This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This is the archive of Template talk:Europe topic for 2008–present

I am going to create a template replacement of ((Europe topic))

Some of these areas do not actually have metro\subway\rapid transit systems and so these can be removed as appropriate e.g. Isle of Man.

Just to note, it is going to be a copy of this template (Europe topic) with some changes. Probably by the time you have read this i have created this new template, to be titled: ((Rapid transit in Europe)). Simply south (talk) 20:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Can't we replace: "1 Entirely in Southwest Asia; included here because of cultural, political and historical association with Europe. 2 Partially or entirely in Asia, depending on the definition of the border between Europe and Asia. 3 Mostly in Asia. 4 Entirely in the African Plate, included here because of cultural, political and historical association with Europe." with "1. Partially or entirely outside of Europe, depending on definition of border. Included due to cultural, political and historical association." ?- J Logan ^t: 14:48, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me - I'd like to see the footnotes kept as brief as required to clarify the template. Warofdreams talk 01:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

A footnote is needed like the one for TRNC. The wording is trickier though, given how more states seem to recognize this Kosovo than TRNC but since we know of at least two states (Russia and Serbia) that are never going to recognize it, a footnote would be nice for clarity.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 18:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, why do only Kosovo and TRNC have footnotes, while Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria don't? —Nightstallion 01:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

There are a huge number of footnotes. The new number 5 - "not universally recognised" - would be good for all these and also for TRNC. Warofdreams talk 03:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I meant the other unrecognised countries, but yeah, I'll fix it. —Nightstallion 10:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

What I have just done is change the wording "unrecognised country" to "unrecognised or partially recognised country" -- that seems to me to accurately cover both completely unrecognised entities (e.g. Transnistria), near-completely unrecognised entities (e.g. TRNC), and Kosovo which at present is not recognised by the majority of countries, but has several (and in some cases quite powerful) countries recognising it, so "partially recognised" is a better description for Kosovo. --SJK (talk) 23:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

One of the templates that uses Template:Europe topic is Template:License plates of Europe. That template somehow doesn't show Vatican City. I've been trying to figure out how to fix this, but I couldn't. Aecis^Brievenbus 13:32, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

As the Vatican is the smallest country in the world, many articles about it would be meaningless (exemple: ((Hinduism in Europe))). So there is a condition for the Vatican to appear in any template created using ((Europe topic)): the article about the Vatican must exist. For our example, the article "Hinduism in the Vatican City" should exist to appear in the aforementioned template and for ((License plates of Europe)), you might want to create the article License plates in the Vatican City. 16@r (talk) 16:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. It makes sense to have such a condition. There's not enough to create a stand-alone article about this, so I've created a redirect to Transport in Vatican City#Road vehicles. Is that enough to make the Vatican City appear in the template, or not? (Åland and the Faroe Islands are redirects and they appear in the template) Aecis^Brievenbus 16:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Is anyone else seeing uneven formatting in this template, specifically wide gaps between lines and an "x" superscript character that looks too small at an 11pt/12pt browser font-size setting? Sardanaphalus (talk) 15:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

If such why it is not mentioned that Denmark is mostly in North America?--Dojarca (talk) 21:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Greenland is listed seperately as "North American" which is true from a geographical (but not political) point-of-view. Mainland Denmark is located in Europe with a population of 5.5 million and the country is overwhelmingly European in nature. In contrast, Greenland is a large chunk of land but next to completely uninhabited (60,000 people) and with an economy greatly dependent on subsidies from Denmark proper. In contrast, Siberia is the home of a substantial segment of Russia's population and has a substantial economy on its own. In case anybody wondered; the Faroe Islands are European as well (small territory, population c. 50,000). 83.89.43.14 (talk) 13:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Siberian economy also dependent on Russia and the majority of Russian population also live in the European part. Most of Siberia is also next to uninhabited. By the way I see no reason to show Greenland separately from Denmark either. In the case of France it is even clearer: integral parts of France situated in South America so I see no any reason to remove the footnote.--Dojarca (talk) 08:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The reason why Russia is listed as partly in Asia and France and Denmark not listed as partly on other continents is that their mainland is fully in Europe. On the other hand Russian mainland is spread between two continents. If we want to put Denmark as mostly in North America and France as partly in South America, we should also list France as partly in North America and Africa, Netherlands as partly in Caribbean, Spain and Portugal as partly in Africa... That would open a whole can of worms. On the other hand if we don't list Russia as partly in Asia we should also remove all non-european countries with ties to europe as Russia is definately geographically tied to Asia. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 08:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

What is "mainland"? French territory in South America is not a colony, protectorate or other dependancy. It is the intergal part of the country. They vote in French elections etc. Saying that Russia is mostly in Asia without saying France is partly in South America is a double standard. I fail to see how this issue can cause removing other countries from the template, but I would not object removing non-European countries from here.--Dojarca (talk) 08:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

"Mainland" France that I talk about is the same as Metropolitan France. The four departments outside the Metropolitan France are part of the Overseas France. If you list France as being in SA you should also list it as being part of Africa and North America. Greenland also is not an integral part of Denmark. It's an autonomous province with wide self-governance. On the other hand Russia's areas in Asia are indivisible in all ways from the Russia's areas in Europe. They have absolutely no distinction between them in any governmental organization. Then what about Spain? It has Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla in Africa. Portugal has Azores in Africa. Both are as integral as Greenland to Denmark. As is Netherlands Antilles to the Netherlands. What about the overseas territories of the United Kingdom? Where are you going to draw the line? --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 09:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course any French sui generis should be footnoted because they are constituent parts of the country. Russia's territories in Siberia such as Yakutia, also have wide self-governance, their own constitution etc.--Dojarca (talk) 09:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The main difference between Russia's and France's non-European parts is that Russia's non-European parts are geographically connected to Russia's European parts. And they are politically even more connected to the European parts of the country. But if France and Denmark should have notes that they are transcontinental countries; then Spain, Portugal, UK and Netherlands should also have the note. And France should also have notes linking it to North America and Africa. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 10:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Connection does not matter at all: is not Alaska a part of the USA? Politically Yakytia connected to Russia just as Alaska to the USA and French Guiana to France. I do not see how footnoting France can do something to UK. As I know, UK has no constituent territory outside the British islands.--Dojarca (talk) 10:12, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

French subdivisional structure is rather complicated, but they still use the metropolitan france / overseas departments and territories as one of the dividers. There is nothing in US subdivisions that would separate Alaska or Hawaii from any other state, except geography. And neither is there anything in Russian subdivisions that would make those in Asia any different from similar subdivisions in Europe. And what would make French Guiana so special that it should be mentioned in a footnote and not Reunion, Guadeloupe or Martinique? If you want to make the changes, please be consistent and include all similar entities. If you put France into South America you will also have to put it into North America and Africa. And then you have to put at least Spain in Africa and maybe Netherlands into North America. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 10:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, i'll try. Also I suggest to remove that "Mostly in Asia" and replace it with "partially in Asia" or "has part of its terriotory in Asia", because, for example Russia mostly in Asia only by territory, not by population or economy. It sounds somewhat awkward, just as to say Denmark is mostly in America.--Dojarca (talk) 09:22, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone else feel the one size fits all approach isn't working and maybe it time to use separate tailored templates? Gnevin (talk) 21:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

How is it not working? There are some examples where this isn't appropriate, generally because either there is an obvious method of grouping countries which isn't by continent or because there are only a limited number of countries for which articles can be written. This is already discussed in the documentation. Are there any examples where this is used but it isn't working? Warofdreams talk 21:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

((Football_in_Europe)) ,note the lack of israel, the Football in Ireland /NI issue and france's oversea terority which probably have their own teams Gnevin (talk) 21:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that is not clear cut. It looks as though ((International football)) deals with the national football associations, and is sensibly grouped by federation. Meanwhile, the Football in [country] series deals with all aspects of football in the country, and so it seems reasonable to group it by geographic continent. Grouping by federation would have some good points, but it would leave e.g. Football in Northern Cyprus with no template. Warofdreams talk 22:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

And what about France and it over seas stuff, and Ireland ,Northern Ireland which lead to disamig pagesGnevin (talk) 22:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I would have edited this but the wiki syntax in the template is far too advanced for me. Thing is: Northern Cyprus in this template links to Parliament of Northern Cyprus, while the relevant article is at Assembly of the Republic (Northern Cyprus). I've created the former article as a redirect to the latter, but it'd be better for this template to link directly to the article instead of the redirect. I leave that task to the modern wiki wizards. Amorim Parga (talk) 17:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Due to the very complex nature of this template the pages it links to will very often be redirect pages. E.g. in the case of the Assembly of the TRNC. Parliament is the genaral name for that kind of institutions and adding all kinds of exceptions to this template would clutter it beyond all recognition. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 06:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Why isn't Israel in the template? Although it's fully in Asia, Israel participate in Europe in every sport, Football, American Football, Basketball, Swimming, Baseball etc. RaLo18 (talk) 15:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Because topic pages deal with far more than just sports. If you think the sports page needs it, I suggest subst'ing this page onto a new template, much as I did: Template:Sport in Asia, and making your own from there. The Evil Spartan (talk) 19:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why not to include Israel. Israel taken as part of Europe in alot of matters other then sports. If there is a place for countries like Kazakhstan , sure you should include Israel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luzer1 (talk • contribs) 14:04, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I fully disagree for the simple reason that Israel is not located in Europe. I also think it's incorrect to include countries like Kazakhstan (a part of it is geographically I know but this country can hardly be considered European). Aaker (talk) 23:22, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Come on, people. We can’t put the Bosnian subnational division of Republika Srpska in this template. Republika Srpska is not an autonomous nation-state, like Serbia; it is not a breakaway government, like Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria; it is not a breakaway government recognized only by one country, like Northern Cyprus, nor a country recognized by some by not by others, like Kosovo. Republika Srpska, as the same way that happens with the also subnational division Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, doesn’t not have an army nor independent foreign relations — both of them are taken by Bosnia itself. So, as the same way that there is no space in this template for Germany’s Saar, there must be no space for other recognized and regular subnational divisions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.52.232.106 (talk) 12:38, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Why doesn't the template include Vatican City in the list? (NetJohn (talk) 18:19, 17 June 2008 (UTC))

Vatican City is included only when there is an article about that subject in Vatican City. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 07:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I have copied this discussion from the Template:European topic talk page. Please verify our understanding of the purpose of this template, before I make the indicated changes. - Canglesea (talk) 17:59, 29 June 2008 (UTC) Hi! I applaud the work that's been done on this template, and I can see where it would be useful in many places. Unfortunately, in its current form it suffers from a major problem: many, if not most, of the pages it links to are disambiguation pages, which should not be linked to. For instance, I disambiguate incoming links to Danish, which is how I found this template: the Denmark link in the template goes to Danish. This urgently needs to be fixed, and my suggestion would be to link the country names to the country articles instead (e.g., let Denmark link to Denmark), but I leave that to someone else's judgment; however, the links need to be fixed ASAP. Thanks. --Tkynerd (talk) 01:17, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, this template is intended to be a generator page for templates about subjects common to European countries. The generated templates might include, "People of ...", History of ...", etc. Using Romania as an example, the generated links might include "Romanian people", "Romanian history", etc. Since this is a "Generator page", not intended to be accessed by the end user, I think the solution to the internal DAB links issue is to change the links to their respective country articles, which I will do in the near future if I hear no objections. - Canglesea (talk) 16:33, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be that some of the autonomous republic of the Republics of Russia are not included, while other ones from the other nations are. Any reason why or just simply missed?That-Vela-Fella (talk) 07:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

None of the Republics of Russia are in here. At least I haven't noticed any of them. Reason for not including them is that none of them AFAIK has any kind of special status over other, or specific aspirations for independence or significant addition to the autonomy. If we'd start including all of the autonomous territories in Europe this template would become too cumbersome. Note that it's also missing the Spanish autonomies (All sub-divisions of Spain are autonomies) and some other autonomies, which are rather a standard than an exception. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 09:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:History of rail transport in Europe includes places where no locomotive has been before, I'd say. Can't we slim this down to places which actually have rails, and a history to write about? On the other hand, Prussia has a major history also in rail transport, see eg. Prussian state railways, yet does not appear. So I add "countries_only=yes" there. -- Matthead  Discuß   17:59, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I suggest it is time to consider how much of the template is relevant to the topics (and sub-topics) that are transcluded from the template. As I said, at least half of the entries of the template are Republics of Russia (or former Republics, or Autonomous Republics of Georgia, Armenia, etc.). This means that for any given topic, there are at least 30 or 40+ red links. It somewhat defeats the point of the template to have so many potential, or unwritten entries. I suggest that a new template is created (Template:Greater Europe topic ??), which does include any given autonomous territory/republic. Meanwhile, this template should be restricted to:

• a sovereign, nation-state;
• a partly sovereign state (e.g. Channel Islands, Kosovo), at the very least recognised by other international governments;
• an island state.

