Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/06/Category:Historical subdivisions by country

Category:Historical subdivisions by country

Is Category:Historical subdivisions by country redundant with Category:Former subdivisions by country? If not, what should go in each, and should one be the sub-category of the other? Themightyquill (talk) 09:13, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@Themightyquill: They are redundant. I do not see the need for either, as I am not sure that 'former' items should be segregated from 'current' items. If I am looking for an item, I should not have to have pre-existing knowledge of its current status in order to find it. None-the-less, that is a very different discussion, and so long as they exist, I support merging 'historical' into 'former' here. Josh (talk) 16:34, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

@Joshbaumgartner: Sure, but if you're looking for a map of the current provinces of a country you want to make sure you're not looking at a map of the provinces that haven't been used in 20 years. =) Sometimes the type doesn't change but the quantity, borders and names change a lot. - Themightyquill (talk) 18:57, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

@Themightyquill: Agreed, but not sure how this cat structure would assure me of this. An old map of the United States may not have even the current number of states represented and state borders may not be current, but I can't see it getting placed in Category:Former subdivisions by country as the states shown are still going to be current states. There are several states and provinces which are 'current' (they exist today) but maps of which from the past would show very different borders than their current ones. In that case you get 'obsolete' maps in the 'current' subdivision tree. My understanding was that Category:Historical subdivisions by country would be for subdivisions that no longer exist as such today. As for particular maps, they are a snapshot in time and should have their date of creation (or at least date they are intended to illustrate) clearly identified so users can know how relevant they are to what they are looking for. I suppose we could have 'current maps of X' to split these out at that level, or some such, if someone felt it was needed. At any rate, these categories are for the subdivisions as a whole, not just maps of them. For now though, do we merge 'historical' into 'former' or 'former' into 'historical'? My preference is for 'former' as it seems more clear for an entity like a subdivision, but I'm not strongly decided. Any preference? Josh (talk) 23:47, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

 Comment: I don't know for other countries, but for Italy historical subdivisions are not necessarily "former" subdivisions. They are just the way how a certain region of space within a city is commonly called by people since long time ago, even if it has never been an official subdivision of the city. See for instance it:Quartieri di Napoli#Altri toponimi. --Horcrux (talk) 20:28, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@Horcrux: Thanks, that's useful. That is certainly a difference that we might try to protect. But currently, Category:Former subdivisions of Italy seems to contain many similar categories, no? So if that's the intended distinction, we're not doing it very well at the moment. - Themightyquill (talk) 07:09, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Themightyquill: You are absolutely right, a big (and, possibly, coordinated) work should be done in this direction.

I'm going to link this thread to the Italian village pump and the WikiProject Italian Municipalities on Italian Wikipedia. --Horcrux (talk) 09:35, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Actually the matter was developed like a leopard's spots, thus when the frame became clearer there were already two different category systems often overlapping. The problem is not having both category trees, is rather confusing "historical" with "former". "Historical" deals IMHO with a obsolete concept of country, like i.e. the Roman Empire, the Ancient Greece, the Ancient Egypt, and so on; "former" is about a country that has basically the same features of a today's country but is no longer in existence, i.e. USSR, Austrian-Hungarian empire, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Ottoman Empire, and so on.). -- SERGIO ^{(aka the Blackcat)} 12:41, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me, that you are using "historical" in place of ancient, no? - Themightyquill (talk) 19:03, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Themightyquill: Not necessarily "ancient", but more like "traditional". Taking the category Mergellina‎: it was a former fishermen town called Mergellina‎. Then it was embedded in the city of Naples, but too small to be a district (which is Chiaja. Nevertheless, the area is still called "Mergellina" and is a very well identified part of the city. It is kind of an unofficial district, but with an historical ground. We should maintain this distinction only for undisputed names (but maybe in English "Historical" is not the right word. --Ruthven (msg) 15:14, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I note that Category:Historical regions is a category of Category:Former locations, and Category:Historical regions of Italy is a subcategory of Category:Former subdivisions of Italy but not of Category:Historical subdivisions in Italy. Category:Historical subdivisions in Italy is a sub-category of Category:City subdivisions in Italy but doesn't specify city in its title. These Roman and Neapolitan subdivisions seem not totally different from Category:Quarters of Paris. Obviously, "quarters" doesn't work in the italian context, since they are the actual functioning subdivisions. - Themightyquill (talk) 11:02, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

@Themightyquill, Ruthven, Blackcat, and Horcrux: : Coming at this from a somewhat different direction, I see there is a distinction between Regions and Subdivisions:

1. Regions are any defined area regardless of its official standing.
2. Subdivisions are territories which are officially demarcated by an administrative authority, whether under a separate local administrative body or for administration by a larger administrative body.

Thus the current categorization of Regions under Subdivisions seems backwards, but that is a topic for another CfD. In reality, all subdivisions are regions, but not all regions are subdivisions. This should apply for those specific to a property such as 'historical' or 'former' as well.

The other dichotomy we face is between 'former' and 'historical'. Are they the same or distinct?

1. "Former" appears to be more applicable to entities that no longer exist, intimating that they had a distinct end at some point. This kind of clear-cut definition is very applicable to legally-constituted and defined entities such as subdivisions.
2. "Historical" appears to be more about the context of a region's definition, implying that the region it is applied to is primarily defined in a historical context, though it may still technically exist currently.

Based on this, I have a hard time seeing a purpose for historical subdivisions as a class. Subdivisions are officially defined entities, and that official definition is either "current", as it is an actively maintained definition by some government authority, or it is "former" in that it used to be actively defined but no longer is. "Historical" does not seem to apply to subdivisions, except as another way to say "former".

However, this is a different story when it comes to Historical regions which makes a lot of sense given the nature of the much broader category Regions.

Thus I would recommend discarding Historical subdivisions (yes, I note that the parent category does not even exist) and deviding their contents between former subdivisions and Historical regions as appropriate, as we can see with the examples yet raised:

• A place like Mergellina that Blackcat brought up is an excellent example to work with. It clearly is a region, not a subdivision, as its definition is not a specified delineation of government administration, but instead a cultural and historical one. It is primarily historical in context as today it has been absorbed by larger entities. However, of course it still exists per se. Thus I think it is very appropriate to categorize it under Historical regions, but not under former subdivisions. It is not apparent, but perhaps if indeed it was at one time officially defined as an administrative territory by one of its previous governments, then it would also belong under former subdivisions.
• The quartieri of Italy mentioned by Horcrux also are interesting. Some of the quartiere are former subdivisions as they (at least the original 12) were officially defined in 1779, however, their number and existence outlasted their official demarcation, and thus the 30 that later existed are Historical regions also. These were morphed into (again official) circoscrizione from 1980 to 2008, and those belong under former subdivisions. They have since morphed again into municipalita which are current subdivisions.

 Comment Throughout all of the above, I am using terms 'region' and 'historical' in their generic sense. Obviously, some governments use the name "region" as part of their naming of subdivisions, which can be confusing.

TLDR: Split Historical subdivisions by country between Former subdivisions by country and Historical regions by country as the first is a conflation of the later two. (see principles) Josh (talk) 07:43, 8 February 2023 (UTC)