the following question: "Why should the term "urban-type settlements" not be used in reference to smt's?". Just list all the downsides, without mentioning any meaning of the term "town".

Now, back to the intermediate summary above.

1. City vs. town. The very definition of the town you quoted (a town is smaller than a city) just confirms what I've previously stated—the chief difference between a city and a town is size. Note, however, that this generic definition does not clue you in just how much smaller it should be. In common parlance, a town is smaller, but no one can say for sure by what margin.
2. Official status in English-speaking countries. The official status specifying the difference exists in some countries, that is true (U.S.'s New England and Canada are both fine examples). Problem is, those countries speak English, so for them a difference between the two terms is native. For Ukraine, Russia, etc. both terms are merely translations of the concept. The meaning of that is if in U.S. and Canada the difference between a "city" and a "town" is defined by legislation (The Urban Municipal Act of 1984 you mentioned for Canada, for example), for xUSSR countries the difference is up to the translator. One can very well justify calling an smt or even a larger village a "town" in common speach, but for describing administrative divisions, where precision is a must, such convention is clearly unacceptable. Neither Ukraine nor Russia can legislate the difference between two English terms, so we must rely on translations. As both of us showed above, both terms are translated from English as misto/gorod.
3. Smt/pgt. Having considered the city vs. town issue (as it exists in the English language), let's now re-introduce the smt's/pgt's into the mix. As you rightfully noted, the population of smt's/pgt's is considered urban. It is classified as such in both the Ukrainian 2001 Census and the Russian 2002 Census. The tradition of classifying smt's/pgt's population as urban goes back to Soviet times. Then (as it is now in Russia and, I assume, in Ukraine) a pgt was defined as an inhabited locality with the population size insufficient for the locality to be granted city status (I'll speak more of the city status later below). Most often, the pgts were not much bigger than villages. The main difference was that the majority of the population had to be employed in industries other than agriculture. Still, pgt was not a city, it was merely an additional classification, one in between the cities proper and the rural settlements.
4. Is smt a "town"?. Now, the big question. I now very well understand your logic→since an smt is smaller than a city but bigger than a village, and since in English the term "town" is generally defined as a location smaller than a city but bigger than a village, then an smt must be a town. Furthermore, since in some countries cities and towns have different official statuses, and in Ukraine/Russia cities and smt's/pgt's have different official statuses, then, again, an smt must be a town (if I got any of this wrong, please correct me, as I am going to use these two sentences as a summary of your point of view). Here is what I see wrong with this picture:
   1. The first part of the statement is built on an analogy. It is a very good analogy to facilitate an understanding of what kind of animal an smt is, but it is logically inconsistent. You are drawing an equal sign based on analogy alone. If you replace the word "town" with "urban-type settlement", the meaning of the first sentence will not change at all! The sentence will still remain a raw analogy with insufficient logics, but you will at least be using a more precise term ("urban-type settlement" describes smt's/pgt's, and only smt's/pgt's) instead of a vague one ("town" can mean very many things).
   2. The second part of the statement introduces the term "official status", making the first part more balanced and logical. Then, again, if you replace "town" with "urban-type settlement" in the whole statement (in both of its parts), the meaning will not suffer.
   3. Now, the biggest problem of them all. You equal the difference between a city and a town in some other countries (Canada, New England) with the difference between a misto/gorod and an smt/pgt in Ukraine/Russia. I simply cannot accept this as a valid comparison! A bean is different from a pea, and a misto is different from an smt, but it doesn't mean that we can call an smt a "pea"! We just don't have common grounds for such an analogy. Truth is, every single country in the world has administrative structure of its own. Administrative structures of some countries may be identical (when one country borrows a structure from another), or very similar (when two countries, such as Ukraine and Russia, share the same (Soviet) administrative structure, which they later modified in different ways), or very dissimilar. Finding analogies in dissimilar administrative structures (such as Canada and Ukraine) is very useful to reach common understanding, but when studying the structures in depth, one has to abandon such analogies in favor of more precise terminology. If you equal an "smt" with a "town", and then "smt status" with "town status", then you imply there is no difference between town status in Canada and an smt status in Ukraine. Is it true? No. Is it confusing? Yes. A Canadian town is different from a Canadian city in a completely different way than a Ukrainian smt is different from a Ukrainian misto. Status of misto/gorod in Ukraine/Russia and statuses of both cities and towns in Canada indeed date to the historical traditions of city rights, but the status of smt/pgt does not—the whole concept of an urban-type settlement is a result of Soviet industrialization efforts; it is quite recent. If you understand that, you'll see the very problem with calling an smt a "town" I am trying to explain. Furthemore, you state that the difference between cities/urban-type settlements/villages is merely geographic and historical (in fact, as of today мicта, смт, села are primary geographic identities with well specified boundaries). This is completely untrue. In Russia, the difference between goroda and pgt's is clearly spelled out in the legislation of each federal subject (see, for example, Article 10 of the Law of the Republic of Adygea #171 of April 26, 2000: On the Administrative-Territorial Organization of the Republic of Adygea; I can email you that document if you ask). Let me assure you, the difference is far from being simply "geographical" and "historical". Goroda have more options of self-government available to them, and taxation in urban-type settlements is very different from that in villages. Differences between derevnya, selo, stanitsa, aul (all classified as rural settlements) are indeed simply historical, but the differences between rural settlements, urban-type settlements, and cities/towns are absolutely not. Again, I don't know if Ukraine abandonded those differences (I very much doubt that), but perhaps you could look it up in appropriate Ukrainian legislative documents and clarify that once and for all (I am, unfortunately, not very confident in my abilities to perform such a search in Ukrainian).

