Talk:Luxembourg (city)

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Contents 1 Area 2 Links on years in Luxembourg (city)#History 3 Population 4 Proposed move 4.1 Survey 4.2 Discussion 4.3 Larger view on small area 5 Is Hamm is a bourough of Luxembourg City? 6 1815, prussian garrison, Orange-Nassau grand duke 7 Missing sections 8 languages

[edit] Area

Could you please tell me: what is the size (area) of the City of Luxembourg? Thank you. Adam78 22:57, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Now, rather than searching with Google, I've found it in other Wikipedias, although the data somewhat differ:

• Luxembourg Wikipedia: 5124 ha
• German Wikipedia: 51,73 km²

Adam78 23:06, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Statec, the official Statistics Institute of Luxembourg indicates the surface of the city of Luxembouzrg to be 51.46km2 [CFab June 18, 2006]

[edit] Links on years in Luxembourg (city)#History

The history section being a summary, the selection of years included there is generally important. Some of the events are even mentionned in the corresponding year pages. Thus the years should be wikilinks.

I suggest to undo the changes by Bobblewik. I'm wondering which part of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Date_formatting suggest to undo all links. -- User:Docu

If the date doesn't contain a day and a month, then date preferences won't work, and square brackets won't respond to your readers' auto-formatting preferences. So unless there is a special relevance of the date link, there's no need to link it. This is an important point: simple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there's a strong reason for doing so. I feel that there is rarely ifd ever such a valid reason. DES ^(talk) 01:42, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

If you disagree with the guideline ("I feel that there is rarely ifd ever such a valid reason."), why do you change the links? -- User:Docu

[edit] Population

"The city's disputed metropolitan population is 1,413,447"

That must be an error... that's thrice the population of the country. Any idea what this figure should be? Erath 08:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

You can see the rationale behind the figure at Largest European metropolitan areas:

"1,413,447 (82,000), (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Longwy, Thionville, Metz, Briey in France, Arlon, Virton, Neufchateau, Bastogne, Neufchateau, Belgische Eifel in Belgium, Bitburg-Prüm, Trier, Trier-Saarburg, Merzig-Wadern in Germany)"

Frankly, it's rubbish, because most of that area is countryside (it includes the Ardennes, for crying out loud). Luxembourg City's metropolitan area probably includes the communes of Luxembourg, Hesperange, Strassen, Walferdange, and Sandweiler, but certainly not the whole of the country! Bastin 14:53, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I move for the removal of that claim then, as I agree with Bastin in that it's frankly nonsense. Erath 11:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I have changed it to 103,973, which is the total of the populations of the five communes listed above. Bastin 12:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

Although I concede that Mexico City is possibly not an apt analogy, New York City and Kuwait City are. The reason is that (unlike with Isfahan or Liège), everyone calls Luxembourg City by that name. Probably a greater percentage call la ville de Luxembourg by the name 'Luxembourg City' than call the City of New York by the name 'New York City'.

I refute the claim that the number of hits on Google doesn't matter. Sure, it shouldn't be a hard and fast rule, but it's an indication of usage. The Google test makes it clear that the common term of reference is 'Luxembourg City' (417,000 hits), along with its foreign language alternatives: 'Luxembourg ville' (1,070,000 hits) and 'Luxemburg Stadt' (81,100). If one relies only on the existing usage at Wikipedia, one can see that, of the 182 pages that link to this article, 130 are redirected from 'Luxembourg City'. Since it is well established as the primary term (used in Luxembourg and overseas), it serves as a better alternative to 'Luxembourg' than 'Luxembourg (city)' does.

The point that 'city' can have multiple meanings surely supports the proposal to move to 'Luxembourg City'. The term 'Luxembourg' is sometimes used (mostly in historic discourse or by people that live in Luxembourg City) to refer to the centre of town, which is otherwise known as 'Ville Haute'. However, 'Luxembourg City' is never used for any purposes but to refer to the whole city; thus, by moving the article to comply with that name, one would avoid the need for yet another disambiguation. Bastin 23:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Google usage is not necessarily encyclopedic usage. Compare fart and flatulence. -AjaxSmack 05:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That's why it's not a hard and fast rule. However, when not discussing the venting of odorous gases, it may be quite a good one; to suggest that the term 'Luxembourg City' is to 'Luxembourg' as 'fart' is to 'flatulence' really is scraping the barrels' most inner recess. Bastin 09:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Larger view on small area