Most of the above issue their own passports. So that could be used as a rule of thumb. Any thoughts, suggestions?? (Kreb (talk) 03:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

• • Just to re-iterate, someone else noted this a month ago:

Seems to be that some of the autonomous republic of the Republics of Russia are not included, while other ones from the other nations are. Any reason why or just simply missed?That-Vela-Fella (talk) 07:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

None of the Republics of Russia are in here. At least I haven't noticed any of them. Reason for not including them is that none of them AFAIK has any kind of special status over other, or specific aspirations for independence or significant addition to the autonomy. If we'd start including all of the autonomous territories in Europe this template would become too cumbersome. Note that it's also missing the Spanish autonomies (All sub-divisions of Spain are autonomies) and some other autonomies, which are rather a standard than an exception. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 09:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

— as mentioned above

This does ask why so many autonomous areas have been loaded onto the template, without question. (Kreb (talk) 03:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

• I think that the Russian autonomies should be removed from this template as most of the subdivisions of Russia have a significant degree of autonomy. Those that are included atm have a greater degree of autonomy than the others, but I still think that there are too many of them. As for other autonomous areas most of them have autonomy that differs significantly from the degree of autonomy of other subdivisions and/or are geographically separated from the rest of the country. And of course the actively separatist entities should be included. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 09:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Jhattara, there are too many sub-divisions of Russia here. Are they really autonomous in comparison with German Lander? What is our standard for inclusion? PolScribe (talk) 17:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

At least all these entries in Russia are Republics, not only lands. Moreover they are the separate nations. --Riwnodennyk ✉ 17:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi all, at ((Asia topic)) we've just switched over to the same template layout as the Europe topic template, but it requires an adjustment that I'm not sure how to make. "The" needs to be added to some countries' link form, so instead of "Politics of Republic of China" it links to "Politics of the Republic of China". The following entries need a "the" added:

• People's Republic of China
• Maldives
• Republic of China
• British Indian Ocean Territory
• Cocos (Keeling) Islands
• Gaza Strip
• West Bank

An admin will need to make the changes as the page is fully protected. Many thanks --Joowwww (talk) 22:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

You should've taken this up at ((Asia topic)), but I'll fix the code and make an edit request at the appropriate talk page. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 08:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I might be missing something, but what is the logic behind including Vojvodina? It has less autonomy than the Republika Srpska. There would be better justification for including the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, surely? PolScribe (talk) 17:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC) Oh, sorry, I see you do include the parts of the UK. Why Vojvodina if not the RS, though? PolScribe (talk) 17:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

If I have understood it correctly Vojvodina is an autonomous area with special status within Serbia. On the other hand Republika Srpska is one of two equal parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Including RS would mean including the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. If both of those are included they should be included in a similar fashion as the constituent parts of United Kingdom are. But including those would prompt e.g. Germans to include all of their states and Spanish to include all of their autonomies, which would create an endless expansion for this template. So. In short. Vojvodina's autonomy is a special status. Republika Srpska has so special status when compared to the other BiH constituent, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That's why Vojvodina is in here and Republika Srpska is not. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 18:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Shouldnt "Parliament of Europe" box be plural? Very confusing, as the EU is actually a parliament of Europe but this box is not about the EU. thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.157.89.214 (talk) 21:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That can be fixed by changing the template inclusion from ((Europe topic|Parliament of)) to ((Europe topic|Parliament of|title=Parliaments of Europe)). I'll try to do that later today. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 11:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I made an edit to the template and asked that you please use the talk page before reverting, but someone reverted anyway, so I'll kindly make my comments here. This is a list of countries in Europe. Does it really need to be noted that France has territory in South America, the Netherlands has territory in North America, and that Spain has territory in Africa? I don't think so, and the templates for other continents do not mention these. Denmark is in Europe so it should be listed on the Europe template. The fact that it owns Greenland which is in North America is irrelevant to this template. All these notes do is create clutter. I left Asia on because countries like Russia and Kazakhstan actually span both continents and don't just have a dependent territory elsewhere. Reywas92^Talk 18:28, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Although the Republics of Russia may be considered autonomous areas, they are still integral parts of Russia, and nearly all of the uses of this template do not work for these regions anyway. Any article dealing with Russia fully includes all of these in the first place so they are unnecessary. Svalbard is "a full part of the Norwegian Kingdom" and "is not a Norwegian dependency." The same goes for Jan Mayen. Although they are other territories, they are not distinct from Norway in most cases. Very few of the uses of this template at Template:Europe topic/doc#Templates implemented with Europe topic involve any of the other territories, nor should articles ever be made for most of them, so many of the listed other territories are really unnecessary. Reywas92^Talk 18:28, 20 September 2008 (UTC) To add to the above, I was somewhat surprised that Scania is not included in the template even though other regions with (to my feeble mind) similar status are included. There is not a strong movement for autonomy or independence as far as I know (but do see Talk:Scania for some alternate opinions) but a somewhat distinct identity, stemming from the particulars of the history and culture of the region. Any opinions one way or the other? Should Svalbard et al. be removed, or should Scania be included? (Or am I confused?)-- era (Talk | History) 18:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess thatScania fails all of the tests used for non-states to be included in this template. No special autonomy. No strong drive for independence. Geographically linked to the rest of the country. Svalbard is probably included because of its geographic location. I don't think I would too strongly oppose its removal from this template, if such opinions are brought forth by several editors. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 09:18, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland SHOULD be removed from this Template:Europe topic as they are NOT sovereign states in there own right but within the United Kingdom. Please USE Template:United Kingdom topic for them instead! --Mr Taz (talk) 13:25, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are included as the constituents of United Kingdom. They are included here e.g. because they are the members in many international organizations, especially in sporting organizations, instead of UK. E.g. article Football in England uses this template for navigational aid. If in certain subject the constituents are not relevant, they can be removed from those articles using option UK_only=yes. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 09:22, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Sport is not as important an issue as sovereignty. These are not sovereign states and any presenation as if they are is an attempt to undermine sovereignty. I know federalists are on a mission to break up the UK, divide and conquer, but still this is extremely subversive and unequal. If you are going to do this for the UK, then do it for Spain, Germany, Italy, etc also. In Spain there are things such as Parliament of Catalonia (they even have a Catalonia national football team), Parliament of Andalusia, while Germany has things such as a Parliament of Bavaria. This is a situation not too far fetched from the UK with the Scottish Parliament, a bit of neutrality here please. - Gregardia (talk) 00:27, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I know that the situations in Spain and Germany are similar, but the visibility of the UK constituencies is far greater. It's not just sports. It's just the one field where their existance is the most prominient. And in the template there is an option to hide the constituents when keeping them is not appropriate. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 12:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

They should be moved to the autonomies section Ijanderson (talk) 17:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Where ever you decide to dump them, only Scotland and Wales have National libraries. Personally, I don't see why there has to be two different lists.--Rhyswynne (talk) 09:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

UK countries are only more visible because we're on the English speaking wikipedia, I think the German and Spanish wikipedia's would disagree (and for us it is mainly that England is prominent as people seem to confuse it with the UK). They're non-sovereign, there is a non-sovereign section, lets not be biased and move it there. Though personally, the non-sov section is so large it makes the country of thing pointless, you just end up with redlinks on every page.- _J.Logan`^t: 16:04, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

the footnote "historically considered European" is all very well for Cyprus, which is historically Greek, and Greece is of course European. But it is very dubious indeed for Armenia, which isn't "historically" considered European at all. To the contrary, the idea that Armenia is "culturally European" appears to be entirely recent, born of the Armenia-Turkey conflict. The footnote in its current phrasing thus cannot apply to Cyprus and Armenia equally. --dab (𒁳) 16:39, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Armenia is definitely not European. It is an ancient Asian power.--Dojarca (talk) 18:43, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

What would you suggest - delete Armeria from this template altogether? AndrewRT(Talk) 00:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Probably. We do not include other non-European countries here.--Dojarca (talk) 05:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it should be removed. Armenia is not an European country geographically or culturally.--Piccolo Modificatore Laborioso (talk) 23:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

If you are going to remove Armenia, you will also have to remove countries like Azerbaijan which have a small piece in claimed geographic Europe and which have no cultural bounds with Europe. Dab's claim that culturally European appears to be entirely recent is baseless. Armenia had cultural bounds with Europe even prior to the existence of the several of the modern states currently in Europe. Its relation with Europe is far beyond the limited current borders. I can think of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, or the relations with Rome, Bysantium etc, culture of which was present in Armenia. I can think of the official representation of Armenia in European matters like the Council of Florence etc, not to say Armenia's role in the crusades. Even prior to that, Hellenistic culture was what was considered as European (in the BC), here is an example of that, build by Tiridat I in 77 BC [1]. Where was UK, France, Germany, Italy then? What element of Armenian culture is not European? They speak an Indo-European language, they share religious bounds (they were present to practically all councils), Armenians even share a role in building of the European Culture, such as architecture (see for example, The Architect Trdat: Building Practices and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Byzantium and Armenia, by Christina Maranci, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Sep., 2003), pp. 294-305), or the influence of Armenian Church in Gothic and several other architectures. Armenia even had the same periods as those other cultures in Europe, such as the Armenian Renaissance (mostly extending from 1500-1863). Was it not Lynn, who during his visit in the Ottoman Empire claimed Armenians being much more close to the Europeans culturally than Greeks? Several sources classify Armenia as culturally European and unlike what Dab claims, this is not recent. VartanM (talk) 21:17, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I second above comments, "historically considered European" at least should be removed. brandспойт 21:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

