User talk:Laomei
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Please stop removing content from People's Republic of China. It is considered vandalism. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. 08:16, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
---What a funny little prick you are
- Stop it right there. Personal attacks are completely out of place. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 09:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
You're one revert away from violating the Three-revert rule. Rather than reverting ad nauseam, I suggest that you take any disagreements you may have to the discussion page at Talk:People's Republic of China. -- ran (talk) 08:49, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Also, if you can read Chinese, I suggest taking a look at zh:中华人民共和国. There's a very detailed description at the bottom. -- ran (talk) 08:57, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
--- Yes, read that and it describes it well, unfortunately it ALSO simply uses the CIA factbook, whereas other, less politically-biased sources claim otherwise. It's not like wikipedia is a legitimate reference for anything, it's all opinion and bias, which this stupid argument proves. Add the areas fot Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, and you arrive at the correct figure in terms of area. I am in China, and books here use the figure I am quoting, how is that ANY less legitimate than what the US claims. If anything, it's more legitimate.
- If you want to include Taiwan, then by the same standard, you should include Arunachal Pradesh, the entire South China Sea, and all other areas that the PRC also claims. In the same way, you should include Aksai Chin for India, Sabah for the Philippines, most of Guyana for Venezuela, the southern Kuriles for Japan, and so on. In this case, all disputed areas would get counted twice, once for the one who controls them, and once for the one who claims them.
- So here's what happens: either we add the area for Aksai Chin to India, and Arunachal Pradesh to China, and all other claimed areas to all countries, and possibly rearrange the entire chart as a result. The chances of such a proposal succeeding is slim to none, because people don't want to see that a country has an area that's larger than what it actually controls. Or we stick to area of control only. -- ran (talk) 09:17, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
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- It's not so much the numbers themselves as the way they are presented. One cannot include Taiwan and various other areas into the area of the PRC without at least discussing that this is based on the PRC's territorial claims, which are at odds with reality. For example, the article could present several different numbers: size of territory controlled by the PRC including Hong Kong and Macau, size of territory of the PRC excluding Hong Kong and Macau, size of the territory claimed by the PRC. All of this is fine, if it's based on verifiable information. However, in the overview box, we usually report only the size of the territory under the control of a specific political entity. We do the same thing for the Republic of China article. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 09:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
--- This situation is different. Hong Kong and Macau simply ARE parts of China, yet the CIA factbook excludes them. Taiwan is part of China as well, and apart from 25 small, insignificant countries, the rest of the world recognizes this fact as well. Taiwan has never declared independence, and it does not meet the qualifications for statehood. There are many many countries with provinces in rebellion which the government does not control, but those are still included in the statistics for the country as a whole.
- We don't take a stand on whether or not Taiwan is or isn't part of China, or which countries are or are not significant. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 09:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
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- Like it or not, Taiwan IS a part of China, there is no "stand" to take on the issue. Do they have embassies? Have they been members of international treaties as a nation? Nope. End result is that it is a domestic issue to China and until Taiwan has the balls to claim independence and beat back the PLA, they ARE in fact part of China.
The Republic of China has never declared itself a part of the People's Republic of China, it existed before the PRC did and continues to exist. It controls its internal affairs, maintains its own military, and conducts its own diplomacy (under heavy PRC pressure, of course). The ROC is de facto an independent state and has been for nearly a century. As for what it *should" be, or what it *legally* is, or what it *will* be, or what it *should* do, those are open to debate and Wikipedia does not take a stand on this. -- ran (talk) 19:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Well I think Laomei might have a point for including Hong Kong and Macao in the totals (don't they include inner Mongolia? Isn't that a SAR as well?) but I agree Taiwan shouldn't be included in a PRC article for the reasons mentioned. But if we're going to split hairs here on the size of countries, here is why I think China should remain 4th in size either way:
China's area if you include Taiwan, Macao and HK: 9631418 km^2
America's 50 states and DC: 9631418
American Samoa: 199 km^2
Guam: 549 km^2
Northern Marianas: 477 km^2
US Virgin Islands: 352 km^2
Wake Island: 6.5 km^2
Total (excluding Puerto Rico): 9633001.5 km^2
Puerto Rico: 9104 km^2
Total (with Puerto Rico): 9642105.5 km^2
There are also a bunch of uninhabited islands which I didn't bother adding up. These territories are just as much part of America as Taiwan is part of the PRC, by Laomei's definitions above, if not more so since they aren't disputed. So if you add it up the way Laomei wants, China is still the 4th biggest country. Is there anything wrong with this reasoning? PS, I agree that this is a stupid argument. And why do I care? I'm not Chinese or American TastyCakes 23:03, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
- The difference being that Puerto Rico is not part of the US. Taiwan has the same status as Transniestria, Somaliland, and many other "nations" which consist of land claimed by the recognized government, although the government does not have any real control of said areas. Many areas in Cambodia also fall into this, as well as many African nations. This does not seem to stop wikipedia editors from including those places in the official statistics for the nation that claims the land and is officially recognized. No major nation recognizes the claims of Taiwan, the only reason it is an issue now is political bullshitting at the highest levels to contain the China "threat". If you want to get technical, even without Taiwan, China is larger than Canada in terms of land area, which used to be the only thing that was counted until the US changed the ranking system for political posturing reasons.