I have been busy trying to reorganise the provinces of Belgium, one of which is identical in name with a province in the Netherlands, another one identical to the name of the Grand Duchy and its capital; several provinces carry the name of their capital. It seems best to keep 'Name (city)' and 'Name (province)' as much as possible. Here are a few links (disregarding any bishopric or former duchy or countship homonymous name) that I tried out with nearly every kind of redirection and disambiguity page that might occur on the English Wikipedia. Think also about Brussels that is a disambiguity page without stating that much, Brussels Capital Region comprising 19 municipalities, one of which is Brussels City that redirects to... City of Brussels and should better have been named Brussels (city) just like [unfortunately only almost] every city that is a municipality. This goes as well for the suggestion of Luxembourg City that is the municipality (larger than the 'Upper City'): there is no need for 'Luxembourg City' or 'Luxemburg City' (or the name in Luxembourgish - is that 'Lëtzebuerg City' of 'Lëtzebuerg Stadt' or ...?) or 'City of Luxembourg' (in several languages) than for just about any city that (as most in a rather large area) is still proud of the historical title 'city' versus just a 'big town', and most of them are now a municipality larger than the historical city and at some time had or has a county, bishopric, margrave... with the same name. Which would be the deciding point and where would be the limit for deciding between 'Name (city)' and 'Name City'? It would be confusing (needing a lot of redirection pages: for almost each city in the world because only nearby living people will be aware of local peculiarities or Google statistics for some city name) and cause heated discussions as well.

SomeHuman 2006-07-28 20:39 updated till 29 02:10 (UTC)

The limit in question would be usage. Were 'Liège City' to become a more popular phrase than merely Liège, that article ought to be moved. The same applies to Namur, Antwerp, Groningen, or Utrecht and the many other cities that have duplicate meanings (although not quite so Brussels or London, as they have smaller 'city' divisions). That is the model used with New York City, Kuwait City, and Guatemala City (official titles 'City of New York', 'Kuwait', and 'the New Guatemala of the Assumption' respectively), when the shorter names are unavailable. Thus, to move this article to 'Luxembourg City' would not be creating a precedent, but following one. Bastin 01:05, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely right about just following a precedent. The problem is that Wikipedia has so many contributors that have created contradictory precedents and precedents that can only cause confusion. The official name of Bangkok takes nearly half a page, though it is usually shortened to Krung Theb, its first two words. But we all know Bangkok and indeed the usage in English defines the article name. But we do not all know that Luxembourg is called Luxembourg Ville, let alone Luxembourg City by most users of English. In fact this can not even be reliably established: Google does not allow to search 'Luxembourg' in the meaning of the city, how do you measure which is most common? Even if you would read every article, if one states 'He left Paris and went to Luxembourg' he would be expected in the city but perhaps one meant the country. Even if one would find a way to establish this in a reliable way or by some consensus, you cannot expect every user of Wikipedia to know that if he wants to find something about (or an editor wants to put a link to) the city L., he must look for L. City., about the city B. he must look for City of B., while other cities carry either their unambiguous name or Name (city). To my knowledge there is no 'Luxembourg City' different from 'Luxembourg (city)' and thus no good reason to make life difficult for all users.
When people refer to the district or to the canton, they will almost never simply say 'Luxembourg' but most usually 'the district of Luxembourg' and 'the canton of Luxembourg'. Do we then have to rename those articles as 'District of Luxembourg', 'Canton of Luxembourg'? We need to if you get 'Luxembourg City' and want to be consistent about usage being the limit, and certainly 'Luxembourg' then would need being renamed to 'Grand Duchy of Luxembourg'.
Perhaps I can convince you in a practical way: "I went to Echternach, Vianden, Luxembourg and Esch" - does that sound peculiar to you? I do not think people usually say "I went to Echternach, Vianden, Luxembourg City and Esch", thus the English name of the city is Luxembourg and one only adds 'City' when ambiguity must be avoided. That's what is done nearly always on Wikipedia by 'Name (city)'. — SomeHuman 2006-07-29 02:27 - 03:33 (UTC)

Of course, you have created a rarefied context in which 'Luxembourg' would inevitably mean the city, by putting it alongside other Luxembourgian cities. However, most people won't read 'Luxembourg' in a list, but, rather, in prose. They'll read 'Eyschen died on the 11 October 1915, in Luxembourg', 'Luxembourg was the préfecture of the département', 'Gëlle Fra is a monument in Luxembourg', 'German forces crossed the Moselle at Wasserbillig, and headed for Luxembourg', and so on, and, on every occasion, will get thoroughly confused.

