Wikivoyage

Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy

Geography is one way of looking at travel (there areother ways of seeing travel). The geographical hierarchy is the way we arrange Wikivoyage articles according to their geography – what areas they contain, and what area they are contained within. Each level of the geographical hierarchy has an article of its own.

Purpose

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The point of the hierarchy is not to nitpick about geographical niceties, but to organize our work. What do we write Wikivoyage articles about? What are the subjects of our discussions? What kind of article do I write about topic X? A hierarchy of geographical units allows us to use them to identify things we write about, and thus how we write about them.

For example, considerCatalonia.By understanding the hierarchy, a contributor can know that Catalonia is aregion.From there, they can figure out that the article about Catalonia should start with theregion article template;that it should contain links to cities in Catalonia likeBarcelona;and that there should be a link to the Catalonia article from its containingcountry,Spain.They also know whatnotto put in – that information about money should go up at the country level, and that listings for individual restaurants and hotels should go down at thecitylevel.

By having a hierarchy, we don't have to figure out this stuff over and over again for every region in the world. Sure, there will be exceptions for every place, but by having rough guidelines, we can have a framework to make those exceptions against.

These levels of hierarchy aren't hard and fast, and they're open to revision. But it makes sense for articles at a given level of hierarchy to have links to the next level down in the hierarchy, and for articles at the same level of hierarchy to be about the same.

Given that changes to the regional hierarchy often have a wide-ranging impact, it can be helpful to mention and discuss the proposed changes on thediscussion pageof the appropriate region.

The hierarchy

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The Wikivoyage geographical hierarchy goes like this:

Levels in the hierarchy can be skipped if they don't make sense. For example, the country ofAndorrais only a few square miles in size; it would be laughable to write articles about its different regions.

Continents

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Continentsare big sections of the globe. We've started withAsia,Africa,North America,etc., and a separate pseudo-continent ofIsland nations.There's not actually much practical travel information that can be given on, say,Asia,but it does provide a convenient container for the next level of hierarchy.

See also:Wikivoyage:Continent article template

Continental sections

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Asectionis a division of a continent into a logical travel part. Classic examples includeSoutheast AsiaandCentral Europe.Not all continents need to be divided into sections, and sometimes the sections chosen may be equivalent to national boundaries. For example, it's natural to divideNorth AmericaintoCanada,theUnited States,Mexico,andCentral America,even though the first three are all individual countries. In a few cases these can have sub-sections; theCaribbeaninNorth Americacontains theLesser Antillesand theLeeward Antilles,which consist of many countries and territories.

Countries

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Acountryis usually a sovereign state territory on the globe, likeDjibouti,France,orBrazil.Countries tend to be the level where information about currency, immigration, language, and culture are described. This level cannot be skipped.

Some countries likeMonacoorSingaporeare so small that they can be considered single cities. In these cases, omit headings like "Cities" and "Other destinations" and add city-level headings like "Go next"; if such an article grows large enough, divide it into city districts.

See also:Wikivoyage:Country article template

Regions

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Aregionis a subnational division that is climatically, culturally, geographically, or politically coherent. Regions may lie along subnational borders—like states in the U.S., provinces in Canada, or departments in France—but more often they are above this level. One could divide Vietnam, for example, into theNorth(Hanoi and environs), theCentral Coast(Danang, Hoi An, Nha Trang), theCentral Highlands(Dalat and nearby) and theSouth(Saigon and the Mekong Delta). Due to the diversity of regions, there is no single rule for regionalization, beyond doing our best to use divisions that areuseful for the traveler.

Importantly, we only add a level of regions when there is too much content in the existing breakdown. As a result, the regional hierarchy at Wikivoyage doesn't always follow the official breakdown—and frequently is much "flatter" than the official political or administrative breakdown. If there are more than nine cities or other destinations, but splitting into subregions does not otherwise make much sense, they can be grouped in the region article, to avoid overly long lists (seeArticle_templates/Sections#Cities).

It's not impossible for regions to cross national borders—theHimalayasis a good example—but the idea is to have travel divisions below the nation level. Also,bodies of waterare usuallynotconsidered regions, but exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis. Regions that do not follow the hierarchy are labeledextra-hierarchical regions.