The Africa template has the following code that prevents redlinks in the titles: |title = ((#if:(({title|))} | (({title))} | ((#ifexist:(({1|(({prefix|))))))_Africa(({2|(({suffix|)))))) | [[(({1|(({prefix|)))))) Africa(({2|(({suffix|))))))]] | (({1|(({prefix|)))))) Africa(({2|(({suffix|)))))) )) )) See Category:Bahá'í_Faith_by_country for an example of how these templates look side by side. Could this be implemented here too please. Thanks AndrewRT(Talk) 23:57, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Y Done AndrewRT(Talk) 23:34, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

just passing by to let anyone watching this template know that the footnote for superscript 1 is missing. If I knew what it is I would fix it. Regards—G716 <^T·_C> 02:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, this template is getting out of hand. Sometime last year, someone has added every region of Russia that has "autonomous" in its name, and also Vojvodina. The way I see it, if we are ridiculous, we should be ridiculous all the way, and add all the autonomous regions of Spain and Italy, the Free State of Bavaria and a host of other things; or, we could remove these and only leave territories that really enjoy a special status. Nikola (talk) 05:44, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you. I would even go further and include only fully recognised nations and territories. --Axt (talk) 17:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

However, there are 21 republic in Russian Federation. They are not just autonomies like Vojvodina, but fully non-Russian nations.--Riwnodennyk ✉ 19:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately your arguments fall down with the UK - in sporting terms, it's much more common to have Scottish, English and Welsh teams/leagues/set ups than purely British ones. As regards the Republics of Russia, many/most of these are not in Europe, but in central Asia. I would consider adding the Basque Country as well as Catalonia, as there are good arguments to do so. The German Laender have distinct identities, but don't have their own quasi-national set ups, like Scotland and Wales, and to a lesser extent Catalonia and the Basque Country.--MacRusgail (talk) 17:33, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree with Nikola. The Russian republics cannot even choose their own leader, unlike most second-level political subdivisions in many (all?) EU countries. Only entities with an outstanding degree of de-facto political autonomy should be included IMO, if any. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 19:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Essentially zero uses of this template when used with a parameter have the Russian autonomies bluelinked, nor should bluelinks for these regions exist. They are geographically and politically within Russia but have limited autonomy. As pointed out above, these have nothing special about them and they are never listed on any other list of European territories. There is no reason for these redlinks to appear in practically every usage of this template, or even bluelinks. I have removed them. Reywas92^Talk 18:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Similar situation with russian autonomies is in the Template:Asia topic. Alinor (talk) 17:55, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Also, I am not sure why we have Azores/Malderia, but no Canares (eg. maybe we should list all three or neighter)? Alinor (talk) 17:57, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Items should be included if a reasonable user might look for them. We are not making statements about geography, politics or tectonics, simply speeding users navigation of WP. Armenia is for example a member of the Council of Europe. I propose we simply reduce the number of footnotes to one, "Not always considered part of Europe". Rich Farmbrough, 16:06 30 January 2009 (UTC).

Good idea. Ben MacDui 17:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I have severe reservations about the use of the switch "regions of" with this template and its potential for confusing readers - please see Template_talk:Regions of Europe (a template duplicated by the use of this switch) and Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 March 2#Template:Regions of Europe for details. Knepflerle (talk) 01:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to suppress the use of the "|article=yes" parameter on ((i2c)) for particular values of (({prefix))}? When the country name is intended as the first word of a title, the current code generates names such as Category:The United Kingdom templates, instead of Category:United Kingdom templates, which would make more sense. (See ((Europe templates)) for the source of this example, where (({prefix))} is ':Category:'.) --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Answered my own question -- included "article = no" in the parameters of ((Europe templates)) and that solved the problem. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

In the section of dependencies and autonomous regions, appears Catalonia, but I don't see the Basque Country? The Basque Country has more history, conflicts, own police, and it has the most autonomous regional government of Spain. I don't understand why some appears and other don't. --An13sa (talk) 16:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I would back a proposal to include the Basque Country on that basis.--MacRusgail (talk) 17:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I would also--Lemonade100 (talk) 19:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

This sounds citiation. Please provide sources that would indicated that Armenia is "historically considered European". Incusion of other Caucasian countries is doubtful as well BTW. Netrat (talk) 17:08, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

It is actually pretty common to include Armenia in a list of European countries, but exactly what Kazakhstan is doing on here described as a European country is another matter...--MacRusgail (talk) 12:09, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be pretty random which countries have this designation and which are "Partially or entirely in Asia, depending on the border definitions." I'm inclined to combine them into a single footnote if no one objects. EeepEeep (talk) 08:06, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Currently the "Europe topic" template is divided in three sections: sovereign states, other entities (sui-generis supranational entity - EU, sovereign non-state entitiy - SMOM), dependencies/autonomies/territories.

• The second can be shown/hidden with the parameter "no_other_entities=yes".
• The third can be shown/hidden with the parameter "countries_only=yes".

Additionaly there are four entity-specific show/hide parameters:

• links to non-existing articles for the Vatican City are not shown (done with #ifexist extension)
• if some topic is not applicable to ALL of the UK constituent countries the corresponding links can be hidden with the parameter "UK_only=yes"
• if some topic is not applicable to the European Union the corresponding link can be hidden with the parameter "no_EU=yes"
• if some topic is not applicable to the European Union the corresponding link can be hidden with the parameter "no_SMOM=yes"

Using #ifexist vs. explicit "do-not-show"-parameter:

In general links to non-existing articles can be usefull, because if there is no "Culture of France" article and some reader of the "Culture of Italy" article sees the red link in the template on the bottom and he can contribute and create the missing article. Additionaly it is very common for the Vatican/EU/SMOM articles to have different names (for example instead of "Vatican City" in the name, as used in the template link, the appropriate article can be with "Holy See". The same is with European Union/European Commission/etc., Sovereign Military Order/Order of Malta/Military Order of Malta/etc. combinations). Additioanly the prefixes like "in/of/to" and the use/no use of "the" before EU/SMOM/Vatican are different for most entities on the template and these three. One example for such discrepancy is the following: "Diplomatic missions to the Holy See" instead of the generic link that the template creates: "Diplomatic missions in Vatican City" (in this example we have all three errors in linking: "to/in", "the", name-difference). This is easy avoided by creating the appropriate redirects, but in order to do this the template should show the corresponding red link to non-existing article (then the users can click on it, search, find the appropriate article and creat redirect).

A positive side of "#ifexist" is its automatic application, without manualy adding a "do-not-show".

Should the Vatican-option be changed to "do-not-show" or some of the UK/EU/SMOM options to "#ifexist"?Alinor (talk) 09:04, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:Roman Catholicism in Europe is a total mess in regards to the UK. For a start the Catholic Church never has been organised on the basis of the UK: it organises on the basis of England & Wales, Ireland (the whole island, ie. both the Republic + NI) and Scotland.

If you click on the England or Wales links in the template you get redirected to the E&W article. If you click on the Rep of Ire or NI links you get redirected to the Ireland article. It is unclear why there is even a Wikipedia article on Roman catholicism in the UK -> it seems to have been created purely to turn the redlink in this template blue. It is a non-subject.

Please advise on how to fix this mess. --Mais oui! (talk) 06:54, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

From User_talk:Alinor: I'm glad you see the value in the Europe topic template. Would it be possible to work the code on Template:Europe topic so that it only includes links to the European Union and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta when specified rather than when not specified? These two entities do not apply to the vast majority of current uses of the template and their inclusion should be treated as an exception rather than the rule. There are just too many articles that would need to be edited in order to remove the current inappropriate redlinks.Neelix (talk) 00:01, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Done, but it could be done better. Alinor (talk) 12:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Could I request that we move the "constitutent countries of the United Kingdom to the Territories, Regiond etc... group instead of putting them with the UK in the cuntries box. --Lemonade100 (talk) 18:40, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree. The nations of the UK have always had a special differentiation that no other country in Europe has mirrored. Many people cannot think of the UK without thinking of its being made up of its four constituent countries. The article Terminology of the British Isles also includes a fair bit on what is meant by the many often confused terms applied to the islands and its nations, so it's fitting to put their links next to it. And moving them to the last section would be classifying them on the same level as the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, which is neither fair nor appropriate in my opinion. Andrei Iosifovich (talk) 14:32, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

They more integral than Isle of mann or the channel islands so it would be more fair for the countries to move and the crown dependancies to fill the space they left. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lemonade100 (talk • contribs) 19:18, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Disagree per Andrei Iosifovich - and the proposed inclusion of Yorkshire is eccentric to say the least. Ben MacDui 08:40, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

The template is somewhat incorrect in this respect as it links to the defunct bodies of the "Parliament of Northern Ireland" and the "Parliament of Scotland". Can this be changed to reflect the modern institutions of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Parliament? Benson85 (talk) 02:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Only by changing the target pages into redirects that point to the modern institutions. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 17:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the alterations, I think it shows the United Kingdom as one country rather than a federation of which the template implies. I would like to add that i think of the UK as Great Britain and Northern Ireland not the four former countries that now make it up Gbsj (talk) 20:27, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello Gbsj, and welcome to Wikipedia. As you are a new editor we can't expect you to be up-to-speed with all our complex policies so forgive me if the following seems a little arcane. It is a comment for more experienced editors who may draw their own conclusions. Compare this diff with this. Ben MacDui 21:11, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

From what I understand of the template, it is structured so that a country's name need only be put in and it will create a link of "Name of X"; however, many of these are redirect links. To me it seems like a roundabout way of doing things. This way of creating the navbox is not especially faster or easier to create or maintain. I understand that remaking the template from scratch might take a while, but wouldn't it be better if the links went directly to the appropriate pages? The main objection I would accept is if this is supposedly too confusing; for example, if I scroll over the Wales link and see "Walha", I might not trust the link. Otherwise, though, this box seems very indirect. Andrei Iosifovich (talk) 14:32, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Why appears catalonia in this template and it don't appear basque country, andalusia, or community of madrid? there are autonomous regions too. 89.141.14.171 (talk) 21:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I removed Catalonia from the template. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 07:24, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with this. Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia should be included in this template as autonomous nations within the Spanish state. Andalucia and some of the others are a little vaguer.--MacRusgail (talk) 21:26, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Spain is composed of 17 autonomous communities and 5 places of sovereignty. The autonomous communities have some differences between the levels of power they have in their use, but none of those (AFAIK) are remarkably wider than the others have. If some of the communities would be included it's very hard to define the exact limits for an autonomous community that would be included in here. Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and Andalusia were the original historic nations, but nowadays also Valencia, Canaries, Balears and Aragon define themselves as nations. If the existance of independent law enforcement would be the definition then Basque Country, Navarre and Catalonia would be automatically included with provisions for including e.g. Andalusia and Madrid. In short: it's a thin red line that would be used to include or exclude some of the autonomous communities. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 10:13, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

It may well be, but the Basques, Catalans and Galicians seem to have the best defined identity, as well as a long history. Andalucia and the Canaries are distinct, but I don't find it as easy to make a case for them.--MacRusgail (talk) 15:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but you'd still have to find that one certain distinguishing factor that would apply to all of those included, to none of those not included, and be somewhat significant in broader sense. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 18:47, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering if there is some way that Israel could be included for certain purposes. I am well aware that it is not a European country, but for political reasons, it is a member of European sporting, broadcasting etc bodies.--MacRusgail (talk) 21:32, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid that would be too controversial edit. It would be easier to create separate templates where needed, like the ((European Broadcasting Union Members)). --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 10:17, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

You are right Israel is not in Europe. It only participates in European events because the middle east prevents it taking part on Asian or Middle eastern events. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lemonade100 (talk • contribs) 19:37, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