All this being said, I return to my original question—what problems do you see with calling smt's "urban-type settlements"? My other question is whether you could tell me which other sources refer to smt's/pgt's as "towns". Britannica has no problem with calling them "urban settlements". What benefit is in translating a perfectly well-defined concept with a vague term when there is an exact one? I would also appreciate Irpen's opinion—he very enthusiastically encouraged me to get rid of all references to "townlet" in favor of more precise "urban-type settlement", but now seems to favor the "town" solution.

As a post-scriptum—I do completely agree with you that the 100K limit is very artificial and reeks of original research. I must, however, clarify, that I neither advocate for it to be used for Ukrainian articles, nor do I assert this convention must be followed in Russian ones. The 100K limit is merely a convenient way to maintain consistency (i.e., specifying exactly how small a city should become before becoming a "town"). The population count source is also not a problem—for Russia it is always the most recent Census data. Furthermore, Russian goroda are always referred to as "cities and towns", never emphasizing what the difference between two is (although implying, of course, that the difference is in size).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, my thoughts on that evolved with time. There is nothing wrong and impossible to that. MichaelZ may still remember how I advocated using "province" or "region" for Oblast originally. Later, I realized that it's better to use Oblast and the reason is the same as Ezhiki stated, administrative subdivisions are unique per countries and the loose translation relay the info too imprecisely. As per this, I am now inclined to use Urban-type settlement in articles to describe smt/pgt's, especially the U-t s is an article now. --Irpen 19:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Q.: "Why should the term "urban-type settlements" not be used in reference to smt's?".

1. It may be used, however, there is another term ("town"), which is more familiar and common in English, and which adequately describes the concept.

2. Precisely, the term "urban-type settlements" means settlements of urban type. Such settlements include mista/goroda, and smt/pgt.

3. Practically, in templates a shorter name is more desirable. Assuming for a moment that "towns" and "urban-type settlements" are perfect substitutes, the first one is more practical to use.

Ezhiki, I previously stated that as of today мicта, смт, села are primary geographic identities with well specified boundaries, which you claimed is untrue. To address this moment, I want to remind that this statement was a part of discussion on "city rights", and it's really true that mista, smt, and sela are merely territorial units. These units are primary building blocks from which local communities consist of, and the rights are going by local communities. In Ukraine, local community rights are spelled out in the Law "Про місцеве самоврядування в Україні" (о местном самоуправлении). Local Council = Rada is the main element is of the system. It's common for a few territorial units to be governed by one Rada. In total, there are 27,188 villages (selo) in Ukraine, and 10,280 Village Councils, thus on average 3 sela are grouped into 1 community. Also, Ukraine is a unitary state, thus Subdivisions of Ukraine are regulated exclusively by the Ukrainian parliament, not by any lower level communities (with the exception of Crimea republic). by the Ukrainian parliament, which in particular classifies the territorial units, and by local communities within the limits set by law, which includes the rights by Oblast Rada to create, rename, combine, or abolish lower level territorial units or communities.

Since 1997 the new Law “Про територіальний устрій України” has been under consideration. Early editions of the law passed preliminary readings, but it has not been adopted yet. The latest version reads:

Стаття 5. Статус поселень

За чисельністю населення та соціально-економічними характеристиками поселення мають наступний статус:

1. Село – поселення з переважно сільською садибною забудовою і сталим складом населення і чисельністю до 5000 жителів, які у більшості зайняті в сільському, лісовому та рибному господарстві, народних промислах, первинній переробці сільськогосподарської та рибної проду-кції.

