Talk:List of islands by area

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the List of islands by area article.
Article policies
Archives: 1

Contents

[edit] State / Province flags

A while back, for each US, UK, Canadian and Australian island, I added the flag of the relevant state or province etc. These flags were in brackets after the relevant country name.
The primary reason I added these was to dissuade some users from changing UK flags to Scotland flags (with "Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom (Flag of Scotland Scotland)" everyone should be happy), but also because they provide generally useful supplementary information. It's certainly not irrelevant data.
Earlier today, an unknown user added the flags for the Brazilian states. Great! However, this edit was almost immediately reverted by User:Polaron who stated "not needed". Technically this may be true - yes we can click on the links and go to the islands' pages to find out more - but I feel that this deletion detracts from the usefulness of the article.
Polaron has now removed all non country flags, and in the process has somehow reverted the page to a strange mixture of old and new stuff. The newer country flag templates (e.g. {{CAN}}) are back in their old style (e.g. {{Flag|Canada}}) and so consequently the page size has increased. I suspect there may well be other intermediate changes that have been lost with Polaron's editing.
I am going to revert this to the latest version with the Brazilian state flags.
Polaron (and others) - if you MUST remove this useful information, and I strongly hope that you don't, then please do it properly, and explain here exactly why you're removing it! If it's not a very good reason, then I may request that we go down the WP:THIRD route. The thoughts of others would be most welcome, and if the weight of opinion is against me then I shall back down!
Bazonka (talk) 20:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I have removed it properly in my most recent edit. The question is, why do only a few selected countries have country subdivision information? If you want to add them, please do so for all entries in the list. Please do ask for a third opinion on whether or not country subdivision information with flags is a good idea for this list. As long as the principle is applied consistently, I can live with it but I would prefer a cleaner table. --Polaron | Talk 22:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

All the flags on this page are pointless. You might try asking yourself 'what are the flags for?' Read WP:FLAGS and have a think about it.Cop 663 (talk) 22:59, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

A couple of points here.
Firstly, why do only a few countries have country subdivision information? Fair question. The ones that do/did were USA, Canada, UK and Australia, all large countries divided into commonly-known and well understood states/provinces etc. I feel that this is useful additional information as it helps the reader to more precisely picture the whereabouts of an island. E.g. if I was to read just "Banks Island, Canada" I wouldn't have a clue whether it was on the Pacific west coast, Maritime Provinces, or wherever. But if I read "Banks Island, Northwest Territories, Canada" I'd instantly know that it's up in the frozen Arctic. Of course, this assumes that I know where the different provinces etc are, but this is a reasonable assumption.
Now let's look at some examples of countries that don't have this added information. Mauritius: 1 island with 9 unfamiliar districts - there's no point in listing all of these; it would clutter the page and help no-one. Ecuador: maybe you're not very familiar with the different provinces, but I bet you've heard of the one called Galapagos, and so including Ecuador's provinces might be useful (particularly for people who've heard of the Galapagos, but don't realise it's part of Ecuador). So, it's horses for courses. I'd include Spain's Autonomous Communities (e.g. Canary Islands, Balearic Islands); but exclude the Solomon Islands' provinces as they wouldn't help anyone to more precicely pinpoint the island's location in their mind (and besides which they're mostly the same as the island names anyway).
This page is work in progress and there is still plenty of stuff that can be added. Let's include province information for big countries where it might be useful (and I'm sure readers do find it useful), and omit it where it doesn't help. Some bright spark already tried to add Brazil's provinces - admittedly I'm not familiar with these, but others are - to these readers the province data could quickly become useful information.
Perhaps putting a new "Province/State" column in the table would make it look less cluttered?
Second point, User:Cop 663's claim that "all flags on this page are pointless". I've read WP:FLAGS as suggested, and one thing jumped out at me... Point 2: "Flag icons may be appropriate as a visual navigational aid in tables or lists provided that citizenship, nationality or jurisdiction is intimately tied to the topic at hand". Well, this is a table with a column about jurisdiction! What's the problem?!?
The only other vaguely relevant bit in WP:FLAGS is the rule that states that flags should "help the reader rather than decorate". Maybe so, but in my opinion, a long table of only text and numbers is just plain dull! A splash of colour helps presentation and draws the reader in - first impressions last! And of course by looking at a well formatted list containing flags, a reader will much more easily be able to identify records for a country than they would by text alone. I'm sorry, Cop663, but I think your statement is wrong.
So in summary: I think that country subdivision information is useful if applied appropriately (and that's not one-size-fits-all); and that well displayed flag use makes an article more useable, and in this case it does not conflict with WP:FLAGS.
I'm going to reinstate the earlier version of the article (the one with the Brazilian provinces) and start to add extra province information. This will take time though - don't expect it to be complete straight away. Please don't revert this without leaving a response here.
Bazonka (talk) 18:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Can you add the country subdivision information without the flags? --Polaron | Talk 18:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough - Seems like a reasonable compromise. Bazonka (talk) 18:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
OK - all state/province flags have been removed. Details for Spain, Ecuador, Mexico, Portugal and India provinces added. Russia is a job for another day, and I will consider Indonesia too. I don't think it's beneficial to do any other countries. Bazonka (talk) 21:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cyprus