As I said to begin with... :)--MacRusgail (talk) 15:39, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I came here after noticing that the headline for the navbox for parliaments reads Parliament of Europe. Am I the only that thinks this should be corrected to the proper plaural form Parliaments of Europe? I would just be bold and fix it myself, but this template is a complex, interconnected one that allows for its use on many different topics, and I really don't want to break it. oknazevad (talk) 15:08, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Same issue with National Library of Europe. LokiClock (talk) 14:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

You can change ((Europe topic|prefix=National Library of)) into ((Europe topic|prefix=National Library of|title=National Libraries of Europe)) (like I did on Clementinum), but you have to change it on each article that uses this template to list European National Libraries. Svick (talk) 14:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Currently the template is roughly divided into 'normal states' and 'unrecognised states, autonomous entities etc.'. This division is sometimes employed to have a template appear only with the former, for example in Template:Military of Europe. This makes sense because autonomous enitities typically don't have their own armies. However, the same does not hold true for the states with limited recognition (Abkhazia, Kosovo, Northern Cyprus, South Ossetia and Transnistria). Even worse, I can't think of a single situation where a topic makes sense for normal states but doesn't for states with limited recognition. I therefore propose that the states with limited recognition be grouped separetely, in between normal states and autonomous entities, with independent parameter settings.sephia karta | di mi 12:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Why does the other entities section show up as just a dot sometimes? It should either show the items in the section, or the section should not show at all. - Trevor MacInnis ^contribs 19:05, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

For some quite bizarre reason, Iran is included as one of the countries listed under "Law enforcement in Europe." This entry should presumably be removed and stay removed unless someone can come up with a cogent argument as to why Iran is actually a European state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.13.43 (talk) 02:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Where did you see that? Svick (talk) 02:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

My apologies. If you go to the page for Law enforcement in France, at the bottom there is a box entitled "Law enforcement in Europe;" it is there that you'll find Iran listed as a European country. I've tried to fix it but, being relatively new to this Wikipedia lark, I can't seem to figure it out. Any ideas on how to fix this?

As an aside, I must say that I find it rather unintuitive that the 'e' link on that box doesn't actually allow one to edit the contents of the box; instead it seems to be a link to edit the template from which the box is derived. This is a terribly silly way of doing things. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.13.43 (talk) 04:48, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no Iran in that box. And if you looked at the code of that page, you would see that the box is created by the code ((Europe topic|Law enforcement in)), so this template is the place where you can edit that box. Svick (talk) 11:12, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

It might not be there now, but it certainly was there. This is quite bizarre. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.13.43 (talk) 14:24, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place here on how best to incorporate unrecognised states into a navigation template listing sovereign states and other entities. Some editors have suggested that including such states at all is pushing an imbalanced point of view. Others have made the same argument for not including them. Various conciliatory methods have been proposed, but have not acheived consensus. Editors should note that the outcome of this discussion will most likely have implications on this template aswell. For more information, please have a look at this casefile, or see the before-mentioned discussion page. Night w (talk) 04:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Can the template add an article for EU? Like The United Kingdom and The Netherlands. Right now the EU links have to go via a specially created redirect of the title with the in it. Thanks.- _J.Logan`^t: 10:04, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done. If the article without “the” exists, it is considered first (even if it's just a redirect, see ((Extreme points of Europe))), but if it doesn't, the variant with “the” is used (see ((Religion in Europe))). Svick (talk) 12:53, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I can see how Cyprus is a problem, as an island nation it is naturally not part of any "continent" strictly speaking but the Republic of Cyprus is of course as much part of the European Union as the Republic of Ireland. The question is what to do with Northern Cyprus. Not a member of the EU, not in Europe, not widely recognized, but on the territory claimed by Cyprus, which is a member of the EU.

On the other hand, in my opinion, there can be no debate about Armenia, Nakhchivan and Nagorno-Karabakh. These are simply not in Europe by any definition. We might as well list Australia because of "socio-political ties" to Britain. --dab (𒁳) 10:00, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

This was discussed on multiple occasions and the conslusion is that both Cyprus and Armenia remain, but with note for "geographicaly asian"... Alinor (talk)

The "conslusion" is no such thing, as there was clearly never anything like unanimous consensus. I have a basic objection to obsessive completeness in navigation boxes (we have categories for that), and actual "pov-pushing by navigation box", in this case "Armenia is in Europe", is absolutely unacceptable.

Saying that "Armenia is geographically in Asia" on an "in Europe" template is absurd. You may as well insist on the inclusion of cat in the ((Domestic dog)), defending the inclusion with a note to the effect that "cats are zoologically felidae". --dab (𒁳) 10:05, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

What does this template have to do with politics? Why are we organizing cuisines in terms of "recognized states" etc.?

We should list cuisines in a different order. Perhaps we should organize by region (group Balkan cuisines together etc). That makes more sense than the current arrangement.

Bless sins (talk) 17:10, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

This template isn't just for cuisines, but also for various other subjects, including those that deal with politics. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 17:40, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

((editsemiprotected)) Please include Armenia in the Europe topic due to the fact that Armenia is a country is partially or entirely in Asia, depending on the border definitions such as Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia.

Minasyan (talk) 07:24, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Added Armenia, but not because of border definitions, but rather because of EU and CoE. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 10:01, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Did you note my comment of 11 May right above? How about trying to seek consensus instead of simply reverting the edit? What sort of request is "Please include Armenia in the Europe topic due to the fact that Armenia as a country is partially or entirely in Asia"?? Perhaps we should include Angola because of the fact that Angola is "partially o entirely in Africa"? The way I see it, we list three types of geographical entities (issues of recognition aside),

• states that are entirely in Europe
• transcontinental states
• states that may or may not be considered transcontinental, depending on the definition of "Europe" as a geographical term

The third category includes Georgia, but not Armenia. Armenia is in neither of these categories, as it is undisputedly to 100% in Asia according to any common definition of either "Europe" or "Armenia". Membership in associations containing the name "Europe" is hardly sufficient to prove the geographic location of a state. Or else we will be forced to admit Israel is in Europe because it participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. --dab (𒁳) 14:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Cyprus is as much in Asia as Armenia, but this thing is discussed broadly on multiple wikipedia pages and the consensus is that we list both Cyprus and Armenia in both Europe and Asia with the appropriate footnotes. Israel is not such a case - its membership in european organizations (by the way, besides some sports federation like UEFA, are there any purely european political organizations where Israel is a member?) is because of problems with its arab neighboors and thus with the appropriate regional organizations.Alinor (talk) 06:30, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Reverted dab as per Alinor.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 16:57, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Cyprus as an island is not "in" any continent. This may have been "discussed broadly" on many, many pages, but I fail to see how this amounts to any sort of consensus. My impression is much rather that there has never been anything like a consensus.

the fact that the reverting is done courtesy of our resident Armenian nationalist pov-pushers should also give you pause. Perhaps there would be a consensus if we discounted these accounts.

How is Israel's problem with its neighbours any different from Armenia's problem with its neighbours for the purposes of a purely geographic classification? I have no problem with accepting Israel and Armenia as "western" countires at least in some respects, but "western" isn't equivalent to "European".

If the reverting continues, we will have no choice but tagging this template as disputed. This will be a disaster because it is widely transculded. It will mean that a small number of Europhile Armenian accounts will hold hostage a wide range of European topics that have nothing to do with their agenda. I strongly urge you that pov-pushing via navigation templates (an old favourite of our Armenian nationalists, see Talk:Urartu) is to be strongly discouraged, and that the default course for disputed items in navboxes is omission (which isn't the same as a positive statement). If we cannot agree on that, it will have to be a ((disputed)) tag. --dab (𒁳) 10:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I have re-added Vojvodina - a autonomous province in Serbia in the template under "Dependencies, other territories" category. A definition from the article territory states "In international politics, a territory is a non-sovereign geographic area which has come under the authority of another government; which has not been granted the powers of self-government normally devolved to secondary territorial divisions; or both." - where Vojvodina has its own government, institutions and its constitution (Statute) therefore it should be present in this template. Adrian (talk) 19:23, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Vojvodina is somewhat autonomous but not like Svalbard or Gibraltar. Therefore, I suggest entry for Vojvodina should be removed. 89.216.30.13 (talk) 08:36, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

My initial reaction was to agree with 89.216.30.13. However, as Kosovo had similar status to Vojvodina within Serbia and I believe that it would have been listed as a "Dependency" prior to its declaration of independence, I agree with Adrian on the inclusion Vojvodina in the template. Davshul (talk) 12:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, since there was a war in and about Kosovo before it gained current status, I will agree to include Vojvodina in this list after a similar war.89.216.30.13 (talk) 08:29, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I have added the autonomous territory of Nakhchivan to the template, in light of the inclusion of Azerbaijan (of which it forms part) and Armenia (which separates it geographically from the rest of Azerbaijan). Nakhchivan also appears as an autonomous territory on the Asia topic template, and thus I have included a superscript 1. Davshul (talk) 11:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Please see the discussion taking place here on the Template:Asia topic discussion page, including the "New suggestion", regarding countries and territories that could be considered within both Europe and Asia, that could result in certain changes to the Europe topics template. Davshul (talk) 09:24, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Can someone remove it from the template, please? It is part of Serbia and uses the same postal code system as the rest of the country, as Andalusia, Basque Country, etc do in Spain... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.52.128.80 (talk) 00:24, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's face it, this template is as good as useless. The precise configuration of states and non-states included in it very rarely corresponds to the actual requirements of the subtemplates. Kazakhstan is in Central Asia, but considered to be part of Europe for the purposes of certain international organisations. Why are the devolved parts of the United Kingdom recognised, but not those of Spain? What chance is there ever going to be of a National Library of Jan Mayen? I therefore propose that we more towards retaining the rough framework provided here, but requiring that subtemplates first be set up in their own right, so that they might be individually edited, before they can be used elsewhere.Orthorhombic, 14:14, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree at some points, but this problem could be easily solved with making a new category, something like "Partially in Europe" and then enumerate those states. Adrian (talk) 14:41, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The countries of the UK have been included on this template for years and have been discussed above. They are obviously there by consensus and shouldn't be removed on a whim. I have re-instated them. Daicaregos (talk) 18:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this should be based on a discussion based on consensus. I do agree however that subdivision of a state-proper are not appropriate. I realize there is a big difference in jurisdications, but whether they are DE-Bundeslaender, nations (Catalunia), NL-provincies or UK-countries they are subdivisions and would make the list too long. I see no reason for an exception for the UK (except in some sports). L.tak (talk) 18:55, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no consensus for this right now, more discussion is needed. Outback the koala (talk) 20:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Life is full of exceptions and this long-standing convention has its uses. Quite apart from the rather anomalous position these "constituent countries" find themselves in, this being the English-language Wikipedia, as you might expect there are often articles, some of them to a high standard, for one or more of them. In the same context it is not unusual for many sovereign states have stubs or nothing at all. See for example the templates at:

*List of the vascular plants of Britain and Ireland (where only about fifteen entries appear, 5 of which are English-speaking entities)

*Fauna of Scotland

*Geology of Europe

*Law in Europe

In short, I think it's fine the way it is. Ben MacDui 20:29, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not contesting these articles exist or that they have merit. Indeed there is a significant UK-population editing here which results in more articles about the UK, then of (say) Germany. That could also mean that more UK-specific templates (geography of UK, with subdivisions of the different countries) could exist. But that doesn't warrant different treatment in this type of templates. We should either put in lower administrative divisions, or only those that are called land (germany), nation (only catalunia by constitution) or country (uk). But only giving the English language country UK a more-detailed treatment because this it is an english language wikipedia seems not neutral to me and I have found no policy guideline for favourable treatment at all. I also wonder what we should do about the divisions of Ireland if english-language were to be a governing principle... L.tak (talk) 15:02, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I also think they should probably be removed. It's weird to have the constituent countries listed under the sovereign state in the sovereign state section, especially as it is the only state with those added. Although these 4 countries (or whatever you want to call them) have a unique and complex history and an interesting terminology situation, that does not mean that they deserve special treatment and mention in the template. The argument that they belong due to more articles written about them really isn't that strong, it just plays into systematic bias. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:04, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I am arguing from a pragmatic basis rather than PC theory. The function of the template is navigation. It is patently unhelpful for navigational purposes to obscure useful articles whilst displaying numerous red links for non-existent ones. As soon as there are sufficient articles for non-sovereign state countries in other states, we can add them too. If you find the existing ones annoying you can always use the "UK_only=yes" parameter. Ben MacDui 11:20, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

One option is to change the section named "States with limited recognition" to "Countries and states with limited recognition". BTW, is there any reason that the UK is pipe-linked to "The United Kingdom", thereby forcing a re-direct? Daicaregos (talk) 11:57, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

From a pragmatic basis we could probably say that even more areas should be covered, there'd be little limit to what could be included. There needs to be a defined objective.