2. Містечко – поселення, утворення та розвиток якого пов’язаний з розташуванням на його території промислових підприємств, залізничних вузлів, гідротехнічних та інших споруд і об’єктів з чисельністю населення до 10 тисяч жителів, які у більшості зайняті у несільськогоспо-дарському виробництві чи соціально-культурній сфері, і в якому створено умови для надання населенню адміністративних, соціальних та культурних послуг.

З. Місто – поселення з компактною забудовою та чисельністю населення не менше ніж 10 тисяч жителів, яке має розвинуту соціальну, комунальну, транспортну інфраструктуру, жителі якого у більшості своїй зайняті у промисловості, торгівлі, управлінні, сфері послуг, сфері культури. [10]

As you see, the proposed law further simplifies the territorial structuture, by literaly changing “селище міського типу” into “містечко” (городок) and by aggregating all “сiльськi населені пункти”, such as “ceла” and “селища”, into “села”.

You also mentioned that my logic is based on the following: an smt is smaller than a city but bigger than a village, and since in English the term "town" is generally defined as a location smaller than a city but bigger than a village, then an smt must be a town.. If it were only smaller/bigger then your physics example may apply. But it’s more than just smaller/bigger. As highlighted a few times, smt matches town because: a town is an urban community with few hundred - few thousand people, and smt is an urban settlement generally with up to ten thousand people. Both, type and population of smt and town match each other.

In the end, I see that you are not comfortable yourself with 100K threshold for distinguishing cities and towns. Then, if you are looking for a reasonable threshold, I would recommend to consider 10K. This threshold naturally matched the inherited meaning of the word town, and this threshold matches the official subdivision of urban settlements into мicта and cмт (with few exceptions). MapLover 23:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Guys, first of all, let's put aside what might come out of the proposed administrative-territorial reform in UA. No one knows when this is going to happen, whether it will happen and as of now, the info based on that proposed classification would be simply incorrect. The authorities are unpredictable, as we can all see from the mess of the Ukrainian parliamentary crisis, 2006 (any takers btw).

I have a problem with the very first point made above, the claim: "U-t s may be used, however, there is another term ("town"), which is more familiar and common in English, and which adequately describes the concept." I agree that it is more familiar. I agree that it describes a location type reasonably but I disagree that it adequately describes the administrative allocation called in Ukrainian an "smt". Town, as per an administrative division of one country is one thing, as per adm div of another contry it is something else. I suggest to go with more precise terms when describing an administrative status only. We can still say "town" within the article in general. But something like "administratively, XX is an urban-type settlement" (for smt) is useful, IMO. There is a reason, why we all ended up using the term "oblast" rather than an intuitive for the reader "province" or "region". We can still use the word "region" within the articles themselves further in the text about oblasts. But we say that the location belongs to XXX Oblast all the time. Similarly, we should say that the location is an smt. That's just my view on this. --Irpen 01:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I guess, we all share the view that no term in English can completely explain the concept of smt if it is not accomplished by additional explanation. Such additional explanation may provided by a separate article (such as urban-type settlement or townlet), or by a subsection of town article. In any case, I'm withdrawing the last part of the very first point. Still, if we were judging solely on the common meaning of a term, the common meaning of "town" explains the concept of smt at least no worse than the common meaning of "urban-type settlement".

Overall, we are referring to urban-type settlement when the formal meaning of smt is required, which is usually in the first line of an article; previously we were referring to townlets. If the description of smt is moved into town article then it would be even easier, but there are pros and cons of such move (similarly to "oblast" vs. "region" as Irpen pointed out). As a bottom line, I would say that the Ukrainian wikicommunity should keep the status quo, the Russian wikicommunity should probably reevaluate whether they use the term "town" in pair with the common English meaning of the word. MapLover 05:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Closing summary

I just wanted to provide a closing summary for the discussion above; along with some comments.