For non-Luxembourgers (unless in a list of other cities, provinces of Belgium, etc), 'Luxembourg' always means the Grand Duchy, and 'Luxembourg City' is used as term for the city. In the English language, 'Luxembourg' is unambiguously reserved for the country (except for flights to Findel airport, but that's because it's the only airport in the country). Thus, were one to read 'He left Paris and went to Luxembourg', one would assume that he would be in the Grand Duchy, not necessarily in Luxembourg City. For Luxembourgers, there can be some space, but they usually insert the term 'city' (ville de Luxembourg, Luxemburg Stadt, d'Stat Lëtzebuerg, cidade de Luxemburgo, Città del Lussemburgo), or even reduce the abbreviation to just 'the city'.

Furthermore, there is another 'Luxembourg (city)': Ville Haute. It's the city centre of Luxembourg, so matches one of the definitions of 'city'. It has yet to be explained how 'Luxembourg (city)' would therefore be more adequate than 'Luxembourg City'.

One would not need to know whether 'Luxembourg City' or 'Luxembourg (city) is the correct term before linking to it. Redirects will achieve that task, whilst WikiProject Luxembourg (which, at the moment, is just me) gradually clears up such common errors, along with 'Grand Duchy of Luxembourg', etc. Bastin 12:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The point I had made, is precisely that 'Luxembourg' is used for the C/city only when the context makes clear what is intended. In any other context, one will always write either 'Luxembourg City', 'the capital of Luxembourg', 'the city of Luxembourg', or possibly another group of words that fits the sentence. This is in no way essentially different for Luxembourg than for Antwerp, Liège, Brussels, Namur,... and there is no reason to get a different solution for a similar problem: the page name is 'Luxembourg (city)' but anyone who makes an edit mentioning [[Luxembourg City]] does not have to think about anything because the link is redirected to the proper article. I have no objection whatsoever against a redirecting for 'Luxembourg City' to a page named just like nearly all other cities of which the name may have another geographical circumscription as well.
I agree that most of the time, for instance 'Antwerp' will mean the city, whereas most of the time 'Luxembourg' will mean the Grand Duchy. Thus 'Antwerp' has become the article name: [[Antwerp]] does not show 'Antwerp (city)'. Personally, because there is ambiguity with 'Antwerp (province)' and (if anyone would care to create the article) with 'Bishopric of Antwerp', I might even prefer 'Antwerp' to deliver a disambiguity page and than we must have the municipality titled 'Antwerp (city)'; for now, one first gets the municipality and must then again click towards 'Antwerp (disambiguity)' and only then a further click gets one to the desired destination. Anyway, if you follow a link that ends up on the municipalities of Liège, Namur etc, you will see pages titled 'Liège (city)', 'Namur (city)', etc. I can't see why it might be more awkward for [[Luxembourg City]] to end up on 'Luxembourg (city)'. Your suggested name change would create another 'special case' that makes the city of Luxembourg stand out against a bunch of other cities, and that seems rather unaccounted for. I find the 'City of Brussels' just as unduly named and after some further research I might suggest renaming it to 'Brussels (city)' (with redirection from 'C. of B.'): Its official name is irrelevant as I had shown for Bangkok.
Your above suggestion " 'Luxembourg (city)': Ville Haute " is absolutely unacceptable: every 'Name (city)' refers to the municipality, for Luxembourg that is Luxembourg City, not the Upper City. If the latter needs its own article (though most cities have a single article about the municipality and, possibly in a major section, the old city; even while for some such municipalities, separate articles about its comprising villages were created), that separate article should then be named 'Luxembourg, Upper City' and have redirecting pages in the local languages 'Luxembourg, Ville Haute', 'Luxemburg, Oberstadt' and the alternative English name 'Luxemburg, Upper City'. Any link like in "The Grand Duchy's capital is also named [[Luxembourg (city)|Luxembourg]]." must get the municipality, whether straightforward as now, or with a redirection page to 'Luxembourg City' as you would like. Your arguments however, cannot show in what respect the renaming would actually make anything more easy or for whom such would be; therefore a deviation from the general convention is highly undesired. — SomeHuman 2006-07-29 20:51 (UTC)