For large countries, regions can and should contain other regions, to make it easier to grasp. For example, theUnited Stateshas 50 legal divisions – more, if you count territories like theDistrict of ColumbiaorGuam– which is probably too many bits for people to grasp all at once. We've divided the U.S. into 10–12 regions, each of which in turn contains one or more of the American states (which are themselves divided into regions). It may be reasonable to do this in other countries, although (as noted above) it's not always necessary to divide our regions along political boundaries.

Some territories are far from their associated country (French Guiana,Easter Islandetc), have special political status (Svalbard,Hong Kongetc), or claim sovereignty without wide recognition (Palestinian territories,Somaliland,Taiwan,Transnistria,etc). Wikivoyage's categorization of these territoriesshould make sense to a visitor from abroad;especially when it comes totransportationandborder controls.For instance,French Guiana's location inSouth Americais more relevant to most travellers than its political association withFrance,so it is described as a "country" in South America. WhileSvalbardhas a free immigration system and is in the Arctic Ocean far from mainland Europe, it is governed by Norway, and all regular flights to Svalbard arrive from Norway where passengers need to clear Norwegian border controls; therefore Svalbard is described as a region of Norway.TaiwanandTransnistriaare functionally independent countries with individual border policies, so they are described as countries. The status of an article does not imply any political endorsement; seeWikivoyage:Be fair.

See also:Wikivoyage:Region article template,Wikivoyage:Bodies of water,Wikivoyage:Extraregion

Cities

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Acityis, in reality, the unit of travel guide geography. It's where you arrive to, where you go see sights, where you find a hotel, where you eat in restaurants, where you move on from when you're done. Wikivoyage's definition of a "city" is flexible: they may be literal incorporatedcities,but they can also be largermetropolitan areaswith suburbs and satellite cities, likeLos AngelesorParis,or they can be smallertowns or villages,likeZermattorPanmunjeom.Occasionally a city-level destination article will cover a large rural area, serving as a container for multiple tiny villages, parks or islands. Whether particular suburbs, satellite cities, and villages deserve their own Wikivoyage entries is a matter of judgement – usually depending on the amount of information about those places. We have different templates to deal with cities of different sizes and complexity.

Most information in Wikivoyage will be about specific cities – the practical dollars-and-addresses info. SeeWhat is an article?for help in drawing the line between cities and attractions in cities, as well as dealing with non-settlement destinations like national parks.

See also:Wikivoyage:Small city article template,Wikivoyage:Big city article template,Wikivoyage:Huge city article template

Districts

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Somecitiesare so big and diverse that there's too much information for one Wikivoyage article. It would make sense, then, to divide the city again intodistricts,so that practical info – hotel listings, restaurants, bars, sightseeing attractions – can get their due. Examples of districts inSan Franciscowould beSan Francisco/Golden Gate,San Francisco/Tenderloin,andSan Francisco/Mission.

Whether to break a city into districts is a matter of content, not so much the city's land area or population.Lubbockis a big city geographically, but it just doesn't have enoughstuffto write about to justify classifying it as a "huge" city and breaking it down into district articles. As a general principle, a city with over a million inhabitants could be considered for districtification, but there are much bigger cities (e.g.Ibadan,KinshasaorBangalore) for which districtification does not assist the traveller and some smaller cities (e.g.Canberra,RichmondorCharlotte) that work better with it.

See also:Wikivoyage:District article template

Other divisions

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Many attractions, restaurants, and retreats do not fit neatly into the categories listed above. In particular, large rural areas (e.g.,Rural Montgomery CountyorWestern Barbados), in which individual towns do not merit their own articles—which would lead to an excess of articles, and content spread across too many separate pages—can benefit from having their own articles. Other divisions are essentially deliberate agglomerations of areas that don't fit into our city articles. Choose names for this section that best represent their nature: "regions" (note that this term in this casedoes not correspondto the region articles described above, which contain other articles); "rural areas," which obviously suit rural areas well; or "other areas" for cases that are not so neat. In some cases, it may make sense to treat a small city or town and its surrounding rural villages as one entity. If helpful, you may think of other divisions as "bottom level regions," in which listings are allowed.

Most "large, sparsely-populated rural area" articles will fit into theWikivoyage:Rural area article template,or inWikivoyage:Small city article templateas if they were individual towns or cities.

There are a few special categories of article which have their own specific template: theAirport Expeditionhas anairport article templateand a large provincial or national park may use thenational park article template.

