Talk:Provinces of Belgium

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was moved Patstuart^talk|edits 20:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Provinces of regions in Belgium → Provinces of Belgium —(Discuss)— we do not have "Districts of counties of states in the United States", nor "Departments of the provinces in Argentina." We simply use the form "<Subdivisiontype> of <Country>" everywhere(?). This should also apply to Belgium, even if some stubborn user think Belgium is special and claims the rename is against WP:NPOV. The title is not there to fully _define_ the status of the provinces, it's there to _identify_ the topic. The article was move to the long title on 10 Oct and until now is only supported by the mover himself. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• support Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support as (1) this format contravenes the "Xs of Country" used everywhere else; (2) "Provinces of regions..." doesn't make sense to this English speaker; and (3) only provinces appear to be addressed by the article. David Kernow (talk) 03:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support It should either be Provinces of Belgium or Regions in Belgium, but not both. --Wirbelwind 04:07, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support: title is neutral and follows normal naming conventions of Wikipedia Fram 04:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 09:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support for the reasons mentioned above. --Ganchelkas 16:05, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Alternative name As apparently stubborn user, I support the move to a shorter title, but strongly recommend 'Provinces in Belgium' rather than 'Provinces of Belgium':

    2,340,000 English pages for "municipalities of ".
    3,720,000 English pages for "municipalities in ".
    8,910,000 English pages for "districts of ".
  11,800,000 English pages for "districts in ".
    6,300,000 English pages for "provinces of ".
    3,490,000 English pages for "provinces in ".
  [No departments (e.g. 'of' Universities) or regions (vague)]

  These are quick-and-dirty Google searches on grouped words in English language pages. You will notice that for provinces, usually true subdivisions of a country, the term 'of' is most common; for both other circumscriptions – which have a higher subnational level that is not the highest – 'in' is most common. Both words are obviously proper English. But 'of' has a belong to, controlled by sense that 'in' lacks. The provinces in Belgium are true subdivisions of and controlled by 2 out of 3 regions that indeed are such intermediate subnational level. I argued elsewhere why 'Provinces of Flanders' and 'Provinces of Wallonia' should remain in one article and refer to the country, but then in the appropriate way.
  The Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics): "In general, country-specific articles and categories should be named using the form: '(item) of (country)'." The guideline gives as sample 'History of Portugal', which of course cannot be "in" and thus comes to the generalizing '(item) of (country)'. It further says: "This will usually hold true in other geography-specific topics, such as for cities, continents, provinces, states, etc". These take the place of (country), not (item); notice usually. The guideline is not at all concentrating on "in" versus "of" for geographical inclusions but handles in our case using '(country)' instead of '(region)' if such is common English usage. Choosing 'in' is supported by Wikipedia:Naming conventions's 'in a nutshell': "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity": the word is just as plain English [even more common when there is an intermediate subnational level, as here], just as short, and cannot be ambiguously and here inaccurately interpreted as 'controlled by'. — SomeHuman 17 Oct 2006 17:56 (UTC)

First: the counts are rather close, so no real priority can be given: furthermore, for this specific one (province), "of" gets more hits than "in". But it is important to notice that in many cases, they are not interchangeable, since you can (and usually do) say "The provinces of Belgium are Antwerp, Limburg, ...", but "There are 10 provinces in Belgium", and so on. So such counts do not learn us very much. Anyway, we get 1020 Ghits for "provinces in Belgium"[1], and 10900 (or ten times as much) for "provinces of Belgium"[2], so even using Google hits as a criterium, this seems pretty clear cut to me. Fram 18:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The counts are close because true immediate subdivisions as 'the districts of <state>' can be expected to be more common than 'the districts in <country>', yet the 'in' still wins (thus suggesting that even 'districts in <state>' is not unusual); this goes far less for 'provinces of Flanders' etc. because provinces in the large majority of countries having any, are true immediate subdivisions. As such, the 'provinces of Belgium' did exist, which causes (citing from) older texts, texts about historical situations like in heraldry or the Atomium sybolizing the (then 9) provinces of Belgium, as well as old habits to appear on the web. Though I admit that your figures are impressive, I still hold 'in' as generally better especially for non-directly related entities, as it never implies belonging to but just indicates a location. Also even for directly related entities, if the lower level has sufficient autonomy: we hear of 'countries in Europe' but hardly ever of 'countries of Europe'. (Curiously, a genitive seems to less strongly imply 'belonging to': European countries is quite common). — SomeHuman 18 Oct 2006 00:02-00:45 (UTC)

• support per nom --83.182.196.223 18:40, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: IP has 0 other contributions. — SomeHuman 17 Oct 2006 18:50 (UTC)

• Support per nom. --Serge 19:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom.--Húsönd 23:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom - presently a very silly name for the article. provinces in Belgium works just as well, mind. compare with Russia where Oblasts of Russia is a page even though not all of Russia is in Oblasts. pedants will be the death of wikipedia, and its life. Morwen - Talk 14:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

But all of Belgium was in provinces. The term 'in' is absolutely and undisputedly neutre (about completely or not at all 'controlled by', for direct or indirect subdivisions, for applying to the whole or a part of the country). I showed that 'in' is as common as 'of' (not for provinces in/of Belgium because these were true divisions without intermediate level and totally controlled by the national level - I see no good reason for Wikipedia to even vaguely suggest it might live in the past or deny acknowledgement of the present). When changing a name, why resisting 'in' as no-one has indicated which advantage 'of' might offer?