Moving the article would make it easier for both users and encyclopaedists. It would put the article on the capital of Luxembourg, which is always called 'Luxembourg City', in the appropriate place, abiding by the current convention of the public referring to said city by said name. 'Luxembourg City' is the overwhelming term of reference, adopted consciously by people to deliberately disambiguate between Luxembourg City and the other forms.

One of the worst things that you can do with an article is to put it where its meaning, its intention, and its frame of reference are unclear, as explicitly outlined in the Manual of Style. Furthermore, although I hadn't noticed it until now, the policy under which the current page title was adopted is deprecated, and should not be followed (see: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)).

You continue to draw false analogies with Belgian cities. Since none of them is called 'X City', none of them is apt. An apt comparison would be with New York City. Technically, 'New York City' is not the official name (which is 'City of New York'). However, since 'New York City' makes it crystal clear what the meaning is, and is also the most obvious title for the article, particularly given that 'New York' is out of the question, it is the title that ought to be adopted and maintained.

I have no idea why you imagine that I suggested anything with my comment on Ville Haute. I was simply making it clear that there is another article that fulfils the definition of 'Luxembourg (city)'. As made clear in the MOS, when the supposed disambiguation does not disambiguate from all possible topics (which 'Luxembourg (city)' fails to do), it is inappropriate. That issue still hasn't been addressed; until it has been, 'Luxembourg (city)' cannot be considered an option. Bastin 00:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

"One of the worst things that you can do" is making false accusations. Besides the simple fact that I did not create the current title, I don't understand where you get the impression that the current title would put the article where its meaning (city), its intention (what do you think), and its frame of reference (not specified in the name that you propose any more than now), would be unclear.
I do not "continue to draw false analogies" because the naming conventions of cities in Belgium are exactly the same as those in the Grand Duchy, such is called correctly choosing analogies especially since there are not many (if any) examples in the Grand Duchy besides its discussed capital.
The deprecated naming does not mean that a disambiguation should not be Name (city), but that one should not create articles for every city with (city) behind the name. For instance the Belgian province West-Flanders has an article with title West-Flanders, not 'West-Flanders (province)'; on the other hand, since the name 'Antwerp' is ambiguous, that article does get the title Antwerp (province). Following the guidelines, might even have caused the name 'Antwerp Province' because that particular province is always (or certainly with far fewer exceptions than for Luxembourg City) called 'Provincie Antwerpen' locally (a major characteristic in the guidelines). But the guidelines also state one should maintain a convention for the whole country and it is highly unusual to say 'West-Vlaanderen Provincie' or 'Limburg Provincie' or 'Walloon Brabant Province'... thus 'Antwerp Province' must not be created and that's why 'Antwerp (province)' is the correct title to disambiguate from the city by that name. In the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, it is not normal to say 'Name City' except for the capital, but 'City' is not always added because in many occasions the context does not demand such. And as for Antwerp, the needed disambiguation should than not create a new naming style contraditory to the general naming style of cities in Luxembourg.
'Luxembourg (city)' does not fail to disambiguate because 'Haute Ville' is not a city, it is the old part of the city that once was the city, but every city in the world outgrew its original boundaries! The Upper City, or if it is better not to translate (you might be the one to judge, my awareness of English names in Luxembourg is not very reliable), 'Haute Ville' is a 'quarter' just like a whole series of quarters of the grewn Luxembourg, which is the one-and-only city by that name .
Anyway, do you think it makes much sense to continue this discussion? The 'Proposed move' survey was decided and closed 22 hours before your last argumentation. — SomeHuman 2006-07-29 03:57 (UTC)

[edit] Is Hamm is a bourough of Luxembourg City?