- That is arguable about Puerto Rico, but not so much about those other dependencies, with whom the US is bigger even without Puerto Rico. They aren't an "integral part of the US" but as I understand it they are "owned" by the US. Sounds a little like Hong Kong and Macao to me, no? Land area-wise China is the second biggest, but noone seems to measure country area using only land. Where did you find that the US "changed the ranking system" to include water? I find that doubtful, especially since it makes the US smaller than Canada while having more "land area". If the US was really using the CIA factbook for political posturing, why wouldn't they include all their dependencies to make themselves look as big as possible? I think you have to just accept the fact that the CIA really doesn't care if America is bigger than China. Few people would think less of America because its a few thousand square km smaller than China. Also, I find it funny you think America is trying to "contain the China threat" by sneakily changing the reported size of China while allowing a $170 billion (and growing) annual trade deficit to continue. TastyCakes 04:43, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Thank you
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Thank you Lao Mei! We have never interacted directly, but I have seen your ongoing dispute with Cantus (and others?) in the history of "countries by area". I almost came here asking for your help in the fight against Cantus, but you came in of your own accord. I am the one who originally made the compromise edit with China in 4th place but with a lengthy explanation of it's disputed status in the second column (though others refined the description). I also added in a number of explanations next to all the overseas territories, showing what nations they were protectorates, etc of. Every time Cantus swoops in, these are also wiped and changed back to Cantus' "perfect" edit from some months back. This happens even though Cantus should have nothing against this extra information. He probably never even noticed it's addition. Anyway, I didn't want it to be just a two-man revert war between me and Cantus, so your timely intervention was highly appreciated. Malnova 02:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
- No problem. I would still want to toss China up to #3, but the comprimise is ok as long as there is the explanation. Cantus is an annoying little cunt. Laomei 13:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
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- Thank you Lao Mei for at least keeping my edits intact when you change the order of the US and China. I intended to use the figures listed at an interactive page on the UN website, but these figures were all from 1998 according to a box I read. So I went looking for newer figures, and found the UN Yearbook (though the newest edition online is only 2003). I didn't notice at the time when I was entering the UN figures, but the figure it gives for the area IS larger than that of China (the Yearbook says it does not include Macau, Hong Kong nor the province of Taiwan in the surface area; it also does not include Greenland in the area of Denmark et al). I honestly had no intention of starting an edit war between people again. Maybe we can at least put the qualifier back in the box. It is certainly no less relevant than before. The UN does not even give figures for Taiwan, even though it does give figures for places like Svalbard. Reflecting this, I am considering not numbering Taiwan, but I wanted others' feedback before I did that. Malnova 01:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Please don't do that
If you continue to create articles such as Nigger problem, you will eventually be blocked from editing. Please don't do that. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Size of the United States
Who is going to know the size of the US better then the US? The United States surely meets the definition of a reliable source, it legally MUST know its own size (for tax and treaty purposes) whereas the UN does not need to know. Therefore I have restored the CIA factbook number on List of continents, countries, and political subdivisions by total area in excess of 200,000 km². Let me know if you have any problems, Prodego talk 19:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- Gone through this whole bit of fun before on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_outlying_territories_by_total_area
If you really want to get paranoid about it I suggest you research census data going back a few decades and you will see the area of the US changes drastically. The US includes ocean claims in it's "area". The CIA is a biased, politicized source, and unless the US gained another California in the past 20 years without telling anyone, then the number is bunk. Suggest you do your research.
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- Nearly all the data on that page is from the CIA world factbook, if you want to use UN data, that is fine, but you will need to covert every single page in every list to it. The data is from one source, therefore it is all measured the same way, so if the CIA is counting territorial waters as area, then it would be doing so for all nations. Please discuss this, rather then reverting, which is counter productive. Prodego talk 16:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
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- Last I checked, Wiki was all in love with the NPOV hype, please tell me how a US government source which is bound by law to report whatever it is told as fact by the US government can be considered NPOV on any issue regarding the US? Check your census records, the US jumped up in area out of nowhere by the size of California in the 80s. And the actual "land" portion of that figure decreased at the same time by something the size of Delaware. There are conflicting sources and taking the NPOV one as fact seems prudent. Laomei (talk) 01:48, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
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- I highly doubt the US government could be considered a POV source on this matter by any reasonable standard. What possible motive would any country have to give false area measurements? All of the other areas on that page come from the same source, tabulated the same way, so the US should not be treated differently, since the way area is measured must be consistent, which may or may not be true between different sources. If you argued for converting the entire list to UN data, I could understand your argument, however, treating one country differently than all the others is not acceptable. Prodego talk 02:24, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
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- However, you propose doing just that exactly. How many other countries on that list are being allowed to be their own source? Much less their intelligence agency? Furthermore, The US was previously always self-claimed to be 4th largest, it's only very recently and for reasons unknown that it claims otherwise. http://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-2.pdf
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- If you have an alternate source, that would cover all the entries on that page, please bring that forward for discussion. It is important all the data come from the same source, to ensure it was all gathered in a consistent way. You can't simply pick out a different source for each country, they all must be from the same place, for the obvious consistency reasons. Prodego talk 20:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] Comment
About the 'including territorial waters in land area' thing. I have to say - you're being a jerk. You're right, yes, but you're being a jerk about it. Calm down and be more polite. DS (talk) 01:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Help the Turkish article "Leopard"
Could you please write "jin qian bao" with accents and chinese characters, indicating what each syllable means? --Ekindedeoglu (talk) 01:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