• Is the term "urban-type settlement" confusing?. MapLover voiced a concern that the precise meaning of the term "urban-type settlement" is "a settlement of urban type", which would include smt's, towns, and cities. I just wanted to comment that I was facing the exact same problem when writing articles about administrative divisions of Russian federal subjects (e.g., Administrative divisions of Adygea). My solution was to utilize the term "urban settlements" as a descriptive name of the category, and the term "urban-type settlements" for the specific concept of pgt (smt); i.e., urban settlements include cities, towns, and urban-type settlements. This may not be the most perfect solution, but it works well when avoiding ambiguity is important as long as the terms are applied consistently.
• Templates. As I mentioned in the beginning of this discussion, the issue with the templates is easily fixable by altering templates' layouts. We should not avoid using more precise terms just because it would make pretty templates ugly; we should re-design the templates instead.
• Reform. I second Irpen's statement that we should discard whatever proposed changes until they actually take effect. The articles we are writing should describe current situation (and the current situation was the primary topic of our discussion). We can, of course, talk about proposed changes, but we should be careful not to represent them in a way implying they are already in effect. With that in mind, I found the new Law very interesting. While the definition of mistechko is virtually unchanged from that of smt, the change of the term would have a profound effect on my arguments dealing with translations. If the Law ever passes, it will become a lot more reasonable to use the term "town" for Ukrainian locations as opposed to "urban-type settlement".
• 10K vs. 100K threshold. MapLover suggested that a 10K threshold would be better to distinguish between a "city" and a "town" for Russian locations. I would rather not do that for the following reasons:
  1. The 100K limit is not even a Wikipedia guideline for describing Russian cities/towns, nor should it ever be. It is just an artificial number ensuring marginal convenience. Replacing it with another artificial number will add no value to the articles about Russian locations, but will add to editors' workload.
  2. 10K somehow seems too low, although it is just my personal observation. I was born and raised in an urban-type settlement with the population of roughly 30K; the settlement was later granted town status, which it still retains despite the dwindled population (it is slightly less than 20K now). Calling such a location "a city" seems like an overstretch; it just does not sound right. Again, this is not too scientific; just an observation.
  3. Coming back to my earlier proposal to call oblast-level goroda "cities" and raion-level ones "towns". In Russia, raion-level goroda usually have a lot smaller populations than oblast-level ones; in fact, population size is one of the determinant factors for deciding whose jurisdiction a gorod should fall under. Dividing cities/towns along those lines allows for a more natural solution—there is no artificial set population limit, yet the population requirement (a town is smaller than a city) is fulfilled. Settlement status is also not ignored. The downside is that such a division is just as hard to justify from the "no original research" point of view as the division by set population threshold.
• Uniqueness. The concept of urban-type settlements is quite unique to xUSSR. Urban-type settlements are like cities in that their population are employed in industries other than agriculture, and they are like villages in that the sizes of their population are comparable to villages'. The "industry/agriculture" segregation is not a decisive factor for a settlement status in other countries, so that makes it necessary to utilize a custom term ("urban-type settlement") instead of bringing in an analogy ("town").
• Vagueness. There were some concerns that the term "urban-type settlement" is too vague. While I agree that it sounds vague, I was unable to find this same term to be used for any other purposes than describe the smt/pgt concept in xUSSR. It is clear that even if alternate uses exist, they are not numerous, and can be dealt with the disambiguation or with multiple sections in the urban-type settlement article (town already has sections particular to various countries).
• So, what's with "town"? I have no problem using the term "town" to refer to smt's/pgt's in situations where colloquial terms are acceptable, such as in "this American explorer briefly visited a Russian town of Palana in 1999". Spelling out "urban-type settlement" here would sound silly and unnatural, and would just put a barrier in natural flow of reading. Something like "Palana is an urban-type settlement in Koryakia" is, of course, a totally different matter.

Hopefully this is sufficient for a closure. If anyone has any additional comments or insights, feel free to re-open this thread.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as the proposal to call oblast-level містa "cities" and raion-level ones "towns": just to be clear, is there any current differentiation in Ukrainian? I have been to many cities and towns in the US and there doens't seem to be any rhyme or reason why some are labellled cities and others are labelled towns. An important distinction to be sure, but aren't we artificially subdividing?--tufkaa 18:29, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

In Ukraine, the population of "мiста обласного значення" on average is smaller than the population of "мiста районного значення". Check out the list of cities in Ukraine.

A view that in the U.S. cities and towns are labeled as such with no clear reason is rather superficial. In New England the subdivision by cities and towns is an important issue. In Massachussets, by State Constitution in order to apply for city status a town needs 12,000 habitans. --MapLover 04:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The first fact is an interesting one; one I did not know about. Can anybody find (and post a link here) the appropriate Ukrainian government document dealing with assigning of oblast vs. raion status, please?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, I flipped it. It should be in the obvious way: "мiста обласного значення" on average are bigger than "мiста районного значення". Check by yourself.