Furthermore, I had suggested 'Provinces in Belgium' on 14 Oct 2006, three days before the nominator incorrectly stated that the long title "until now is only supported by the mover himself". (Unlike several early voters here, he had not taken part in that discussion to which he had been invited.) — SomeHuman 20 Oct 2006 20:33 (UTC)

I believe "in" is resisted as it can cause ambiguity when used with those countries with offshore territories, etc. There may be other reasons that I can't immediately recall; Wikipedia:Naming conventions should carry them somewhere. Regards, David Kernow (talk) 02:37, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
PS Your further thoughts here before the discussion is closed would be appreciated; thanks.

The Wikipedia:Naming conventions guideline page refers to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics) which clearly states: "In", "from", or another preposition may be substituted for "of" as appropriate. I agree that 'in' may not be appropriate for some kind of entities that are truly outside a country's territorial boundaries: in that case 'of' is used precisely because it means – as I've been saying all the time – belonging to, controlled by the country, whereas 'in' simply refers to a location within a country. For most countries, provinces 'in' or 'of' would equally apply. I cannot imagine provinces of a country to exist outside any country's territory so there is never a need for 'of'; at least in Belgium 'in' is the most appropriate for the reasons explained, and 'in' may be used for other countries' provinces if one would prefer a standard naming convention. I would not advise to systematically enforce such standard, because redirecting (from 'in' to 'of' or in our case from 'of' to 'in') can take care of practical concerns, but the (large and bold) title should be the proper one. — SomeHuman 21 Oct 2006 12:01 (UTC)

PS: I assume 'extra-territorial' but not 'offshore' to be relevant: I think it's quite normal to say "Lerwick is a municipality in the UK", whereas "Lerwick is a municipality of the UK" does not sound any more common or appropriate. But of course we may say 'the Embassy of France in the UK' — SomeHuman 21 Oct 2006 12:37 (UTC)

I believe I understand your point, SomeHuman, but it's reminded me of another factor behind the preference for "of": there's a stronger possibility that "Provinces in X" might suggest that all provinces are similar. This might not be particularly misleading in the case of provinces, but it would be in the case of many other administrative country subdivisions (viz. those that denote (say) a second-level division in one country but a fourth-level division in another, etc). I also think there is a distinction between a phrase such as "Provinces of Belgium" acting as a title and it being used/misused/not used within prose. Finally, I'd say the connotations of "of" in this context are as much "associated with" as they might be "belonging to" / "owned by" / "controlled by". Thanks for your continued thoughts, David (talk) 20:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't follow your associations. How would 'Culture in X' be suggesting that all cultures are identical worldwide? Why would 'in X' appear any different for provinces? Provinces in Belgium are third level, in most countries 2nd level; the use of 'of' suggests 2nd rather than 3rd, whether you call it an association with X or belonging to X. To what respect would 'of' suggest 'associated with' rather and other than 'belonging to', and why would we prefer associated with before located in as said by 'in'? — SomeHuman 22 Oct 2006 01:44 (UTC)

Well, I'm just reporting that for an general encyclopedia in English, an article such as "Districts of X" (which is probably a better example than Provinces above) is less likely to suggest to someone with little or no knowledge of country subdivisions that all administrative "districts" are similar. Another point of view is that the districts of X do indeed "belong to" X in the sense that they don't just happen to be in X. I think feedback from other folk is needed here as I'm aware this is just my opinion/experience here on Wikipedia thus far. Not that many people seem to visit it, but maybe you could enquire at WP:WPCSub...  Yours, David (talk) 02:46, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think much more feedback is needed, both the discussion at wikiproject:belgium and the clear consensus here are more than enough. The xeamples given in the above discussion are misleading. You normally say "there are ten provinces in Belgium", but you say "The provnces of Belgium are Antwerp, Liège, ...". Similar to "there are many organs in the human body", but "the organs of the human body are the heart, the lungs, ...": notice that also in this case, the body is not composed entirely of organs, nor are the organs "owned" by the body: but the body does contain the organs, just like Belgium contains the provinces. The proposed title confirms to common standards on Wikipedia, is in use, is accepted by a clear consensus: what more do we need? Fram 12:56, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

In the first 'organs' phrase, the main point is 'organs are many' limited to those for which the location is 'the human body' as this sentence does not imply anything about the functionality or purpose of organs for the body. Unlike David Kernow's view, clearly 'in' does not suggest that all organs are similar (other than being 'organs') even while 'many' indicates countability and therefore at least a minimum of similarity. It does neither imply nor deny that the organs would happen to be or that they would necessarily need to be in the body. Thus 'in' has no implication other than a location - controlled by or independent of X, incidentally or purposefully located there. In the second phrase however, the organs are named thus suggesting to have specific functions for the body to which they belong; we do not say 'in' here because the body is not a bag that is designed to simply contain a bunch of organs but owns, controls and uses these organs. If the organs would 'disobey', the body is dead. Belgium would not cease to exist if the provinces would be abolished, and as a national entity has little say on the provinces. Obviously, the provinces of Wallonia and the provinces of Flanders are in Belgium. It is far less obvious to say that the provinces of Wallonia and the provinces of Flanders are of Belgium. Does that sound like English? — SomeHuman 22 Oct 2006 14:08 (UTC)

The regions wouldn't cease to exist either if you abolished the provinces, but still you talk about "provinces of the regions". Your argument is therefor invalid. Fram 14:51, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

No, the condition for 'of' is bifold: cease to exist without provinces OR not have little say on the provinces. Belgium fails both; the regions meet the second. Furthermore, the phrase was not intended as a formal logical statement: the comparison with the organs of the human body used 'dead' as a way of implying that the body must have good control of its organs. The real weight is there. Belgium at the national level does not need the provinces to survive and does not need to control these, and it cannot do such by the constitution. — SomeHuman 22 Oct 2006 18:21 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.