To the anonymous IP editor(s) who keep removing the information about Cyprus - please stop!
Two nations have sovereign territory on the island of Cyprus - the Republic of Cyprus with 97%; and the United Kingdom, through Akrotiri and Dhekelia, its Sovereign Base Areas, with 3%. (Note that this is not the same situation as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which despite being controlled by the US military is still sovereign Cuban territory). Although this 3% of the island may not be much, it is not part of the Republic of Cyprus, and so must be mentioned in this article. Remember this article is about islands, not about countries.
Secondly, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus does exist (whether you like it or not) and has control over about 36% of the island. Although highly disputed and not internationally recognised, its presence definitely deserves a mention. Other international disputes are listed on this page - it is useful information and must stay.
I don't know who is constantly vandalising this article, or what their agenda is, but they must remember that this article should not contain opinions or be a descripiton of how you want the world to be. It is a description of fact. If the UK or Turkey leave Cyprus, you can amend the article then. Bazonka (talk) 17:20, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Let me answer to your comments. The point of this webpage is (if I understand well) to show to what sovereign state each island belongs to. What you call Turkish rebublic of northern Cyprus is not recognized by UN or any country in the world except Turkey. A number of U.N. Resolutions, in particular, have repeatedly addressed the Cyprus situation in all its aspects. They provide, inter alia, for the withdrawal of the Turkish army (Resolutions 353/1974 of the Security Council and 3212/1974, 37/253/1983 of the General Assembly) and the return of the refugees to their homes in safety (Resolution 3212/1974 of the General Assembly, later endorsed by Security Council Resolution 365/1975). You should also know that the rebublic of Cyprus is not a greek state. The flag of the rebublic still represents oficially the whole island.

Now as for the UK bases, they represent 3% of the island territory. If you sum up the area of all the foreign embassies in the island, which is again sovereign territory of these countries, it is of the same order of magnitude. It is ridiculous to have at equal footing 97% of an island with a "big embassy". The proof of this, is the fact that nobody dared in this webapage to add Guantanamo of Cuba as a territory of the US. Although you claim a legal argument about Guntanamo not being american soil, both of us know the truth, which is that the US are the sovereign state on this base. However, everybody was rational here, so nobody considered a negligible portion of the island as separate territory worth mentioning. This rule should be also followed for Cyprus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.92.58.155 (talk) 21:54, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Dear Anonymous user (please register - it will give you more credibility),
This article is about islands and their size, it is not about who owns what. The country information is included as additional useful reference information.
I know full well that TRNC is unrecognised, illegal and impinges on the sovereign territory of the Republic of Cyprus. However, it exists. It is there. It is significant. It would be utterly remiss not to mention it when describing the island (remember this article is about islands, not countries). This article has never stated that TRNC should exist, just that it does exist - and its details are added as a footnote, so as not to imply anything more than that. Details of other disputed islands are mentioned in this article - look at East Falkland and Iturup for example. By all means reword the text if you think it's not clear enough, but you should not remove it - no matter how much you oppose Turkey's presence in Cyprus.
As for your case on the UK bases, I need to set you straight on a few facts of history. Guantanamo Bay is leased in prepetuity by Cuba to the US, whereas the UK bases were explicitly excluded from the territory of the Republic of Cyprus upon its independence from the UK in 1960. So, Guantanamo Bay is part of the Republic of Cuba - it is just not controlled by it. On the other hand, Akrotiri and Dhekelia have never been part of the Republic of Cyprus. Their sovereignty, rightly or wrongly, has remained British. This is not disputed, not even by the Cypriot government.
And your argument on them having the same status as embassies is laughable. The bases total 254km2 - this is probably bigger than Nicosia itself - so saying they are of "the same order of magnitude" as "all the foreign embassies in the island" is just nonsense. Besides which, embassies have "extraterritorial" status, meaning that they are exempt from local laws etc., but they do not have sovereign status - this is retained by the host country. So Akrotiri and Dhekelia are different. They are not part of the Republic of Cyprus and so must be mentioned.
Bazonka (talk) 15:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
This really seems like tiresome pedantry. TRNC need not be listed here - anyone clicking through to the article on Cyprus will come upon it soon enough. The British bases are a footnote. This is an article about the size of islands. Keep it simple. john k (talk) 15:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
A pedant? Me? Well maybe. However, I'd rather see something removed from an article because it's irrelevant, rather than because someone incorrectly believes it to be wrong. I'm prepared to concede that maybe the reference to TRNC could be removed, but I strongly oppose removing the details of the UK bases. 254km2 is significant. Bazonka (talk) 18:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, you might first want to deal with List of countries and outlying territories by total area, which includes Akrotiri and Dhekelia within Cyprus. That seems a much clearer instance than here, where it's much closer to irrelevance. john k (talk) 18:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