No reason for that random redirect at all, nonsensical. Feel free to remove, good spot. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

This is an implemented template, which means it is used to create other templates simply through changing the prefix parameter. It is not designed to be transcluded in its original format. This facilitates easy and effective management through synchronisation. The creation of hundreds of new templates to replace this one would be pure chaos. I don't see these as serious issues — if a reader wants Kazakhstan, they'll just have to click the link to the topic and find it through there; if there isn't likely to ever be many articles for Jan Mayen, then we can add a switch to hide it; if the UK constituent articles aren't extant, then turn the UK_only switch to yes. These are minor annoyances; the advantages, however, of having a single template (rather than who-knows-how-many) are far more significant.

In response to Daicaregos, the template uses ((i2c)) documentation. In this case, because the link will point not to the United Kingdom page, but rather an associated article (e.g., Politics of the United Kingdom), the conjunctive "the" must be present in the title. This is shown by the code ((i2c|GB|article=yes)).

On the UK country links, I would prefer those links to remain in order to give editors the option to include them, should consensus deem it necessary. Nightw 19:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Then still, it would not be equal treatment to treat the administrative divisions of only the UK, and not of other countries. Despite its history and the English language used here it should be all, all similar (as explained above) or none. Everyone is welcome of course to make a specific "UK countries" template for those articles that that is reasonalbe and to make linking easy... L.tak (talk) 20:31, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Returning to this discussion after a week, I would like to thank everyone for there thoughts and contributions, many of which demonstrate a greater deal of technical savvy than I was bringing to the table. Taking on board all the competing considerations, I would suggest that the following subtle change to the template that would improve its usefulness and consistency. Instead of having the four UK constituent countries being included by default, the template would be more logical and would make WP look less arbitrary or contingent, if the four UK constituent countries were excluded by default. This would cover certain (e.g. sporting) contexts where the inclusion of Eng/NI/Sco/Wales does make a great deal of sense. If there is no more formal mechanism, I would propose an informal vote on the issue. Orthorhombic, 23:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Orthorhombic. That should hopefully provide a reason to keep over the argument that it is inconsistent, as in pages such as sports they do have a special relevance other areas don't have. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Even if I don't like the idea I have to accept that there is at least a case to be made for it. I think a problem with the current dialogue may be that such changes may affect many articles, but those watching here may be fewer than was once the case - possibly due to the large number of discussions and edits to the template about the inclusion or otherwise of links to territories of marginal relevance. I suggest a note to relevant Wikiprojects before attempting to proceed on the basis of a handful of opinions. Ben MacDui 18:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

A small edit war has been ongoing for the past few days between Varlaam and Outback the koala. Outback wants to mention Kingdom of the Netherlands, with Netherlands between brackets as a constituent country. Varlaam just wants the Netherlands. I have to say I agree with Varlaam. I came here from the List of supermarket chains in the Netherlands page, where this template is used as List of supermarket chains in Europe. The Kingdom of the Netherlands constists of the Netherlands and three Caribbean islands, so it's nonsensical to have an article called List of supermarkets in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, it would just be a union of four list pages that have nothing to do with each other. Furthermore, this is a template for things in Europe, and the European part of the Kingdom coincides with the Netherlands. There's no need to mention a particular Kingdom of the Netherlands page here, which would just be the same as the particular Netherlands page plus some things outside Europe, i.e. irrelevant to this template. Mtcv (talk) 15:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem here is not with the Netherlands, but with the English language. English speakers have decided to call the two areas (Kingdom and constituent) by the same name. Why is nobody edit warring over the Kingdom of Denmark? I think the fact is that this is English wikipedia, and in common english usage "Netherlands" stands as a substitute for the sovereign state, and that is how the articles will be titled in English wikipedia. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I was involved in an edit war? Really?

I don't particularly remember that but then I've had a brain haemorrhage since then.

The Netherlands means one thing in English. Holland.

A country that borders Belgium and Germany.

A country that treats me very well because I am a Canadian.

A country where they put mayonnaise on French fries instead of white vinegar, the Canadian way.

Yes, Holland is a constituent bit, but 99% of English speakers don't know that.

TV commercials with a pretty girl and a windmill encourage us to buy "Gouda cheese from Holland", and they are not talking about somewhere off the coast of Venezuela.

Varlaam (talk) 00:01, 9 June 2012 (UTC) (Toronto)

Is it really helpful to have the subheadings "Sovereign states" and "States with limited recognition" linking to (respectively) List of sovereign states and List of states with limited recognition? When would these links actually be of use to a reader? I suggest they should be left unlinked, as they're not relevant to the purpose of the template, they're just grouping for the links that are the real purpose of this template. Colonies Chris (talk) 10:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Pleas, add the "Republics of European Russia" category to the template. This are Karelia, Komi Republic, Kalmykia, Mari El Republic, Mordovia, Tatarstan, Udmurtia and Chuvashia.--Юе Артеміс (talk) 10:04, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

When used in the Governments of Europe template, the link for Abkhazia goes to Government of Abkhazia, which is a disambiguation page. It would be more appropriate to link to Government of the Republic of Abkhazia, but I can't figure out how to change it. Can anyone help? (Note that this link also appears on the corresponding Asia template, and needs fixing there as well.) Thanks. Bazonka (talk) 08:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I've now solved this problem using a different method - a redirect from Government of Abkhazia to Government of the Republic of Abkhazia. Bazonka (talk) 10:47, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

The box refers to "Parliament of Europe" - apparently referring to the Parliaments in geographical Europe. However, the title link redirects to the "European Parliament" - the parliament of the European Union (EU). This certainly should not be the header link for the template, although it is appropriate as a subheading. I would edit this if I were able.

(l would prefer that the title should also read "Parliaments of Europe", corresponding to correct usage and "Parliaments of Asia") — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.144.28.141 (talk) 17:13, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking of making a separate template that puts the United Kingdom as one as one which could be used for things where the United Kingdom is a single entity such as Diplomatic Missions or Immigration where the current one has links that don't work, The current template would be still used for other things, Discuss. C. 22468 (talk) 15:56, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The UK is in this template. What link doesn't work? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:43, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

If you want to suppress the constituent countries I think you just need the "UK_only=yes" parameter in the existing template. Ben MacDui 17:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm an Irish-born and there's a problem. When the "Parliament of" parameter is used, why does the Ireland link not link to Oireachtas, but rather "Parliament of the Republic of Ireland" or something like that? What's going on? -- 92.4.76.103 (talk) 17:17, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

"Parliament of" isn't a parameter, it's the prefix (see here). So when you use ((Europe topic|Parliament of)) it sets the prefix of all links in the navbox to "Parliament of <country>". Does this make sense? Nightw 17:43, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but someone should fix it to link to Oireachtas; the current link is slightly wrong. -- 92.4.76.103 (talk) 10:52, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

The template is not as sophisticated as you seem to think. It simply links to all European articles on a given subject e.g. "Fauna of...", "Parliament of..." and there is no "fix" that I am aware of short of creating an entirely new template that links directly to a given set of named articles. However, it works well enough as "Parliament of the Republic of Ireland" simply redirects to "Oireachtas", so whilst I understand why you think this is less than perfect I don't see any genuine problem in this case in practice. The issue does however create a problem for Scotland that I had not noticed before in that Parliament of Scotland is the historic parliament not the modern one. I'll drop a note to the talk pages concerned. Ben MacDui 11:30, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

This is probably one of those situations where UK only should be used, England has no sort of Parliaments, NI's was dissolved, etc. 12:15, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

It is a bit of a mess because of the complex histories of the constituent countries. N Ireland, Scotland and Wales all have modern parliaments (called "assemblies"), and ideally would therefore have links from the template but the only one it takes you direct to currently is the Welsh one. Scotland at least is "fixable" and I have dropped a note at the talk pages concerned. Ben MacDui 12:24, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

IP, the links are automatically generated by setting the prefix. If your prefix is "Parliament of", all of the links in the template will be to "Parliament of <country>". As Ben said, the only way to have the navbox link to Oireachtas would be to create a new template where you put the links in manually. I don't see the need for this. Nightw 19:28, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Should the prefix be replaced with "Legislature of", or "National legislature of"? It sounds a lot more generic and will help us to redirect to the modern Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, etc. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 16:57, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

See Above. What is the point of adding entities that simply are not in Europe? All that does is cluttering the template, reducing its already very limited usefulness. Editing Wikipedia navboxes isn't magically going to place locations in Europe that are not in Europe so why bother? Other than the sheer joy of trolling, of course. --dab (𒁳) 09:23, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

There is a discussion at Template talk:Asia_topic#Nagorno-Karabakh --> Nagorno-Karabakh_Republic on whether to use Nagorno-Karabakh Republic or Nagorno-Karabakh. Please comment there to help establish a consensus. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:50, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

(The reason for the question is that currently Asia Topic does it one way and Europe Topic does it the other.) -- 80.42.236.111 (talk) 14:32, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The use of the grammatical article "the" with the Isle of Man and the United Kingdom should be triggered by a parameter and standardized. As current, the Isle of Man gets a "the" prepended, disrupting links such as List of Isle of Man-related topics (which currently gets incorrectly set as List of the Isle of Man-related topics), and also disrupting links such as the Judiciary of the United Kingdom (which is incorrectly set as Judiciary of United Kingdom, which I just redirected).