But I own you something interesting, so here it is:

"...відомо, міста в Україні де факто діляться на три категорії: міста національного, обласного (республіканського в АР Крим) та районного значення. Проте критеріїв такого розмежування у законодавчих актах не наведено. Більш того, у законах наявна неоднозначність, яка дозволяє по-різному трактувати статус територіальних одиниць міського типу. Так, лише у Бюджетному кодексі (2001) проводиться розмежування типів міських поселень – там визначаються контингенти доходів та видатків бюджетів міст районного та обласного значення, інші же рамкові закони такого поділу не передбачають. У Конституції України не застосовується поділ територіальних громад міських поселень за критерієм адміністративного підпорядкування, йдеться про територіальні громади міст взагалі. У Законі України „Про самоврядування” регламентовані основні аспекти діяльності територіальних громад міст без будь-якого їхнього поділу на міста районного та обласного значення. Таким чином, законодавство не дає достатніх підстав визначити, чим саме відрізняються міста різного типу. Проте, виходячи з тексту Бюджетного кодексу, фінансовий статус міст різного типу має бути різним, оскільки розрізняються їхня структура доходів та видаткові повноваження." [11] --MapLover 15:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, this was very interesting and surprising. I was thinking along the lines that if in Russia there is a well-defined difference between oblast- and raion-level cities/towns, then there must be one in Ukraine as well, since the structure is exactly the same. Well, I was wrong. Not that your findings make things any easier now, but this information is good to know in any case.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:54, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, the citation above sounds strange to me. It’s hard to believe that cities in Ukraine are subdivided into cities of oblast subordinance and cities of raion subordinance only de facto, without any juridical document, which sets such subdivision. The claim that the author is making is a bit strong. It may be that he didn’t find any law that regulates such subdivision. The author is a docent in Economics, not in Law, or Geography. Regardless of whether he is right or wrong, the fact that he didn’t find any regulation on city subdivision is an indication that such regulation (if it exists) is not so easy to find. The website of Verkhovna Rada hosts a database on all Law of Ukraine passed by the parliament (as well as regulations by other branches of the government). I was searching this database and like the author of the citation above I didn’t find the desired regulation on city subdivision, but let me share a few findings.

(1) The reform of Ukrainian subdivions (адміністративно-територіальна реформа) is under consideration for 9 years already. Three convocations of the parliament have been working on it, and still no Law has been passed. Tracing it back to 1997, it was passed by the parliament, but vetoed by the President, and sent back to the parliament. The 1997 version of the Law defines the terminology "Міста районного значення" (Стаття 10), "Міста республіканського (Автономної Республіки Крим), обласного значення" (Стаття 11), and "Міста, що мають спеціальний статус" (Стаття 12). [12], [13]

(2) The earliest trace to the term "місто районного значення" I have found in 1993 Law passed by Verkhovna Rada and sighned by President Kravchuk (document 3120-12)

(3) The earliest trace to the term " місто районного підпорядкування" I have found in 1970 Order of Soviet of Ministries of UkrSSR signed by Scherbitskyi (document 620-70-п)

(4) In 2004 the Cabinet of Ministries ordered (document 21-2004-п) to modify its previous Order dated 1993 by changing слова "міст обласного підпорядкування" та "міст районного підпорядкування" - відповідно словами "міст обласного значення" та "міст районного значення".

Not so much of info, but hopefully it gives at least some direction for further search. --MapLover 18:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Even thought the population of "мiста областного значення" is smaller on average than the population of "мiста районного значення", they are both considered мiста. I'm just wary about introducing an artificial differentiation where none exists. Perhaps after reforms are made, some differentiation will occur, but at present they are all referred to as мiста.

The point about US cities I was trying to make, is that there is no federal code (of which I am aware of) which means that you can visit some "towns" with dwarf other "cities".--tufkaa 14:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

United States is a federation. There are written rules (in came cases, written in Constitution) for subdivion by cities and towns within a state (for some states, mostly in New England). But the rules are different across states.

There is a difference in choosing what to call something when introducing it in the first paragraph of the article where we want to relay to the reader the info on the administrative status of the location and with what we use informally further down the text for a better style. Town or city carry little info to the reader about the location's administrative status. OTOH, the U-t s, does. We just need to find a way to relay the info to the reader correctly and the use within the articles are much more liberal. --Irpen 18:34, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Kiev Template

Please take a look at Template talk:Kiev for a proposed change to the template. Let me know what you think!--tufkaa 21:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cities of Oblast Subordinance

This is to discuss міста областного значення and how to refer to their status (if at all) in the articles about specific міста областного значення. The current wording is:

The city is designated as its own separate [[raion]] (district) within the oblast. 

This is most often used in conjunction with a raion, such as:

Serving as the administrative center of the [[XXXsky Raion]] ([[raion|district]]), 
the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast.