Hello,

I am currently working on the Wiki for the American Cemetery in Luxembourg and I was wondering if Hamm is technically a part of Luxembourg City or is it a seperate city? Or is Luxembourg City the county seat that Hamm is apart of?TchussBitc 05:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The article has a link to Quarters of Luxembourg City which in turn leads to Hamm. I assume these should answer your question. — SomeHuman 25 Aug 2006 12:26 (UTC)

[edit] 1815, prussian garrison, Orange-Nassau grand duke

I just wanted to put up a note that I plan to correct that part of the history section. Luxembourg-City (or the fortress which ammounted to the same back then) was garrisonned by prussian troops. While this led to some problems it should not be considered occupation. It also (I assume) is the origin for the local tendency to call anyone from Germany a Prussian (Preis, Preiss).

The country never was part of the Kingdom of the Nederlands. The King of the Nederlands was also Grand Duke of Luxembourg. The Nederlands and Luxembourg remained two separate entities, at least in theory. In praxis Luxembourg was ruled directly from the Nederlands for a generation. In any case as this is just the city page no great detail is needed, just that the Grand Duchy came under Orange-Nassau rule.

I might also add an annecdote about the Belgian revolution if I can find the source (all of the Grand-Duchy under Belgian control, the governor taking refuge with the Prussians in the city, the governor getting abducted by revolutionaries out of the city... Also the weekend tradition in the city to leave town on the weekend to drink low tax alcohol in Belgian held territory (that second is probably too much to be included).

Anyhow I will try to correct the first two parts and add something about the third tommorrow. If anyone is opposed let me know.--Caranorn 20:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

As used properly, 'occupation' doesn't necessarily imply hostility (I would use the term 'occupation' for the British deployments in Oman and Brunei, but they're not at all hostile). Unfortunately, as I can now see, the Wikipedia article defines all military occupation as 'belligerent', suggesting that the convention is to redefine 'occupation' more stringently. Hence, it would be correct to change it.

On the second count, I did not write that it passed to the Netherlands, only under its sovereignty (which is true). However, I can see the confusion for someone not au fait with the concept of dominant personal union or with dependency, which I would imagine to be the majority. So, again, I agree that it ought to be changed.

The third point is very interesting, and deserving of mention. The relationship between the rebel control of the countryside and the pro-government Prussian control of the city is not mentioned anywhere on the English Wikipedia, except in passing on the embryonic Partitions of Luxembourg page.

Given your comments, I've now addressed the first two points, and hope that you'll agree with what is now written. Bastin 16:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing sections

I'm adding this article into Version 0.5 just because (a) it looks to be very nicely done so far and (b) the topic (a global city) is classed of top importance to the project. However there are a lot of sections missing that are normally present in a city article, viz.:

• Administration & politics
• Demographics (population, racial mix, religion)
• Culture
• Economy
• Transportation
• Tourism/architecture/sights
• Education (optional, I'd say)

With so much missing, I had to reluctantly call this a "Start" class article - I hope that project members can rally round to expand this important article. I see that a lot of high quality improvements have been made in recent months, so I guess you guys are already doing this! Thanks, Walkerma 04:47, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] languages

Hey guys I was at luxembourg about 2 months ago and this article is really good, but I was just wondering if maybe we should have something about the different types of languages they speak there. The main languages I saw were these:

• English
• French
• German
• Russian

but i also heard a little bit of luxembourgian...yes that is actually their language but not alot of people use it any more.Vandalfighter101 05:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Russian would definitely not be a language spoken by many locals (certainly far fewer then Luxembourgish), though maybe it was Serbo-Croat you heard, which would be more common. But you shouldn't forget that even two months ago the tourist season had already started, so you might have had a distorted view (or rather hearing). Anyhow, languages largely vary by location and occupation (Public Services you will find Luxembourgish as the no. 1 language, manual labour French and/or Portuguese etc.).--Caranorn 11:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

could be lol im not exactly the language expert, well it was just a suggestion, but I see your point there.Vandalfighter101 11:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

As a German, I would normally not use "Luxemburg Stadt" but rather speak of the "Stadt Luxemburg", if it has to be differentiated from the the Grand Duchy. There are (rather formal) contexts were "Luxemburg Stadt" is preferred, or rather "Luxemburg (Stadt)" in print.

84.190.213.123 (talk) 07:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)