Currently, every single topic would need to redirect at least one. Perhaps a "the" parameter that is always set to "yes" that would trigger a "the" before both, and thus could be disabled (for instance with the "List of" prefix and "-related topics" suffix)? Int21h (talk) 21:40, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

The European Union is another entity which uses an adjective as its first word, usually requiring a "the". Int21h (talk) 21:47, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Someone please repair the broken link of the Demographics of the Republic of Ireland on the template list. I clicked on the red (missing) link to "Demographics of Republic of Ireland". They are case sensitive and future editing should be more careful when they add links by typing the link correctly. Thank you. + Mike D 26 (talk) 17:20, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

After Georgia (country), these Europe templates seem to be putting the word 'country' in brackets for a second time. This results in red links. I could not see where to make an edit to fix this problem. RedvBlue 11:25, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Where are you seeing that problem? I can't find it. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:48, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Here and here. There could be more to be found, if someone were to go through them all. RedvBlue 13:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Okay, I'm completely lost. Somehow those templates have the problem yet Template:Demographics of Europe doesn't. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:32, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I've just been playing around with this. From what I can tell, Georgia has an extra "|template=no", which the other countries don't. It's probably there for a reason, so I don't want to remove it in case it harms other templates. RedvBlue 13:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

It's caused by recent edits from R'n'B, an editor who disambiguates links and who's obviously picking up on the Georgia links on this and other templates. He did the same to this template earlier and I reverted. I've reverted his edits on the two templates you've linked to; if you see he's made the same edit to any others just revert it and link to this discussion. You'd probably have to go through the Asia templates aswell. Nightw 01:19, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

About adding the Republika Srpska to the list with "Dependencies and other territories"... How can he have Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey which all of this have minor degree of autonomy and Republika Srpska not? Adrian (talk) 17:20, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Sprska is merely one of two parts of a country. The other entries here have rather unique political statuses that lead to them being classified as dependencies. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:29, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

We normally use ISO 3166 as the inclusion criteria unless a sufficient reason for inclusion can be provided. It's also a question of whether it'd be a useful link. The only article I can find where a link would appear blue is History of Republika Srpska. But even in that article most of the content is already described in History of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the other hand, for example, topics about Gibraltar are rarely described in the UK articles. Nightw 19:06, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Agree. I would note that the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the Faroes, Gibraltar and Guernsey is hardly "minor" - in fact it's near-complete, rather greater than Vojvodina. ISO 3166-1 is sensible because it is a neat proxy for those articles for which we are likely to have articles. It's clearly defined and easy to implement. On the other hand, listing autonomous areas means we would need to include a vast number of extra entities that in many cases are unlikely to have articles for the topics concerned. Pfainuk talk 22:23, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Please could someone fix the link to the climate of Northern Ireland in the sovereign states section under United Kingdom. It is currently pointing to a page which has been overridden to point to the climate of Ireland, however the Northern Ireland Climate page contains specific data for the country, Northern Ireland.Seamus48 (talk) 17:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I suggest you initiate a discussion with those that originally merged the article before progressing further with it. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:37, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Should it be added under dependencies? Both Cyprus and Northern Cyprus, and Gibraltar and the Isle of Man are already included. I see no reason why Akrotiri and Dhekelia doesn't belong, either by geography and by political status. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 17:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Criteria is loosely based on ISO 3166-1, and not many articles exist about the bases. CMD (talk) 18:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Not done: Per above. Celestra (talk) 15:05, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Is its political status as a British dependent territory determined by ISO 3166-1? 218.250.159.25 (talk) 19:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

No, but its inclusion in this list is. CMD (talk) 21:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Its inclusion should be determined by its political status as one of the BOTs. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 23:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Why? CMD (talk) 23:42, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

N Not done and not likely to be done; The Ministry of Defence says that the "SBAs are primarily required as military bases and not ordinary dependent territories". Also per CMD's comments, and the fact that they are not very notable. If there is consensus among a group of users, then it can be added. --andy4789 ★ · (talk? contribs?) 18:57, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree and IP, please stop adding the edit request template unless you have a consensus for an edit. It just wastes admins' time. Nightw 12:00, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The principle is to list all dependent territories indiscriminatorily, especially inhabited ones. And no I don't mean to wastes admins' time. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 20:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

This template is designed as a basic one for navigation purposes, and few A&D articles exist. The principle of all territories is meant for Template:Sovereign states of Europe. CMD (talk) 04:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I've in fact requested to create redirects that point at the economy, demographics and media sections of the main article for this dependency. And some other redirects already existed before I filed my request. (I suppose that's the usual practice for microstates and dependencies with small population size, and as a result few articles.) However few articles this dependency is having, it's still having some articles, such as police, customs, outline, index, etc. I've added the Europe topic template to those articles. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 20:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Redirects are fine, but the main issue is really notability. We use ISO as an independent third party to establish the notability of a territory. Chances are if it's not on the ISO list, there isn't that much to talk about. A&D is notable for its military, with most of its topics related to that.

That being said, it definitely has notability in some respects. If you can make a strong case for its importance in a certain topic, perhaps we can make a code that shows A&D just for that topic. CMD (talk) 01:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Following the example in the article for its police force (which someone else set it before I did), I've added this template to the articles on its customs service and its military. I've also added the template to its index and its outline. Apart from actual articles, many redirects already exist, and I've requested to create the ones for economy, demographics and media to fill the gap. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 18:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

For redirects? You want the item added for redirects? I don't see the reason for it. They're military bases... How many people reading about the economics of Europe are going to want to know that (according to the economy section of the article) there's basically no economic activity whatsoever on these bases? If the subject is notable in the context of Europe (or Asia), it'll have an article on it, or have the potential for one. In this case, there's really not all that much one can write about media on the bases, since there isn't really any.

Adding it without a switch is just not going to beneficial, since most topics relating to this particular place can be summed up in one sentence along the lines of "there is none". There's no culture, no sport, no organised religion, no literature, no environment/wildlife, and no, the mess kitchens have not invented their own cuisine. Though as Chip says, it might be practical for military topics. Nightw 06:16, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Economy is perhaps an extreme example. It isn't like "there is none" for the sections about the territory's history, politics, geography, and demographics. Yes this territory is most notable as military bases, but there are articles on, for example, its police force and its customs service too. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 22:23, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that for every article covering a topic notable enough to exist, we could probably name 10 common to others that wouldn't be. Again, I wouldn't mind a hack to have an if parameter (as I'm biased and wanted A&D in ages ago!), if that sounds like a good idea to all. Not that I know exactly how to implement one, but c'est la vie. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chipmunkdavis (talk • contribs) 00:43, 15 February 2012‎

Perhaps we can use the ifexist code.., like what's currently done for Vatican City. But I don't think that's going to be necessary. We got South Georgia, Christmas Island and Pitcairn Islands on the templates for other continents. They don't create much trouble. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 16:08, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

If anything, an extra parameter can be added so that it can appear in cases where it might be needed. I don't really see any cases...((Military of Europe)) maybe. History? Meh. Most of its history is already covered under History of Cyprus, which already has a link. Nightw 15:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Why do we now have Sicily and Catalonia automatically appearing on this template? CMD (talk) 17:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. These two 'countries' shouldn't be on this template... I will remove Catalonia, as it definitely shouldn't be there, not too sure about Sicily though. Any ideas what to do? --andy4789 ★ · (talk? contribs?) 20:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Remove everything that isn't a state from the state section. Simple and makes sense. CMD (talk) 04:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The Sicilian Parliament is officially recognised as a Parliament in Italian law, and the Sicilian Constitution, the so called Statute of Sicily, is actually an integral part of the Italian Constitution. The Sicilian Region is called a Region for internal policy reasons, but almost all powers (basically everything but defence, foreign affairs and not much more) have been devolved to its Parliament and its government since 1946. We could make a case of the Sicilian Parliament being much more of a Parliament, and of the Sicilian Region being a state, than the Scottish, the Welsh or the Northern Irish ones. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.132.198.16 (talk) 22:28, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

there are no state like england, wales, scotland and n ireland only united kingdom. it should be fixed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.126.163.111 (talk) 14:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Is there a Kazahkstan in Europe? I only know one next to the Asian Russia which is entirely in Central Asia, and I don't know if anybody counts it as a part of Europe? If so please cite the source.--WWbread （Open Your Mouth?） 08:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I think you are saying this shouldn't be in the Europe template, a point with which I would agree. Kazakhstan also appears in the Asia template. The main Kazakhstan page states that the country is in Asia. Dun (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I just renamed the article Ethnic conflicts in Czechoslovakia into Ethnic minorities in Czechoslovakia, per analogy with similar articles, and I placed under it the European minorities template, but in the list of European countries there are only the present ones, not Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. As there are anyway not so many former European countries in the XXth century (excluding the short-lived ones of the "Republic of Rurithania" type),I think it would be wise to add these two in a special category in the template list. --Minorities observer (talk) 03:51, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

There are quite a few other XXth century countries. The Soviet Union, East Germany, West Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Sweden-Norway. These templates have been firmly set in the present, opening them to the past makes the scope so wide they'd probably become quite pointless. CMD (talk) 13:31, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

There are no state such as England, Scotland, Wales or North Ireland so that schould be fixed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.126.218.126 (talk) 20:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Those units obviously deserve special handling.

We happen to be in English Wikipedia at the moment.

Varlaam (talk) 18:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

That ain't a proper answer.

It doesn't matter this is the English, or the Japanese Wikipedia, info should be objective!

England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales aren't sovereign states which, concurrently, are part (constituent) of another sovereign state. As far as we all know, the UK is neither a (con)federation nor a proper plurinational state that includes several nation-states, with their own sovereignty

According to the CIA factbook, the UK is defined as one nation with one government. Its long name is United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; (Great Britain includes England, Scotland, and Wales) Dependent territories are Anguilla, Bermuda, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands.

IMHO, it isn't fair you editors include the British constituent countries: England (a constituent entity, with no devolved government/sovereignty), Northern Ireland (no devolved sovereignty) Wales (no devolved sovereignty), and Scotland (no devolved sovereignty), and exclude the Belgian communities, German states, two proper federations and fully decentralised states, as well as the Danish Realm and the Spanish nationalities and regions (constituted as autonomous communities), all of which do not hold any type of sovereignty whatsoever, but may enjoy of similar or better degrees of devolution than the British "countries".

In the case of the UK, "country" (legally "constituent country", also "nation"), is just a way of calling the British (sub)national units, and is similar to states, regions, lands, communities, provinces, voivodeships, etc. in other countries, since they do not retain "sovereignty".

I suggest to start a debate about deleting the British national subdivisions, as they aren't more relevant than others. Why these units [the British constituent entities] diserve a divergent handling to the Belgian, German, and Spanish ones? 90.174.39.218 (talk) 01:10, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Debate: UK constituent parts vs Belgian/German/Spanish constituent parts

• Constituent countries of the UK (nations without sovereignty)
  • UK: 1 sovereignty / 1 central government / 4 constituent parts (countries) / 3 main devolved governments.
• Belgian communities, regions and language areas
• German states
• Nationalities and regions of Spain (constituted as autonomous communities)

Why Britain can display its 4 constituent parts, while other countries can't? Aren't all European countries (sub)divided into minor parts/entities? Why Spain or Belgium can't show their (sub)national units? Why Scotland, a constituent entity of the UK with no sovereignty, is on the list of sovereign states? Why England, a part of the UK, with no sovereignty and government devolution is on the list same list? 90.174.39.218 (talk) 01:10, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The 4 options below have the effect of splitting all those who believe in keeping links to the individual countries of the UK into three camps. I therefore wish to vote for three options in the order 3, 2 then 4. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 16:12, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Because? CMD (talk) 00:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Fishiehelper2's comment - the questioning is a little confused. It might have been better to have two separate questions - do you want a change? and if you do, which would you prefer? Ben MacDui 16:42, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

It was an IP that started this. if the questioning is confused, it's probably worth closing this, being very old anyway, and reopening it if anyone wants to start it. CMD (talk) 19:52, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Option 1 (delete the UK constituent parts)

• Support, the UK constituent parts are not sovereign states, so there is basically no reason to display them systematically in the standard navigation box but not other constituent states such as the 26 cantons, the 9 Austrian states, the 16 German states etc. (all partly sovereign in the same way as the UK consituent parts). mgeo talk 10:08, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
• Support per Mgeo. They can be reactivated for sports templates. CMD (talk) 13:32, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Option 2 (keep the UK constituent parts and add other relevant (sub)national parts for other European countries)

This option might imply changing the term "sovereign states".