Examples

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Here's an example of the hierarchical levels described above:

  • Asia (continent)
  • Africa (continent)
  • Europe (continent)
  • North America (continent)
    • Canada (country)
    • Mexico (country)
    • United States of America (country)
      • New England (region)
      • Midwest (region)
      • California (region)
        • Sacramento Valley (region)
        • Sierra Nevada (region)
        • Bay Area (region)
          • Berkeley (city)
          • Palo Alto (city)
          • San Francisco (city)
            • Mission-Bernal Heights (district)
            • Golden Gate (district)
            • Castro-Noe Valley (district)

The hierarchy of each article is automatically displayed in thebreadcrumb navigationmenu at the top of each article. For example, Castro Street's breadcrumb menu shows:

North America>United States of America>California>Bay Area>San Francisco>Castro-Noe Valley

Creating these menus requires entering the correctisPartOftag, seebreadcrumb navigationfor the details.

Dividing geographical units

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Dividing geographical units is something of a dark art. Use caution, consensus, and collaboration when possible. Some of the geographical units in this hierarchy are easy to decide on, in that they have legal boundaries: cities and countries, for example. Others are so well accepted that it's hard to imagine them being controversial, such as continents. But the others–continental sections, regions, and city districts–have fuzzier boundaries and definitions. How, then, do we decide where to define them?

Some guidelines are:

  • The 7 ± 2 rule.Our hierarchies work best with a moderate number of items at each level; a good target is around seven items, plus or minus two. With fewer than five items, the subdivision starts to appear inefficient and excessive; with more than nine, it becomes difficult for the reader to distinguish the individual items. As such, when the number of subdivisions exceeds nine, it's time to start looking at an intermediate subdivision. That's not to say we never exceed nine! Sometimes there's just no logical alternative division, particularly at the lowest levels of the hierarchy. Remember: when dividing regions, use a breakdown that is most practical fromthe traveller's viewpoint,even if that creates a hierarchy that violates the 7±2 rule of thumb.
  • Traditional definitions.Some regions or continental sections or districts have traditional definitions: theBeneluxcountries,The Lake District,the AmericanSouthwest.It's best when possible to follow these traditional groupings, as travellers will recognize them.
  • Political or legal definitions.Some countries are divided into states, provinces, counties, cantons or what have you by their governments. It sometimes makes sense to use these if they're the best way to break up a region, and when they're not so numerous they'd grossly violate the 7±2 rule. For example,Mexicohas 32 states—far too many to be top level regions.
  • Geography.Some areas have clear geographical features that are recognizable to travellers and dictate the kind of activities can be undertaken there. For example, theFinger Lakesor theSaxon Ore Mountains.
  • Language or cultural definitions.Some countries have clean divisions between language or ethnic lines. So, for example,Belgiummight be easy to divide into Dutch-speakingFlandersand French-speakingWallonia.

Districts in cities

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Deciding when the city should be treated ashugeand therefore needs districts articles is a bit tricky. It's easy to create dozens of district articles, but from this point it may become a nightmare to keep them organized and synchronized. This is why we have some recommendations on when to districtify:

  • don't start splitting a city into districts before there's enough content
  • don't create district articles until you have proposed a comprehensive districts hierarchy for the city, which has no gaps, no overlap
  • don't start moving out information into districts unless you have at least one contributor who is willing and ready to rewrite the main article sections, to give overviews with pointers to the most important and relevant information within the district articles.
  • avoid creating a separate district article until we have enough content for it
  • to breed content for a district(s), you can create a subsection for that district(s) in the respective section (See, Do, Eat, Sleep) in the main city article

Once we have enough content for creating a district article, we want to make sure it's clear where all the information goes. Prior to adding district articles:

  • define district borders for those districts that we are ready to separate; ideally have a map clearly showing districts and borders
  • post the district borders section on the city article's talk page

Once the new district articles have been created, all listings should be moved to district articles. Consider putting the template{{movetodistrict}}at the start of sections that need to be sorted into districts. This adds a message which encourages editors to move the content. Removemovetodistrictwhen the content has been moved out.

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The legal divisions in the geography of the world – nations, provinces, and municipalities – don't necessarily make for reasonable travel divisions. Just because a national government decides it would be easier to administer an area by laying down lines on an official map doesn't mean that the official legal divisions deserve separate articles in Wikivoyage. For example, the island ofBaliin Indonesia has 8 regencies, but a different regional structure is used instead.

