Talk:Provinces of South Africa

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[edit] Federal structure

Does anyone know the relationship of the Provincial governments to the central government? Is South Africa a Federal state? Joziboy 14 March 2006, 12:59 (UTC)

South Africa doesn't have a specific lable, but it is almost semi-federal. Provincial governments have complete control over certain services, while the central government has control over stuff like education and health care. ► Adriaan90 ( Talk ♥ Contribs ) ♪♫ 23:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Province article naming

Note: this discussion copied from Talk:Western Cape Province#Province, as it is more appropriate here.

After the long debate about whether or not to call Cape Town, City of Cape Town... I have another! :) What's everyone's view on using the word Province for all the provinces? It looks odd to me, and I know I'd never say 'Western Cape Province' or 'Gauteng Province'. They're just Western Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga etc. Joziboy 15 March 2006, 20:06 (UTC)

I know what you mean - certainly I wouldn't normally say "Western Cape Province", and it feels kind of wrong on all the articles. However, it is quite normal to talk about North West Province and Limpopo Province, if only to distinguish them from the cardinal direction and the river respectively. It seems to me that there are three choices:
  1. sticking with the "Province" suffix on all 9 articles, which is probably technically correct with respect to the full name of the governmental entity - and after all, SA provinces are purely government entities; the provinces don't really have geographical significance.
  2. dropping "Province" on the articles except Limpopo and North West, which would seem less wrong, but it wouldn't really be consistent.
  3. dropping "Province" on all the articles, and change Limpopo to "Limpopo (South African province)" and similarly for North West. It also seems less wrong (to me), and more consistent with Wikipedia standards for disambiguating article titles.
I would be in favour of number 3, but I don't really have a strong opinion any way. - htonl 22:15, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I wouldn't say Limpopo Province either. Prepositions usually clear up any confusion - "I'm going to Limpopo", "What's the capital of Limpopo?", "We have a house in Limpopo" all make it sound like it's the province. Else it would be the Limpopo. But yeah, I suppose it's not the end of the world either way. It just looks odd - we don't call South Africa "South Africa Country" :) Anyways, option 3 sounds good to me. Joziboy 16 March 2006, 15:13 (UTC)

Yup, count me in on #3 as well. I would very, very rarely add "province" when referring to any of our provinces. dewet|™ 15:19, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments up to here copied from Talk:Western Cape Province#Province. New comments continue below.

Okay, I'm gonna move them all then. Let me know if anyone disagrees Joziboy 20 March 2006, 23:48 (UTC)
JB, as my note on your talk page revealed, I would find it really odd if "North-West" is really automatically understood to mean the Province, except if if is mentioned or listed in the specific context, viz provinces of ZA. The names of the other provinces do not require much disambiguation, since it is implied that those names refer to the provinces, as opposed to any former entities or natural features. In fact, if you compare with similar such subnational entities elsewhere, named after the ordinal or cardinal directions, the type of entity is invariably included in the name in order to avoid confusion (hence Northwest Territories and not simply "the Northwest, etc). This is my two nickels, at least. // Big Adamsky • BA's talk page 17:12, 23 March 2006 (UTC) PS: Compare Northern (subnational entity), Southern (subnational entity), Eastern (subnational entity), Western (subnational entity), Central (subnational entity), Southeast, Southwest, Northeast and Northwest.

Mm, you're right. Part of the justification in my head was international norms, and I couldn't imagine Quebec being called Quebec State, or the British Midlands being called the British Midlands Region, but you're right - when a province is named after a direction (a dire and regrettable lack of imagination in my opinion!) it is usually included in the name. I've moved North West back to North West Province. How do you feel about the others? Joziboy 23 March 2006, 17:33 (UTC)

Cool. Quebec might be referred to as the Province of Quebec if the context would otherwise lead the reader/listener to assume that what was meant was Quebec City, the same goes for Kuwait, Guatemala, Mexico, Oklahoma, Bern et al. And there's the region formally called the East of England, so as not to confuse itself with the vague concept of The East (of what?). My suggestion is to use parentheses in the title of a Wikipedia article in disambiguation is necessary, but if the actual name itself already contains such an explanatory qualifier, then, heck, why not just copy that into the article's title and evade Wikipedia bureaucracy althogether?! ;v] I don't think that the other provinces of ZA need to include the word "province" in their titles, as long as a short dab-notice is placed at the top. What do you think? // Big Adamsky • BA's talk page 17:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that sounds good to me. I've moved everything except Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, both of which I can't move because they have redirect pages with the province-less name. But I've requested they be moved so hopefully someone technical in wikipedia will get onto that for me :) For parentheses do you agree with (South African province) that I've put after Limpopo and Free State in their titles? And, um, what's a dab notice? Joziboy 23 March 2006, 19:55 (UTC)
Dab = disambiguation. I agree with all proposals to shorten article titles and only use explanatory qualifiers when necessary to avoid confusion. I would guess that the article simply called Limpopo should be about the province, and secondary meanings should be Limpopo (river) etc. There is an article about historical free states, so I'm unsure as to whether Free State (capitalized) needs further explanation. Haha, this is a whole lotta nitpicking about tiny minor details, this innit? You should take a peek at Talk:Georgia and Talk:Ireland to get an overview of how much attention can be afforded to perceptions of primary and secondary meanings, btw. =J // Big Adamsky • BA's talk page 20:27, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

My god the talk page on Georgia spans years and pages! For once I'm happy no-one's heard of our provinces, that way they can't start fights :) Joziboy 23 March 2006, 20:40 (UTC)

Please note that PZFUN reverted your moves -- I've reverted his actions and placed a notice on his talk page. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 08:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-provincial division

I have seen a couple of maps in the late 1990s that had a line within Eastern Cape, running from north to south, dividing the province into two (administrative?) zones. No other province had such a division. What is it? Perhaps it should be mentioned somewhere. — Wikipeditor (talk) 23:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I also recall seeing such maps. I don't know for sure what that line meant; but my speculation is that it was perhaps proposed to eliminate the Eastern Cape entirely, and attach the two halves to the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. I seem to recall that some of the maps also showed dotted lines indicating other, less radical, proposed changes to the provincial borders. Certainly the division is not of any significance now to the administration of the Eastern Cape. - htonl (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Both Gauteng (then known as the PWV) and the Eastern Cape had two blocks (known as block A and block B). Some parties (DP was one) wanted more than 9 provinces - the dotted lines could allow up to 11 provinces. The blocks are defined (together with the original provinces) in the Interim Constitution. As the ANC won the elctions in each of these two provinces they were never split up. --Uxejn (talk) 17:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, that helped a lot! I was able to find it in the 1993 interim constitution as you said, together with a lot of other interesting information. Wikipeditor (talk) 04:21, 26 January 2008 (UTC)