User:AlexPU has suggested either removing this fact from all such articles or rewording it so that it is less confusing. My preference would be to include the fact that a city is a містo областного значення, however I do not object to the notion of coming up with a mutually agreed upon wording which we can use as the standard for all cities of that nature. I look forward to reading your opinions.--tufkaa 20:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, we could include the term or even a short sentence in each city article, if only:

• the addition will be linked to the general article where readers could find extended explanation
• we discuss and agree the wording of that addition

Good idea is to translate and explain місто обласного значення, e.g., as a section of this article. Give more of your ideas on that

BTW, it's not only about місто обласного значення: місто районного значення and райцентр are related problems. And mentioning of Romtsio Bezsmertnyi's 2005 territorial reform would also be great.AlexPU 08:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that "a city of oblast subordinance" should not be named as "a separate raion within the oblast".

One view is that Oblast consists of Raions, i.e "A" consists of "B". And there is a special type of "B", which is called "cites of oblast subordinance".

The other view is that Oblast consists of Raions and Cities of Oblast subordinance, i.e. "A" consists of "B" and "C". I think, this one is the correct description of Ukrainian subdivisions. MapLover 20:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

See Zaporizhia Oblast for the table I inserted. I converted the table in Subdivisions of Ukraine to list the raions and містa обласного значення. Just throwing it out there.--tufkaa 01:02, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I attempted to introduce "munilipalities" in Template:Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Check it out. But I think the main objective should be presenting all мicта uniformly as cities. The illustration of a fact that some мicта are of oblast subordinance, and the other are of raion subordinance is a secondary objective. --MapLover 03:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subordinance suggestion

My 2c to this. It is indeed useful to relay to the reader the fact that a certain location within raion differs from a location next to it by having an official status "місто областного значення". However, I also agree that the direct translation into English as, e.g. the "town/city of oblast significance" or similar is useless and confusing. Such a statement would also bear no info to the reader not accustomed to Soviet/post-Soviet terminology. Tufkaa's version ("designated as a separate raion within oblast") is intended to relay this info to the reader in an understandable way, which is the right approach. However, doing it via "raion on its own"-like phrase is confusing. Such location is not a raion, which is a specific term. It is a "місто областного значення". Aren't we better off telling the reader what exactly is implied by this status? For instance we could have the articles on such location include the sentence.

However, Shepetitvka, despite being an administrative center of the Shepetivsky Raion is subbordinated directly to the [[Khmelnytskyi Oblast]] ([[oblast|province]) government rather than the local raion authorities.

I don't insist that my phrasing is optimal, but AFAIK, the oblast/raion "significance" means just that, being subjected directly to the authorities one level higher that the administrative division it belongs to.

I will add that to Shepetivka to le the ball rolling. --Irpen 17:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

My additional one cent to this. Perhaps if you could write an article explaining what exactly "of oblast significance" (or, alternatively, "under the oblast's jurisdiction" as this same concept is described for Russian cities and towns) is, and then link to that article from the intro, it would not be as confusing:

Shepetivka is a city of [[urban subordination in the countries of the former Soviet Union|oblast significance]] in...

Better yet, move this information to the infobox ("Subordination: oblast", or "Jurisdiction: raion", or whatever); this way the information is retained and confusion is eliminated.

Wording such as "designated as a separate raion" is very confusing, I agree. First, it's still a city, not a raion. Second, cities and raions have different statuses, even though they are technically subordinated on the same level.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

By no means I insist my wording is the best. Something Ezhiki suggested may be even better. I beleive this is a relatively simple issue, unlike the one above, which is more difficult to settle. --Irpen 18:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

From my end, the language I used was meant to explain to readers via analogy concepts similar to those expressed above. Everyone's welcome opinions have convinced me that we can create a term that's more accurate for містa областного значення. However, the suggested wording seems a bit odd to my ear and not very clear about what we want to convey.

Here is a proposed wording:

Netishyn is not part of any raion (district) within the oblast, but rather is a special municipality (or special municipality) subordinate directly to the oblast government.

and in other cases:

Serving as the administrative center of the Shepetivsky Raion (district), Shepetivka itself is not part of that or any other raion within the oblast, but rather is a special municipality (or special municipality) subordinate directly to the oblast government.

Possibly creating an article or subsection in Subdivisions of Ukraine explaining Special municipalities, i.e. містa XXX значення (містa областного значення, містa районного значення, etc.).--tufkaa 04:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a problem with "not being part". It is a part geographically and not a part administratively which basically means not being subject to the raion authorities but to the Oblast authorities directly. --Irpen 05:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Could we go with the following and then explain all the details in city of oblast subordinance article/subsection (or please suggest a better name)

Shepetivka is a city of oblast subordinance, and the administrative center of Shepetivsky Raion (district).

