 | This essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion. |
| This page is an essay on notability. It contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more WikiProjects on how notability may be interpreted within their area of interest. It has not been accepted as a Wikipedia policy or guideline, though it may be consulted for assistance during an AfD discussion or when considering creating a standalone article. The degree of consensus that went into creating this essay (a potential measurement of the reliability of the advice) can be judged by consulting the history and talk pages.
WikiProjects are encouraged to write essays on notability. Please update the page as needed or discuss it on the talk page. |
On Wikipedia, the notability of some geographical places is sometimes called into question. The purpose of this page is to define the existing consensus on geographical article inclusion, to avoid wasting time on unnecessary AFDs, and to provide general guidance to those wondering about the notability of a given piece of geography.
- Populated, legally-recognized places are, by a very large consensus, considered notable, even if the population is very low. It is important though, when notability is challenged, to reliably document that a place is legally recognized in some way. Examples include government recognition of the place as a municipality or region, or recognition by a government agency such as the United States Census Bureau as a place (in this specific case, it would be called a census-designated place). AFDs of articles where no one disputes that the place legally exists are almost always closed early by overwhelming consensus to keep.
- Defunct legally-recognized places are considered notable.
- Populated places without legal recognition are considered on a case-by-case basis. This includes unofficial neighborhoods, subdivisions, business parks, housing developments, "regions" of a state, etc. The lack of an official charter and legal boundaries and other documentation means that we will have to weigh the quality of non-official information on a place to determine notability. For example, a named subdivision that takes up part of a county, but has no formal legal boundaries, will be notable if evidence can be shown of substantial non-trivial information about that subdivision.
- Named geographic features are usually considered notable. This includes mountains, lakes, streams, islands etc. The amount of sources and notability of the place are still important, however. If little information beyond statistics and coordinates is known to exist for a named geographic feature, there is probably not enough verifiable content for an article. Rather than deletion, these articles should be merged and redirected to a more general geographic article. For example, an article on a river island where there is no information available except the name and the location should probably redirect to the article on the river.
- Micronations are not considered inherently notable, and sources must be presented to establish their notability.
- Disputed regions are considered on a case-by-case basis. The validity of the claims is generally less important than the quality of reliable sources available and the notability of the disputed region. It may be more appropriate to merge these articles to ones on a broader conflict or political movement, or to merge articles on multiple disputed names for the same region into one article.
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