• Support see comment above. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 16:12, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Option 3 (keep the template unchanged)

This option might imply changing the term "sovereign states".

• Support see comment above. And it does not require or imply changing the term 'sovereign states'. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 16:12, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support If you want to suppress the constituent countries you just need to activate the "UK_only=yes" parameter in the existing template. Ben MacDui 16:36, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Option 4 (mark the constituent countries as subordinate)

By encapsulating the (4 countries) in parentheses.

• Support. Varlaam (talk) 23:38, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
  The English-speaking world is 100 times more interested in Scotland than it is in Asturias or the various parts of Hesse. English-speaking people come from there. 200 times, probably.
  Then there is the practical consideration that there might be an English speaker to write Duck ponds of Wales but not one to write Duck ponds of Saarland. The European templates are full of redlinks now as it is.

Is it really a good idea to design a templates based on what we think people are interested in, when they could well be interested in anything? It's a bad idea to base it on existing articles, as that just reinforces WP:systematic bias. If they're really interested, anything that would be in the ESWNI articles should be linked from the overarching UK link. CMD (talk) 22:50, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

• Support see comment above. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 16:12, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - are they not already in parentheses? Ben MacDui 16:38, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

This is appearing as a row with a prompt and no data here: Template:Jews and Judaism in Europe.
Make a stub article so it populates the row? Maybe a REDIRECT?
What is the recommended course of action for this case?
Varlaam (talk) 18:27, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I got rid of it by adding "|no_other_entities=yes". It may be worth making them (and the UK countries) default not appear, as their use is limited, but I lack the coding knowhow to do that. CMD (talk) 19:17, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

That seems the natural approach to me as well, as least for Other entities specifically.

I too defer to the angels, or other supernatural beings, who maintain the "coding", or "magic", whichever term you prefer.

Varlaam (talk) 18:08, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

For the "black links" is the second best option, since most of the articles that has these as primary title and in this way are linked in various template like this: ((Culture of England)). --Kasper2006 (talk) 22:41, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

May I insert it? --Kasper2006 (talk) 05:18, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Would someone please correct this template so that the placing of the "Politics of ..." template no longer suggests that countries have relations with Vatican City State rather than with the Holy See, the entity with which the relations do exist, in many cases since long before the creation in 1929 of the other entity, with which these countries have no bilateral relations. See Holy See#Diplomacy, Foreign relations of the Holy See, and Vatican City#Foreign relations. Esoglou (talk) 14:35, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

The Politics template code doesn't lead to foreign relations. What page is this issue on? CMD (talk) 15:34, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I was wrong to mention the "Politics of ..." template, and I apologize. I should have mentioned Template:Foreign relations of Europe. In this, I think, "Vatican City" should be removed (Vatican City doesn't have bilateral foreign relations with any country) and "Holy See" should be added. However, even in the politics template, the Vatican-City-based Holy See seems to deserve mention in line with the mention of the Brussels-based European Union. See Template:Politics of the Holy See and Politics of the Holy See.

I wonder should I have written of navboxes, rather than templates. I trust you will forgive my uncertain terminology. Esoglou (talk) 17:21, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Your edit from 29 December 2012 was reverted as it caused two extra braces to appear on various pages (you can see these extraneous braces below "Other entities").

This template is transcluded on over 7,000 pages. I'd recommend testing in a sandbox before pushing further changes. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 01:50, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

So would you please attend to the problems mentioned above regarding the inclusion of Vatican City among the entities that have bilateral foreign relations with other countries and the absence of the Holy See from the entities that do have such relations? Esoglou (talk) 07:53, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

(unindent) Sorry, I'm not following what you want changed, exactly. As I see this template (Template:Europe topic) currently, "Vatican City" is listed under "Sovereign states" and is a link to Vatican City. What would you like to see changed?

All of the talk about "Politics of" articles and the "Holy See" has left me confused. Please be more explicit (include a rough diagram, if you think it'll help) about what you want and I may be able to help. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:39, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

At the moment it's a redirect, so readers will get to where they belong. I'm of the opinion that this minor legal incorrectness isn't really an issue, as it leads to the same page and doesn't affect the reader, who would more likely recognise Vatican City than Holy See (in my experience). CMD (talk) 03:20, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I see, Chipmunkdavis, that you are right about the wikilink leading to Foreign relations of the Holy See, although the visible indication, which you have to click on in order to see the correct international entity, says "Vatican City". I hadn't clicked on it so as to find the correct indication. It is the incorrect indication that appears in all the pages that link to Template:Foreign relations of Europe. I quote from the Holy See article: "Often incorrectly referred to as 'the Vatican', the Holy See is not the same entity as the Vatican City State, which came into existence only in 1929; the Holy See, the episcopal see of Rome, dates back to early Christian times. Ambassadors are officially accredited not to the Vatican City State but to 'the Holy See', and papal representatives to states and international organizations are recognized as representing the Holy See, not the Vatican City State." I take issue with your expression "it leads to the same page". It leads to a page concerning a different entity, the Holy See, which had diplomatic relations with states long before the Vatican City State was created and which presumably would continue to have diplomatic relations with states even if the Vatican City State were obliterated tomorrow. The existence of the Holy See is no more linked to the existence of Vatican City State than the existence of the European Union is linked to the existence of the city of Brussels. Although Vatican City State is an independent state, it is, as far as bilateral diplomatic relations go, in the same position as the city of Brussels, in that it has diplomatic relations with no state whatever. On the other hand, all but a tiny minority of states have diplomatic relations with the Holy See. Yet the Holy See is not included in the navbox Template:Foreign relations of Europe, while the European Union and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta are included.

A word of thanks for the patience shown by those for whom my attempts at explanation have been and possibly still are insufficient. Esoglou (talk) 15:38, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

However, nothing has yet been done about the mistaken omission from the navbox that appears in all articles related to Foreign relations of Europe of the Holy See, which does have foreign relations in the same ways as the European Union and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which are included. Nor has anything been done about the mistaken inclusion in that navbox of Vatican City, which has bilateral diplomatic relations with no state whatever. Esoglou (talk) 20:24, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

As there is a redirect there isn't an omission (and in common parlance the two are interchangeable, especially due to the fact that as you noted there's only one set of foreign relations). A reader will no doubt more easily recognise Vatican City than Holy See, and the redirect may be useful in teaching them about the unique situation of sovereign and its territory being distinct entities. The change that could be made is to create an optional template that can change Vatican City to Holy See. However, I don't know how to code that. CMD (talk) 17:41, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Neither do I. But surely somebody does. They are two distinct entities, even if their sovereign is the same. Similarly, Australia and New Zealand are two distinct entities, even if their sovereign is the same. If nothing better can be done, any editor, even without special technical knowledge, can surely add "Holy See", leaving both "Holy See" and "Vatican City State" in - just like "Australia" and "New Zealand" in other templates. Esoglou (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

In the same legal way that the Vatican is distinct from the Holy See, Australian and New Zealand have different sovereigns (and seems tangential anyway as I said the entities were distinct). The situation is also not at all a useful parallell, as both Australia and New Zealand are sovereign, while the Vatican is not but the Holy See is, and also as both have separate foreign relations. In the case of the Vatican/Holy See, there is only one set of foreign relations, and the redirects lead to it. Having both "Holy See" and "Vatican City" (or other formulation) would cause massive redundancy across the many areas this template is used. CMD (talk) 19:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be mistaken about Australia and New Zealand: they have the same sovereign, the present incumbent being called Elizabeth, but they are distinct sovereign entities with distinct foreign relations. Vatican City State and the pre-existent Holy See have the same sovereign, the present incumbent being called Benedict, but they are distinct sovereign entities with distinct foreign relations (only multilateral ones in the case of Vatican City State, which is a member of some international organizations but neither sends ambassadors to other states nor receives ambassadors accredited to it). If you think the lack of bilateral international relations makes listing Vatican City State misleading, then omit it and replace it with the Holy See, the entity that does have international relations both bilateral and multilateral. Then there will be no redundancy. Esoglou (talk) 21:46, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The Monarchy of Australia is a distinct and separate institution to the Monarchy of New Zealand. The Vatican City is not a distinct sovereign entity. Its sovereignty is entirely vested in the Holy See. As for sovereignty vs a sovereign, in modern international law one doesn't need a sovereign to be sovereign, which is why the Holy See remains a sovereign entity even between popes. This template, used for a wide range of different topics, should not be edited to fix one legalistic quibble that doesn't at all affect the reader's experience. CMD (talk) 22:51, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

My mention of the identity of the sovereign of Australia and New Zealand was merely in reply to the claim that "Australia and New Zealand have different sovereigns". Even if the Holy See and Vatican City State were the same entity with only a legalistic quibble distinguishing them (as you seem to say), the name used for that single entity should be the one that has designated the entity since even before the other aspect arose. But in fact, "the Holy See and the Vatican City are considered two separate entities or 'persons' in international law" (1); "this personality of the Holy See is distinct from the personality of the State of Vatican City" (2); "even when the Holy See did not exercise territorial sovereignty after 1870, it was nevertheless recognized that it had treaty-making capacity" (3). Esoglou (talk) 10:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

You keep repeating that the Vatican and the Holy See are different entities in international law, something I've at no point disagreed with and something that I've even repeated myself. Between the two entities, it is the Vatican City that gives the Holy See its territory, and thus its statehood, as opposed to just a sovereign personality (such as the SMOM). This physical presence makes it far better for this template, which can often deal with topics such as geography, transport, and crime, which don't make sense when compared to the Holy See. CMD (talk) 12:25, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

If the SMOM can be prevented from appearing in inappropriate contexts, such as geography, transport, and crime, so can the Holy See, surely? The Holy See is not a state and does not need to be a state nor to have a territory in order to be recognized as a sovereign person in international law, as was shown in the 1870-1929 period. Esoglou (talk) 17:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I wonder how can I add National and University Library of the Republika Srpska in Template National libraries of Europe (it always redirects me to this so I decided to ask here (: ). I saw that you have already talked something about it and I agree Republika Srpska should not be among dependencies and I do not want to do that. I want just behind Bosnia and Herzegovina put Republika Srpska in brackets like it is done in UK case. In particular it should look like this Bosnia and Herzegovina (Republika Srpska) or Bosnia and Herzegovina (Republika Srpska) because there are two National libraries (like in UK where they have even 5). You can find this template through one of the articles I linked here. I would do it myself but at the moment I can not make it right. Thanks everyone/enyone for help (: .--MirkoS18 (talk) 02:52, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Just undid an attempt to undo their addition. Let's see what was wrong with the previous table:

First of all, it includes Sicily but not Sardinia. Sicily is not a dependency, but an autonomous region of Italy. So is every other region in Italy. The only thing special about Sicily is that it is an island. Like Sardinia.

If Sicily and Sardinia are in, Corsica should as well. Even if legally it's just another French department. It is geographically, culturally, historically and biologically distinct. I'm planning to add a few lists of mammals and the large islands of the Mediterranean have their own set which is informative of their natural and human history (since most of them have been introduced by successive Mediterranean invaders). That alone would speak in favor of listing Crete, the Balearics and the Azores (the only autonomous Portuguese territory besides Madeira, if the lists of autonomous territories is right) as well. All of them large islands or island chains that have not been connected to the mainland since before mankind appeared and therefore are geographically and hsitorically distinct.