MapLover 05:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

For my own understanding, I was under the impression that Shepetivka (much like Kiev) serves as an administrative center, meaning it holds the raion councils, but is not a part of the Shepetivsky Raion. When you say it is a part of the raion geographically, what does that mean? It is situated inside the raion, but its territory is not the territory of the raion. Please clarify. Thanks. --tufkaa 14:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem I have is being "not part of" sounds ambiguous. The issue we want to relay is that Shepetivka's authorities do not report to the raion's authorities but instead report to one level higher (oblast) ones. The best way is to say that directly rather than via more confusing "not part" wording. That's just me but I find "not part" confusing. --Irpen 17:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Guys, think positive. Shepetivka is not a part of Canada, is not located in Africa, is not an island. There are many things Shepetivka is not a part of. But (1) it is a city of oblast subordinance, and (2) it serves as an administrative center of Shepetivskyi Raion. I think this is all we should mention. MapLover 18:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Fine with be if we have an of the oblast subbordinance article where it is explained that such cities simply report to the oblast rather than raion authorities. --Irpen 18:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but aren't all cities, towns, etc. within an oblast subordinate to that oblast? Directly or indirectly, they all report to the oblast state administration. That's why I think the wording in the above proposals isn't adequate. We have to explain to the reader that Shepetivka is different from Netishyn which is also different from Horodok.--tufkaa 19:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This difference would be explained by stating that Shepetivka is a "city of oblast subordinance", and Netishyn is a "city of raion subordinance", and the terms "city of oblast subordinance" and "city of raion subordinance" being explained in separate articles. And, again, I don't insist on terminology "city of oblast subordinance", but I think it's good enough. Or, instead we may introduce "city of direct oblast subordinance" if you really think that this way it's better. Or, any other terminology proposals are welcome. We may go with "city of oblast significance" or "city of oblast importance", etc. MapLover 20:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

What about City Municipality as used in Crimea? Are these the same thing?--tufkaa 15:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

These 11 City Municipalities are "міста республіканського значення". Crimea is a republic, not oblast, therefore they are called this way, but they are similar to "міста обласного значення" in the rest of Ukraine. In Crimea there are also 5 "міст районного значення", еxactly as elsewhere. In total, 16 cities.

Sevastopol is really strange. Officially, Balaklava does not exist as a separate settlement. There is only Balaklavskyi Raion, as one of Raions of Sevastopal. Contrary, a much smaller city, Inkerman does exist, as a city of raion subordination of Balaklavskyi Raion :) --MapLover 16:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking at Country subdivision and Administrative division for guidance, the term Regional municipality intrigued me. With that in mind, what about the following? I'm not wedded to the wording (oblast municipality?), I'm just proposing a unified approach to містa XXX значення. --tufkaa 17:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Settlements by Status

Status [14]		Status (in Ukrainian)	Total Number (as of 2006)
misto / city		місто	457
	state municipality	місто зі спеціальним статусом	2
	republic municipality	місто республіканського значення (Автономна Республіка Крим)	11
	provincial municipality	місто областного значення	156
	district municipality	місто районного значення	279
selysche miskoho typu / town		селище міського типу	886
selo / village		сільський населений пункт	28,552
	selysche	селище	1,364
	selo	село	27,188

For a мicто I would prefer the word "city", not "municipality". Currency "municipality" is reserved to refer to the cities with special status (Kiev and Sevastopol). MapLover 23:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I was cleaning out my place last night, and came across a book I had picked up at a thrift store and had completely forgotten about: Geography of the U. S. S. R. by Paul Lydolph (1977, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0471557242). Thinking there might be something about this topic, I scanned the index for "administration". The book described "rayons" as the smallest division within the USSR, and that there were 2 kinds of "rayons": "city rayons" and "rural rayons". Is he talking about містa областного значення?--tufkaa 20:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

He is most likely talking about selsoviets. Oblast- vs. raion-level cities are also possible, but I'd need a bit more context.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

That was it as far as context. I will quote the sentences when I get back home. He wrote about oblasts, "krays", okrugs, autonomy, and then added 2 sentences about "rayons". I will also check if he refers to selsoviets elsewhere in the book.--tufkaa 21:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

raion (pl., raiony) A low-level territorial and administrative subdivision for rural and municipal administration. A rural raion was a county-sized district in a krai (q.v.), oblast (q.v.), autonomous republic (q.v.), autonomous okrug (q.v.), or union republic (q.v.). A city raion was similar to a borough in some large cities in the United States.