Overlap

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In general, we try to avoid overlap between two destination guides, unless one destination contains the other. If we have overlapping guides, readers don't know where to go to get travel information, and contributors don't know where to put travel information. It's also easier to drawmapsfor a destination if none of the parts of the destination overlap.

No two regions at the same level of the hierarchy should overlap. Nonetheless, if a subregion is commonly understood as belonging to more than one parent region (e.g.,Russiais in bothAsiaandEurope) it is perfectly fine to list it in both parent regionsas long as this does not create significant content overlap.A region'sbreadcrumb trail,however, will display only a single parent region in a strict hierarchical fashion.

Occasionally a well-defined region will straddle a political boundary between two countries, states, or provinces. It is usually preferable to deal with these instances as a single region, rather than dividing them up into unnatural, small pieces divided by the imaginary lines of borders. We have a template forextra-hierarchical regions,things that are clearly regions but do not fit in our hierarchy; for instance:

  • Niagara Fallson the Canada-US boundary, andNogaleson the US-México border. These are covered by an{{extraregion}}plus a city article for each side.
  • Lake Taiin China has an extraregion article, and there are articles for about half a dozen cities around it.
  • Thousand Islands,a highly-rural mix of parkland, tiny cottages and the occasional isolated hamlet, is breadcrumbed toNorth Americaas it's split by theOntario-New York Stateboundary but is not populous enough to fill a Niagara Falls-style pair of city articles.
  • Mountain ranges often extend across borders, so articles likeHimalayasorAppalachian Mountainsare tagged as extra regions.
  • Many river systems do not get articles, and some of those that do get itinerary articles such asAlong the Yangtze River,but some get extra region articles likeGreat Lakes.
  • Some geographic regions take up the vast majority of their parent country or region, such as theLower Peninsulain Michigan andHonshuin Japan. These are tagged as extra regions and regions that divide up these extra regions are used in the hierarchy instead.

The extra region template should be used sparingly; not all regions that cross borders require it. Often it is enough to have one article in the main region that mentions the other regions.

Gaps

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Regions and districts breakdowns should never leave any gaps. Wikivoyage is a guide to theworld,and there should be a space to add content for travel advice on any destination on the planet.

Remote or inaccessible destinations

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Some remote destinations, especially oceanic islands and enclaves/exclaves, have no scheduled connections or hospitality venues; entrance might also be legally restricted. These are of little interest to the average traveller, but articles about them can have some trivia value. While these locations can be difficult to fit into the hierarchy, they should still go somewhere. The blurb of the superior article should tell the reader whether the destination is remote or inaccessible.

  • Antarctica,including surrounding islands, is described as a continent.
  • Some remote destinations, especiallyislands,go under theOther destinationscategory.
  • Overseas territories, which are distant from their parent country, are placed into regions along geographic (not political) lines.U.S. Virgin Islandsis breadcrumbed toCaribbean,not toUSA.
  • Crewedspacetravel, including the Apollomoonshots,is a special case; it might fitother destinationsor be treated as atravel topic.
  • A territory not too far from an associated country can be categorized as a region of that country: For example,Jan Mayenis described as a region ofNorway.
  • Some places can be described as part of a continental section.Europa Islandand theGlorioso Islandsare part of theEast African Islandsregion, on a secondary "countries and territories" list.
  • Isolated man-made structures such as Sealand, or very small islets such as ATOW1996 might be less suitable for a separate article, and might be described as a venue within a nearby destination or as an "other destination" of a region (these two inFelixstoweandNorthern Greenlandrespectively).
  • Next-to-impossible destinationsis a non-geographic list of many of these places, and that's where e.g. Rockall is described.

Linking articles

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Every city or other destination article should be listed in at least one region article, as it should be possible to navigate through the hierarchy to each and every destination article on the site.Cities,Other divisions,andOther destinationsshould be mentioned under those section headings in at least the surroundingRegionarticle. This should normally be the same article mentioned in theIsInorIsPartOftemplate.

Regionsshould be mentioned in both the next larger region up in the hierarchy and in all the destinations within that region.

WhenDestinationsare close to each other, but not in the same regional hierarchy, it is useful to mention them in each other'sGo nextsection.

Keeping it together

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Sometimes it may be better to keep things together rather than subdividing further. Do not create an article about a geographical unit just because someone has given a name to some part of the countryside. Geographical unit articles need to meet thecriteria for articlestoo. There should be enough scope in the article to have at least 4 or 5 good quality destinations or attractions, especially for regions.

See also

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