To Bazonka: your arguments are self-conflicting. You state that you agree that TRNC has no legal status but you think it should be mentioned. On the other hand your argument why Guantanamo should not be mentioned is because "oficially" belongs to Cuba. Ok, "oficially" there is only one Cyprus, which is greek and turkish with the oficial flag that is presented here. Greek flags or turkish flags or anything else have nothing to do with the rebublic of Cyprus. You should at last understand that the flag of the rebublic of Cyprus does not represent the greek side, it represents both greek and turkish. It is the flag of the island, period! As for the british bases, you probably know there are american bases in almost all NATO countries. There are in Greece, Italy, Turkey and recently there will be in Kosovo, Albania etc. Everytime someone referes to these countries, should he mention that there are bases that are not controled directly by the state? It is ridiculus. Then, why don't we mention that there is more territory controled by the UN that the UK. Things are simple. There is an island called Cyprus and the country is also called Cyprus. the rest are irrelevant. I don't know your agenda, but don't try to make propaganda from this site.-Chris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.225.212.4 (talk) 10:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

My agenda?? My agenda is to have correct facts on Wikipedia. I really don't care whether Cyprus is Greek, Turkish, British or Brazilian. I just want things to be shown as they really are. No propaganda - just undisputed, and internationally recognised facts.
Your arguments about US airbases do not hold water. Airbases, embassies, UN Buffer Zones etc are the sovereign territory of the country they're in, and hence need not be mentioned. But, uniquely, this is not the case with Akrotiri & Dhekelia - there is a very big difference between them and other foreign airbases. As I explained in my earlier post, due to historic reasons they are legally not sovereign Cypriot territory. (I am beginning to wonder if you know what the word sovereign means.) Look at the CIA World Factbook (a US publication) - they are listed separately from Cyprus, whereas Guantanamo Bay is not mentioned at all.
And yes, I do think that TRNC should be mentioned (as a footnote) because of its sheer size. No other reason - however you'll see from my conversation with John K above that I'm prepared to back down on that one. Bazonka (talk) 18:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Dear Bazonka, I totaly agree with Chris and John, mention of military bases is totally irrelevent, much more than the turkish claims, indeed. Sovereignity appears here just as a stupid word put by Britishs and Britishs only. If there was indeed sovereignity, there wouldn't be any problem with rent by respect to the republic of Cyprus, a rent that UK agreed (eventhough UK do not pay it, but for reasons not linked to sovereignity, just take a look at those reasons). If there were sovereignity, the laws would be British laws. If there were sovereignity, these 2 bases would be part of EU, but they are not, because the problem of sovereignity is all but settled. Do you also want to put a note saying "Soverignity is not recognised by the Republic of Cyprus" ? This is ridiculous. Last but not least, if there were sovereignity, there wouldn't have been such an agreement in 2002 between UK and Cyprus stating that UK can NOT use these lands for any kind of civil colonisation, taxes, air and shipping civil exploitation, etc... You speak of sovereignity, but it is just, and more important can ONLY be just, military bases ! Chris is right : put also the embassies, it is the same idea. Pyc 13:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.164.82.56 (talk)
Thank you Chris and Chris' friend (it's interesting how you both have IP addresses in Denmark). Please refer to Appendix A, Article 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus [1]. Bazonka (talk) 15:55, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Well bazonka it seems you also have friends in England! However, Akrotiri and Dekelia are not a country recognized by UN. It is a military base. The entry is about countries and not bases. The funny thing is that you try everywhere in wikipedia to pass Akrotiri as a country and you get erased not only by me. If Guantanamo or Okinawa is mentioned here, then Akrotiri should also. But since this is not the case, you cannot put Akrotiri and Dekelia. By the way there is also a RADAR antenna that is mentioned in the treaty between Cyprus and UK. Should we also mention it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.88.116.134 (talk) 00:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

