Template talk:United Kingdom

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When viewing the Scotland article, this template shows the regions of England. Was this intended? Ian Cairns 17:37, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, and the regions of England, are the first level of government below HMG that exist (or may do so in the future, IYSWIM) in the UK, so, yes, I imagine so.

James F. (talk) 02:19, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wales, Scotland and NI are more appropriately equivalent to England culturally though. Putting them on the same level as the regions of England is inaccurate; e.g. maps of the UK almost invariably mark the country borders but rarely the English regions. Even in terms of government they are vastly different.

Anyway, we should consider what someone browsing the Wales or Scotland article would be likely to be interested in. Someone wanting to get information on the UK might then read specific articles on its major constituent countries, but they are unlikely to want to jump from, say, Wales, to Greater London. I think regions of England should be a separate template. Rls 14:03, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC)

The "England" to which you refer doesn't have a single culture, and does not exist as a legal entity (and hasn't done since 1536). It is exceedingly odd to have it.

James F. (talk) 14:05, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No country has a single culture, but England is a cultural entity to a large degree comparable with Wales, Scotland & NI. For example, England_football_team. As a legal entity, it exists in a negative form, being the part of the UK that isn't Scotland, Wales, or NI. And, I submit that someone reading Wales or Scotland would be more likely to want to read England than e.g. South West England. Most of the "region" articles are little more than stubs anyway. Rls 14:47, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC)

I would disagree both that if you're interested in an area of 3 million people, you will be interested in one of 52 million, and that we should not link to articles because they are stubs - indeed, it should spur us onwards to expand them.

James F. (talk) 06:46, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

How can the article be expanded any more though? It's an administrative area, with practically no cultural identity. It currently has just over 100 references (mostly geographic and political), whilst, as of the last cache of most referenced pages, Wales (184th) had 1,600 and Scotland (74th) had 3,300. For comparison, England (14th) had 10,500 (though a fair number of these are probably meant to point to UK (19th), which has about 8,000). Clearly they are not comparable. No one has ever been at war with the West Midlands for example, though England, Scotland, and Wales have many times. Rls 11:45, 2004 Sep 15 (UTC)

But that's about the historical context of the areas; the use of this template, however, is about the modern entities, which are rather different (except, perhaps, in the case of Scotland - certainly, modern Wales and the ancient Wales have little to do with one another, IYSWIM).

James F. (talk) 12:33, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

They are even less comparable to the modern English regions. Rls 13:12, 2004 Sep 15 (UTC)

For those who want it, there is now Template:United Kingdom regions which uses an old version of this template, and may be more suitable for English pages, if not Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish ones. --Henrygb 00:40, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Overseas territories and Crown dependencies

These are not part of the UK- so should not be included here. There already is a template in use for them. Astrotrain 14:14, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there any specific reason as to why they are listed that way and not alphabetically? - TheKeith 15:51, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

While the British Crown dependencies are not part of the UK, the latter is responsible for their defense and international relations. I also ordered the Crown dependencies last (after the overseas territories, bona fide constituents) because they are distinct from the UK yet affiliated with it. The headings clearly indicate this. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 18:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There is no need to list them on this template- in any case it looks a complete mess. Astrotrain 18:37, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree: even the UK government yearbook lists the overseas territories and treats Crown dependencies indicated in this template. No reason to not do so here. As for the "mess": it looks fine on my screen and in multiple resolutions (though I'll tweak the breaks), which is similar to many other political templates (e.g., Canada#See_also). Lastly, the prior template was so minimal (and redundant with links in the second paragraph of the intro) that it was arguably without purpose. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 18:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I still think it looks a mess. Any way of changing the template, perhaps cutting out the territory flags (too small to see at that size). Astrotrain 19:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think we can nix the flags ... that will reduce clutter. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 19:05, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I've nixed the flags for the overseas territories: we can also do so for the countries and Crown dependencies for consistency ... I think it looks fine. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 19:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)