This document details guidelines for the formatting of constituency articles. They are not considered rules as such, but are provided to ensure that all articles of this type remain consistent.

Article name[edit]

To ensure consistency and avoid confusion with other uses of the geographical names, it is suggested that the following suffixes are used for all constituency articles:

(UK Parliament constituency) – for UK constitencies.
(Scottish Parliament constituency) – for constituencies of the Scottish Parliament.

A redirect or disambiguation page entry must always be provided from the basic name.

Article names should use and, not &.

Layout[edit]

The layout of constituency articles should be standardised to create a common theme. The infobox should be placed at the top right.

==Boundaries==
==History==
==Members of Parliament==
==Elections==
==See also==
==References==
==External links==

Infobox[edit]

There are two types of infoboxes in use in constituency articles, one for infoboxes with one map (Isle of Wight, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and London) and one for infoboxes with two maps (rest of England).

One map

For constituencies with one map, use this:

((UK constituency infobox alt|
 | Name = Official constituency name
 | Map = Image of constituency at 200px
 | Type = Either 'County' or 'Borough' ('Burgh' for Scotland)
 | Entity = What the constituency is shown in on the map - e.g Scotland/Wales/London/Northern Ireland
 | DivisionType = What entity the constituency is in. e.g: [[Subdivisions of Scotland|Council areas]], [[Ceremonial counties of England|County]] for London etc. (see examples)
 | Division = List of entities the constituency is in
 | Year = Year of creation
 | MP = Current MP
 | Party = Party
 | EP = European Parliament region
 ))

Example:

((UK constituency infobox alt|
 | Name = Cardiff Central
 | Map = [[Image:CardiffCentralParliamentaryConstituency.png|180px|Blaenau Gwent]]
 | Type = Borough
 | Entity = Wales
 | DivisionType = [[Preserved counties of Wales|County]]
 | Division = [[South Glamorgan]]
 | Year = [[1918]]
 | MP = [[Jenny Willott]]
 | Party = [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrat]]
 | EP = Wales
 ))

See examples at Cardiff Central, East Lothian and Ealing Southall - /Progress

Two maps

((UK constituency infobox|
 |Name = Name of constituency
 |Map1 = Name of map (of constituency)
 |Map2 = Name of second map
 |Entity = What the second map is
 |Type = Type of constituency: 'County' or 'Borough'
 |County = Ceremonial county the constituency is in
 |Year = Year of creation
 |MP = MP's name
 |Party = Party
 |EP = European Parliament region
 ))

Entity sometimes differs from county - sometimes the constituency location is shown in non-ceremonial counties, e.g. Avon, Humberside Examples:

((UK constituency infobox|
 |Name = Newbury
 |Map1 = Newbury
 |Map2 = Berkshire
 |Type = County
 |Year = [[1885]]
 |Entity = Berkshire
 |County = Berkshire
 |EP = South East England
 |MP = [[Richard Benyon]]
 |Party = [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]]
 ))
((UK constituency infobox|
 | Name = Great Grimsby
 | Map1 = GreatGrimsby
 | Type = Borough
 | Map2 = Humberside
 | Entity = Humberside
 | County = Lincolnshire
 | Year = [[1295]]
 | MP = [[Austin Mitchell]]
 | Party = [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]]
 | EP = Yorkshire and the Humber
 ))

Great Grimsby
Borough constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Great Grimsby in Humberside
Location of Humberside within England
County	Lincolnshire
Current constituency
Created	1295
Member of Parliament	Austin Mitchell (Labour)

First few lines[edit]

The name of the constituency, and the parliament it belongs to (UK, Scottish, Welsh etc).

For infobox examples, see Newbury or Wokingham. The constituency will in fact be either a Borough constituency or a County constituency, you may mark this from latest boundary review legislation or agreed proposals but only as a note: ((#tag:ref|A [[county/borough constituency]] (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)|group= n))<br>((Reflist|group=n)) will go at the bottom of the article, to ensure that notes in this form appear (footnotes).

Sections[edit]

The following sections should be present at a bare minimum, preferably in the following order:

Boundaries

A brief description of the boundaries. If this section is short but can be expanded use ((sect-stub)).

The seat has electoral wards:

(list wards) in the Metropolitan Borough/borough/district/county of xxx

Group those which start with the same town name as this was why they were designed in that format e.g.: Borchester: North, South, East and West wards, Burford, and Castleford.

History

This section should be used to describe the history and politics of the constituency, and any elections of note (close elections, prime ministers, 19th and 20th century cabinet ministers, resignations etc).

Constituency Profile

This section is optional. A telling statistic as to how deprived, affluent or another distinctive demographic statistic, such as many elderly people, or very high/low levels of people with ethnic minority backgrounds may be quoted here if based on all of the wards in the district on the latest census, or in a published compilation from a reputable source.

Members of Parliament

A listing of members should be given in chronological order. A table can be used, for example:

	Member	Party
1987	John Smith	Social Democrat
1992	John Smith	Liberal Democrat
1997	Chris Smith	Labour
2001	John Brown	Conservative
2005	Jimmy Wales	Monster Raving Loony

if the list is incomplete use ((expand list)) at the bottom.

Elections

See Template:Election box for more detail, the following is a brief overview:

Several templates are used to generate the election tables, taking this example.

General Election XXXX: Constituency Name
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	A. N. Other Party	Mr Foo	1,234	5.6	+11.1
	Women's Party	Joe Bloggs	321	1.2	−2.2
Majority			18,449	44.5
Turnout			41,475	77.8	+15.8
	Women's Party hold		Swing	+0.2
	Women's Party gain from Independent		Swing	−0.2

Election box title

((Election box begin | title=[[UK general election, XXXX|General Election XXXX]]: Constituency Name))

Give the year/type of the election and the name of the constituency (as given in the article title).

Election candidates

The templates allow parties to be given coloured sections. Note the following when listing candidates:

candidate – Use the format firstName lastName based on WP:COMMONNAME. Do not include titles, as per WP:HONORIFIC. Respect WP:BLPPRIVACY for non-notable living candidates. For elections yet to be held, order in alphabetical order by surname; for past elections, order by descending number of votes. For (pre-1950) seats with multiple members, put the name of the elected candidate(s) in bold.
votes – Use commas to separate each thousand mark. i.e. 1,234 not 1234.
percentage – Do not put % after the number (it is implied by the columnheading).
change – Use + or − (−) for each entry. Again do not use %.

Election box majority

For elections that have passed give the number of votes and size of the majority in percent.

Election box turnout

For elections that have passed give the number of votes cast, the percentage of the electorate that turned out, and the change in turnout from the last election.

Election results

Use one of the following depending on the election result:

((Election box hold with party link))

winner – Name of the winning party.
swing – Swing in the votes.

((Election box gain with party link))

winner – Name of the winning party.
loser – Party to lose the seat.
swing – Swing in the votes.

Election box end

Finish the table using ((Election box end)).

References

Please cite your sources.

Include

for any footnotes