From Glossary -- Soviet Union at the Library of Congress/Federal Reasearch Division. So perhaps he was talking about the Subdivisions of Kiev, etc.--tufkaa 22:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The terminology "city raion" = "urban raion" is used for raions of a big city. (See the first two columns in [15])

A few more words about raions as subunits of a city. As we know, cities in Ukraine are subdivided into 3 mutually excluded categories: special, мiста обласного значення, мiста районного значення. In additional to that, big cities are subdivided into районы. Such cities are named мicта з районним подiлом. There are only 26 such cities. Usually, they are Oblast centers. All of them are мiста обласного значення and special cities (Kiev and Sevastopol). --MapLover 23:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Speaking on subdivisions there is one question, which I think is not addressed well so far. I think we should draw a line between administrative subdivision and territorial (geographic) subdivision. The line is not so visible on oblast or raion level, but it’s clearly visible on lower levels (смт, селище, село). As an example, each Oblast (as a territorial unit) has an Oblast Rada (as an administrative unit), each city (except Chernobyl, Prypiat) has a City Rada. However, on average there is one Selo Rada per each three Sela. An article on Rada as a council is absent. An article on Soviet (council) covers only Soviet time. Selsoviet is probably the most updated, but also confusing as it mixes (1) geographic units, (2) local Soviets, and (3) local Administrations. MapLover 23:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of raions

I've been adding these lists of raions in table format into the oblast articles. Listing all the raions contained within an oblast is probably unnecessarily lengthens these articles (especially since they are listed in the template), so I created List of raions in Ukraine by Oblast. We should probably have the equivalent listing all raions alphabetically. We can then link to this from the oblast page, if one were searching for a list of all raions within that oblast. I haven't thought about rewording the text in the individual articles yet minus the template, so I plan to leave the templates in for know.

Please let me know what you think about developing a comprehensive list like this, and if we should include population (like the List of cities in Ukraine by Oblast does, and how else to format it, etc. Thanks!--tufkaa 22:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

You folks are probably getting tired of me with my Russian analogies :), but do you think making a dedicated article for each Ukrainian oblast would a better solution? In my opinion, one article listing all raions will get a bit too long; to the point where people might hesitate to add to it just because of it. Ideally, a locator map of each raion would be quite helpful (see, for example, Administrative divisions of Adygea—this is how all Russian federal subjects will eventually be formatted; note that this is not simply a list of raions), and you might want to add some other overview information later.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I have thought about doing this for Ukrainian subdivisions for some time now, but never really put it into use. The current solution is fine just as well, but I would rather have an outline of subdivisions like here (even if it will be inside the oblast article), instead of a table of raions. Also, is there a possible way to make the table into two columns? Because it gets kind of long like this... —dima ^/sb.tk/ 17:48, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expanding further

This was posted at Template talk:Poltava Oblast, regarding proposed changes to Template Poltava Oblast and Template:Zaporizhzhia Oblast:

IMHO, Template:Administrative divisions of Ukraine is the most simple and elegant of all Ukrainian navigational templates (although I added the Tryzub, the elegant design preceded me, and I would like to praise the person responsible). For this reason, I suggested a change at Template talk:Zaporizhzhia Oblast to change the oblast templates to something more like Template:Ukraine. The goal would be to make the individual templates smaller, and then making individual templates for individual raions. The raion templates would list all cities, towns, and villages within the raion. Once those are established:

• Cities, towns and villages which are subordinate to the raion only, and which do not serve as administrative centers for raions, would only have the raion template.
• Raions, cities which are subordinate to the oblast, as well as cities, towns and villages which serve as raion centers, would have their raion template as well as the oblast template listed in their article.
• Oblasts, cities with special status, as well as cities which serve as oblast centers, would have their raion template, the oblast template, as well as the Ukraine template listed in their article.
  

Also, I liked the consistency of using the coats of arms on the left and the flags on the right. Following the pattern, the raion templates would have the oblast flag on the right, as the oblast templates have the Ukrainian flag on the right.--tufkaa 17:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Please check Template:Oblast and Template:Cherkasy Oblast. What do you think? --MapLover 23:50, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

That's more like it. Great idea! But perhaps we should make the Oblast template have a section Cities of Oblast subordinance (to not include cities in Raion section) and a separate Other cities section like on Template:Poltava Oblast right now. —dima ^/sb.tk/ 01:23, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

In my view, the navigational template would be the most clear if we include 4 categories: Raions (w/o cities), Cities (all of them; regardless of subordinantion), Urban-type settlements, and Villages. But, if you want to split cities into two categories, I guess, it would be also fine. If this is the case, then let's just name them properly, i.e. "cities of oblast subordinance", and "cities of raion subordinance". The latter is more clear than "other cities". So, let's decide. --MapLover 23:00, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I agree with you now about having four subdivision categories in the template and removing the city from the "raion" section. But we could also do with what we have now... If you really want to change it, I guess we could. —dima ^/sb.tk/ 03:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)