Lists like "lists of airports of..." an island or island chain would also be informative in their own right without the need of going to the longer home country list to look it up. The Azores in particular is one of the biggest hubs for air and naval traffic in the world, many of which never land in mainland Portugal.

Finally, the equivalent Africa table lists Madeira, the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla and the Plazas de Soberanía. Of all these, only the Plazas de Soberanía is really a dependency and not an autonomous territory. One might make the case that since neither Portugal nor Spain are based on Africa then it makes sense to list only their African territories in the table rather than the home countries. But then we have Turkey in the Europe table, for example. In short, I see no reason to list Madeira and the Canaries in the Africa table but no the Azores and the Balearics in the Europe table, when they are the exact same: a Portuguese and a Spanish autonomous island territory arbitrarially considered part of the continent in question.--Menah the Great (talk) 23:30, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The key principle here is to have the same links at Template:Countries of Europe, to prevent having the same debates in multiple places. Sicily was added a couple of hours before your edit. It shouldn't be included, it doesn't meet any criteria for being part of the template. Therefore, Sardinia, Corsica, etc, etc, also should not be included. On your final point, it's been the practice in the countries of... templates, where it may not be obvious why a country is listed, to list the component parts which form part of the continent in question. This in no way means that every autonomous part of every country should be included - but is certainly a debate which could be had there. Warofdreams talk 15:51, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

A link should probably be included to : Summer Time in Europe, but my skill does not extend as far as including it... Peregrine981 (talk) 12:42, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I removed Svalbard from this template some time ago, not primarily because of it's international status, but mostly because of the usage of this template. This template is used in a lof of "topic in Europe", where you in Template:Football in Europe get an automatic link to Football in Svalbard. Good faith editors will ofcourse try to create these article, and the recently created Football in Svalbard (which I got speedy deleted) stated that "there are no football teams in Svalbard). You also had the List of supermarket chains in Svalbard, which is linked from every other List of supermarket chains in Europe article, through this template, and that list had an impressive amount of 1 entry. This template is very useful, but when you include Svalbard, which international status could be discussed, you are bound to get a whole lot of non-notable articles about "topic in Svalbard" created by good-faith editors. I therefore suggest we remove Svalbard from this template. Mentoz86 (talk) 12:40, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Is there any need for this template to be displayed on Bankruptcy in the United Kingdom and Bankruptcy in the Republic of Ireland? It's just an ugly mass of red links (only those two are filled). I kind of doubt that somewhere someone is beavering away on a detailed description of Bankruptcy in Nagorno-Karabakh, and I'm not even sure that the exact legal concept exists in every country in Europe. --81.136.143.173 (talk) 10:33, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

The template may be worth it if the WP:Redlinks encourage development. If you feel that they don't, be WP:bold and remove it, or discuss it on their talkpage (or perhaps a wikiproject related to it). CMD (talk) 18:10, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

With this template and Parliament you get Parliament of Scotland. However, the modern parliament is at Scottish Parliament. I put this here because it's mostly a template issue, but I have no idea how it could be solved. Tombomp (talk/contribs) 20:01, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I think this template should have an option to exclude individual countries from being displayed. E.g. for maritime topics it doesn't make sense to keep showing redlinks for landlocked countries like Andorra or the Czech Republic. Or, AFAIK, some tiny states like Monaco or San Marino don't have any national parks, but ((Europe topic|List of national parks of|countries_only=yes)) is used on quite a lot of pages. So I could imagine optional parameters like |AD=no to exclude that specific list item. De728631 (talk) 13:29, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

This has gone on for too long. I have no ideal why people must keep adding countries like Armenia, which aren't even close to being in Europe, or Georgia, which has technically a few uninhabited square km in Europe, or Kazakhstan, which perhaps has some minor fraction of its empty steppe in Europe. This is ludicrous, and it simply just spams an already overcrowded template.

If people insist on nitpicking on this level, let them introduce a parameter opting into displaying this stuff. This template is used all over Wikipedia, and it is supposed to be for navigating, not for autistic nitpicking.

See also boundary between Europe and Asia. The classical transcontinental countries are Russia and Turkey. Russia is primarily in Europe but also substantially in Asia. Turkey is primarily in Asia, but also substantially in Europe. I accept that it may make sense to include Turkey here, even though Turkey is clearly and overwhelmingly an Asia country. There can be discussion on this in good faith. There cannot be such discussion regarding Georgia, or Azerbaijan (which may be in Europe to some minor fraction of a percent, but according to some definitions of Europe, 0%), let alone Armenia (which is in Europe to exactly 0%).

Introduce a separate section on countries which are not unambiguously partially in Europe (only according to the most expansive definition). These would include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia. Then let people opt into displaying them if they feel their article would profit and if the "Europe topic" in question doesn't just show up as redlinks in the first place. --dab (𒁳) 08:41, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are widely considered to be European countries - for instance by the BBC (see country profiles section at the bottom). They should probably be in both templates, but removing them from this one is a very bad move. Kazakhstan is like Turkey - mostly in Asia, but a small section is considered to be Europe - anything west of the Urals. Number 57 12:45, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Intended break

Please mind that my initial request and this whole section is not about the boundary between Europe and Asia. I suggested that we introduce the selective disabling of one or more countries for use in single navboxes. When the topic clearly excludes certain countries there is no need to display redlinks forever (or, e.g. until the Austrian Empire expands to the Mediterranean Sea again...) De728631 (talk) 21:03, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

When looking at the edit history, you see editors removing England to remove the redlink to "cabinet in England" or I express a wish above to remove Svalbard to remove redlinks to Football in Svalbard or List of supermarket chains in Svalbard, so this template should have an option to remove some countries when transcluded if it shall remain useful. Mentoz86 (talk) 09:49, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

England, the largest home nation of the United Kingdom, doesn't have its own parliament and government. The Parliament of England was the legislature of the former independent Kingdom of England and the article "Government of England" redirects to "Governance of England". We needs some treatment for those situations. --Wikipean (talk) 05:24, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

@Wikipean: can you be more specific? (1) the particular invocation of this template which is causing problems, (2) with a list of the false links? Frietjes (talk) 17:53, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Both ((Europe topic|Parliament of)) and ((Europe topic|Parliament of|countries_only=yes)) provide links to the historical Parliament of England and the modern parliaments of Scotland and Northern Ireland at the same time. On this note, I've been advocating separate switches in this template for each country/subdivision for quite a while. De728631 (talk) 22:19, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Parliament of Northern Ireland and Parliament of Scotland are historic as well, just not as historic. adding an optional parameter for each country/state/dependency/other would not be a problem. Frietjes (talk) 22:37, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

You're right about the parliaments, and that's already the second problem. The only appropriate link to show would probably be Scottish Parliament but we can't pipe anything in the template. But adding switches like |ENG=no would actually be a great step forward imo. Please see also the section called "Disabling specific countries" above. De728631 (talk) 00:18, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

instead of |ENG=no, my original plan was |ENG= which is cheaper in terms of parserfunctions, but the same basic idea. it would also allow you to input |ENG=[[Some link for England|England]] which is perhaps too much input freedom? so, we could go with |ENG=Some link for England, with blank to mean omitted entirely (although the same parserfunction cost as |ENG=no). Frietjes (talk) 01:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

So |ENG= would have to override the standard link to "<Topic> of <country>" that is automatically created by the template. And it should default to no output for that specific country if the parameter is supplied but is left empty. That way we could either supply alternative links or prevent the country from being shown in the final navbox. De728631 (talk) 17:34, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Rather than fiddling around with England specifically, surely a simpler, more consistent, and general solution would be to make the current "UK_only=yes" coding an opt-in rather than opt-out, so it can be activated for those rare events where they UK countries are more relevant than other administrative divisions (sports mostly)? CMD (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

That would be a good option, but Frietjes and I were also discussing this on a broader level with |ENG= as an example for any entry. De728631 (talk) 19:20, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

it should mostly work now. I used the ISO country codes for the parameter names. I only did the Sovereign states section, but can add the rest, I just need the letter codes to use for those. for an example, try ((Europe topic |List of |-related topics|BA=|CZ=|IE=|MK=|NL=)). Frietjes (talk) 21:48, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

note that |GB= shows unlinked text if |UK_only= is not set. Frietjes (talk) 21:49, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

2 letter ISO codes are available for all the dependent territories, AX for Aland, FO for Faroe, GI for Gibraltar, GG for Guernsey, JE for Jersey, IM for Isle of Man, SJ for Svalbard. EU is for the EU. If if doesn't have to be 2 letters, I suggest SMOM for the Knights of Malta. Unrecognised countries may have to be written out in full. CMD (talk) 22:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

okay, I added all of those, including SMOM. all we need now are some short codes for the six states with limited recognition. Frietjes (talk) 22:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

We have to go a bit into OR here, but I suppose it doesn't matter for our own template coding. For Abkhazia perhaps AB or ABH. AB is an unassigned ISO code, and their number plates have a cyrillic version of AB, along with ABH in Latin. Kosovo uses RKS on its numberplates. Alternatively if two letter is preferred, KS is unassigned and fits RKS well, but it seems 3 letters would be easier for these countries, and it highlights the difference. South Ossetia uses RSO on its numberplates. I'd suggest PMR for Transnistria, and NKR for Nagorno-Karabakh, as they're rather standard 3-letter abbreviations for those countries. Northern Cyprus is often abbreviated as TRNC, but NCY seems to be an obvious 3 letter abbreviation, adding N to the Cyprus CY code. CMD (talk) 23:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

That's great. Thanks a lot, Frietjes. Can please also update the documentation page, preferable the section about "Disabling dependencies and other territories"? De728631 (talk) 21:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

mostly done here. feel free to copyedit/clarify what I wrote. I still need to add the limited recognition ones, but it's mostly there. Frietjes (talk) 00:17, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

That's awesome. Would you mind adding the same feature at ((European topic)) too? De728631 (talk) 20:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

okay, added the feature to that one as well. Frietjes (talk) 21:36, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

So how do I remove just England and just from the Governments template? (There is no Government of England). Thom2002 (talk) 21:28, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Have a look at the documentation page. To remove any particular entity from the navbox, you enter the territory's name parameter without any input. The parameter for England is |ENG= so you should use ((Europe topic|Government of|ENG=)). De728631 (talk) 23:24, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks De728631. Sorry if I'm being terrifically dense, but doesn't that mean I'd have to change every article that calls the Governments of Europe template? Is there no way to disable this in the template code itself? Thanks Thom2002 (talk) 17:30, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, re-reading the documentation it looks like I would be better off making a new template specifically for Governments of Europe based on this one. Thom2002 (talk) 17:59, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

No, this template is just a shell that can be used to create all kinds of navboxes for a lot of different topics concerning the states of Europe, and that's why individual links have to be disabled for individual uses. As tedious as it may be you'll have to go through each page where the governments navbox is being used. But I just discovered ((Government of Europe)) which does the job you're looking for. It seems that it's not being used in a few articles where it should be, so all you'll have to do is replace the original "Europe topic" at some pages. De728631 (talk) 18:26, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Ace, thanks. Thom2002 (talk) 18:51, 14 December 2013 (UTC)