NO because the radar antenna is on sovereign Cypriot territory. Guantanamo Bay is sovereign Cuban territory (despite Cuba having no control). Okinawa is sovereign Japanese territory. But as I repeatedly say - Akrotiri and Dhekelia are NOT sovereign Cypriot territory. They are a unique special case. (And no, they are not countries, they are an overseas territory of another country.) Bazonka (talk) 06:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I understand your argument about Guantanamo. However, let me make a couple of comments. Although Akrotiri is british territory, its citizens are not entitled to a british passport. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Overseas_Territories_Act_2002 Second, 60% of the land of Akrotiri and Dekelia belongs to cypriot farmers. The law applied on the "citizens" of Akrotiri and Dekelia is not the british law, but as it stated in the Act 2002, the law should be as close as possible to the cypriot one. As an example, the three british soldiers that were responsible for the rape and murder of a danish tourist back in 1994, they were convicted and sentenced by the cypriot court and not the "Akrotiri court". The official currency of Akrotiri and Dekelia is the euro as in the republic of Cyprus and not the british pound. What all these indicate? Surely you are right. The bases are not territory of the republic of Cyprus. However, we can certainly conclude that they are just military bases. Apart from local greek and turkish cypriots, the population of these territories is just the military personel that serves there. My point was that I disagree on promoting military bases without stable population to the level of a state. Guantanamo and Okinawa are different cases you say. However, the cuban government has repeatedly asked for the base to be returned. Correct me also if I am wrong, but USA has not paid any rent the last 50 years. Cuba has lost control of the territory. Although you prefer to call this base as a rented one and Akrotiri as an owned one, there is not essential difference in practice. Since you quote the constitution of Cyprus, where the bases is stated to be under british control, I would like to remind you that the constitution also states that UK should support financially the republic in exchange. This stopped a few years after the birth of the republic with the excuse that since there are problems between the two communities of the island, the UK government would not know how to split the financial support. Now I think the comparison between Guantanamo and these bases should be more clear. The base were given as an exchange for financial support that ceased to exist soon after independence. If the character of this page is to consider air force bases at equal footing with sovereign states, I agree that these bases should be mentioned. However, since it is not done for other cases, I think it is irrelevant to mention the bases of Akrotiri and Dekelia at equal footing with the republic of Cyprus, exactly as when we refer to the island of Cuba, we do not put as an entry Cuba and the base controled by USA. As for the RADAR site, the constitution states explicitly that Cyprus should let UK have the antenna on the mountain. So, what kind of sovereignty is this when a state cannot decide if it wants the antenna or not. I assure you it is not sovereign territory of Cyprus. Of course it would have been ridiculous to call the antenna site as part of british territory, but it is right there in the constitution. Do we also have to mention it? I think military bases should not be mentioned. Chris

I agree that military bases should not be mentioned... per se, but Akrotiri & Dhekelia are not just military bases - they are overseas territories and hence for that fact, and for that fact alone, deserve to be mentioned. For the purposes of this article, the fact that they contain airbases is irrelevant, as are the other factors you mentioned regarding their laws, currency, suffrage, land ownership etc. All very interesting but remember that this article is about the size of islands, with additional information about the countries that "own" them (whether directly or through an overseas territory). Your point about the UK refusing to pay financial support for the territories is also not of relevance here - perhaps it indicates that Britain shouldn't own the land, but as the law stands at the moment, it does. (And by the way, the USA does pay rent to Cuba for Guantanamo Bay, but Cuba refuses to cash the cheques.) We are clearly not going to agree on this one - I'm going to request third-party arbitration (WP:THIRD). Bazonka (talk) 17:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Third Opinion

Hi, I saw this on the WP:3O page. I am still reading this talk page and the article and trying to gain a bit more background. This is a very fascinating topic. Lazulilasher (talk) 19:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, from what I discern, the question is: if the 2 bases are part of the British Overseas Territories, should there be a reference to that fact in the list?
My opinions is that yes, there should be a mention that a part of the island is British Overseas Territory. From what I can gather, the bases are considered British territory. Since this is the case, there should be a note made indicating that X% of the land is British territory.
This was very interesting and I learned something new, btw, so thank you for bringing this up. Lazulilasher (talk) 19:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Lazulilasher. Let's hope this brings an end to the edit war. Bazonka (talk) 17:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The 3rd guy is right. Since it is part of the constitution of Cyprus, there should be a reference to the british bases. His idea of stating the x% is cool. From what I figured out, x=3 and therefore it would be better if it is stated in the entry, just to make sure that one understands the size of the two different territories. From the discussion it is clear that there is one country and two military bases, and the entry should reflect their size. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.189.116.199 (talk) 00:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've amended the Cyprus footnote to include the size percentages. Bazonka (talk) 07:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rene-Levasseur Island

The article states that this island is the world's largest artificial lake - in fact it was formed some 214 million years ago by a meteor impact, so should not be described as artificial.

See Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9-Levasseur

Tony (talk) 14:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

It became an island in the 1960s when the crater was flooded to form a water reservoir. Before, two rivers were running south at the bottom of the ring valley, merging in south to become the Manicouagan river, and the middle of the crater had a dry connection with the rest of Québec in the north. LeQuantum (talk) 15:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ilha Tupinambarana

According to the Tupinambarana article, the island has been split into four sections by rivers. So, the island is in the wrong place in the list. Does anyone know the areas and names of the four bits? Bazonka (talk) 19:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)