Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers

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WP:RIVERS

First, an important note for everyone to remember:

A few Wikipedians have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in articles about rivers. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!

Contents

[edit] Title

WikiProject Rivers

[edit] Scope

This WikiProject aims primarily to describe the Earth's rivers in a consistent and complete fashion.

[edit] Parentage

The parent of this WikiProject is the WikiProject Geography.

[edit] Descendant Wikiprojects

No descendant WikiProjects have been defined.

[edit] Similar Wikiprojects

For naming in geography:

Projects covering other geographical features:

[edit] Participants

[edit] Naming

See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (landforms).

River articles may be named "X", "X River", or "River X", depending on location and most common usage. "X river" and "X (river)" are not recommended.

This does not say what has to be used in general, whether plain "X" or "X River" (e.g. rivers of Germany are currently mostly "River"-less). "River X" is used for rivers in the UK and Ireland.

If different rivers with the same name exist, use bracket-disambiguation (e.g. Vils (Danube), Turiec River (Váh), Bistriţa River (Siret), Colorado River (Texas)).

[edit] Multiple rivers with the same name

Due to the fact that there are countless rivers in the world with the same name (e.g. the Columbia River has two tributaries named the Salmon River, another flows into the lower Fraser River and one more has been identified in Nova Scotia), not all of which are recent namings in the Americas (e.g. there are four rivers in England called River Avon), the following method of disambiguation is proposed:

[edit] Rivers with multiple names

Some rivers have names with multiple spellings which vary with the different countries the rivers pass through. An example would be the Cunene River in Angola, which is known as the Kunene River in Namibia. Occasionally, a river can have several genuinely distinct names. For example, the Cuando River not only has the variant spelling Kwando, it's also called the Linyanti and the Chobe. The following rules are suggested for choosing a primary name for such a river:

  • If the river is particularly famous under one name, then choose that name.
  • If the section of the river that uses a particular name is much longer than other sections, then use that as the name.
  • If everything else is equal, then choose the name for the section of the river closest to the river's mouth, since generally that is where the river is widest.

[edit] Article Structure

Lead Paragraph
The first paragraph should be a self-contained description including the most important things to know; name(s) - both historic and current - in bold, location (continent/countries/seaboards), and notable facts about the river, such as longest, second longest, main waterway of a country, etc.

Course
The narrative description of the course should proceed from the main headwater of the river downstream to its mouth, noting direction, size, major tributaries, human settlements, waterfalls, dams, and so forth. This should be at least a paragraph, may be several paragraphs for long rivers.

This section can include numerical data on length, volume, drainage basin, etc.

Info on water basins can be found at World resources Institute (site is down; archive)

Natural History
Mention distinctive plants and animals associated with any part of the river.

Geology
The evolution of some rivers has been well explored (e.g., the Missoula Floods and their effect on the Columbia River). Such information should be placed here, with a suitable discussion of all POVs when possible. See also Glacial geology of the Genesee River.

History
Describe what is known about the different inhabitants along the river, along with a description of the scientific exploration expeditions/efforts.

Economy
A countless number of rivers have been used as means to transport people, goods, etc., and are still used so today. All such information should be described here. Stylistically, this can be a good segue from history, connecting past uses of the river to present-day uses.

Lists
List the tributaries, starting from the mouth and going upstream. Add important subtributaries in sublists. Major tributaries should be links if there is a reasonable chance of article content, minor tributaries should be just names.

List the cities and towns along with the river, also in upstream order.

List dams, locks, waterfalls, rapids, if there are more than a couple and/or they're not mentioned in the lead or course narrative.

References and External links
Preferably refer to history, ecology, public policy, books, websites, etc.

Images
There should be at least one picture, preferably a typical view. Important rivers should have additional pictures illustrating their notable features. Maps of the river's course and of its watershed are highly desirable.

Indexing
Every river article should be indexed in list of rivers by name, and indexed in list of rivers by continent, along with its major tributaries.

Categories
Every article should have a category. If a river is restricted to one country, list in Category:rivers of country. If it runs through several, list in each country category.

[edit] Other river-related articles

[edit] List articles

See also: User:AlexNewArtBot/WaterbodiesSearchResult

[edit] Related categories

[edit] Hierarchy Definition

No classification of Rivers has been defined.

See this example on dividing a topic into a hierarchy.

[edit] Templates

[edit] Project template and article rating

The message box {{river}} is available to add to talk pages of river articles and gives:

WikiProject Rivers
 This article is part of WikiProject Rivers, a WikiProject to systematically present information on rivers. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit the article attached to this page (see Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ for more information)
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ]

[edit] Infoboxes

Scheldt (Example)
The Scheldt in Antwerp
The Scheldt in Antwerp
Origin France
Mouth Westerschelde
Basin countries France, Belgium, Netherlands
Length 350 km (217 mi)
Source elevation 95 m (312 ft)
Avg. discharge 120 m³/s (4,238 ft³/s)
Basin area 21,860 km² (8,440 mi²)

Current infobox
Use the template {{Infobox River}} for representative images and basic information about a river. The example at right shows how it looks. See the template's discussion page for instructions, examples, and blank versions of the template to start with.

Suggested new infobox
There exist a new template, currently placed at Template:Infobox River Geography. It is based on the same internal logic and css as Template: Infobox City and Template: Infobox Country, thus aiming at having all geography infoboxes in the same style. It can accommodate a wide range of data, the input values can be both metric or imperial (and the other figure is calculated automatically), multiple values for river names, basin countries, discharge at various locations etc, coordinates of both source and mouth (which are linked to wiki maps)... The field names are not fully compatible with the current template (e.g. while there's just elevation field in the old template, the new one has source_elevation and mouth_elevation). It should be able to accommodate all data I saw in the current infoboxes and much more. If it is found useful, it might supersede this template. You can see it in action at, e.g.:

[edit] Sources