Talk:Municipalities of Sweden

This is the discussion/talk page for: Municipalities of Sweden.

Conversion process[edit]

The articles covering Swedish municipalities are currently not possible to distinguishe from articles covering cities from which they have received their names. Even if many of the municipality articles still are little more than stubs, there is a value in being able to distinguish between the city and the geographically larger, political entity, that is the municipality. The intention is to achieve this by moving all of the 290 municipality articles from the current naming format "Karlshamn" to "Karlshamn Municipality". Links relating to the municipality will need to be disambiguated, but the majority of the links will need no disambiguation as they refer to the city rather than to the municipality. There will be a process where by the articles are moved and the cities and towns separated to their own articles. During the stages of this process it will not be possible to continously update the municipality lists and because of this the will be suspended and replaced by the Category:Municipalities of Sweden, which always will contain an updated list of the process.

The lists affected are:

The Municipalities of Blekinge County have been converted and can regarded as a form of display case of the conversion. -- Mic 14:50, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The templates planned for each of the municipalities are covered in two WikiProjects: WikiProject Swedish municipalities and WikiProject Swedish cities. -- Mic 08:47 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Munis vs. cities[edit]

The following discussion, from User talk:Fred chessplayer, was considered to be of general interest and copied here in order for the discussion to be continued in a forum relevant to the topic of conversation. / Alarm 13:37, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your effort to create pages for all Swedish municipalities, but why are the city names redirects to these articles? The cities (e.g. Varberg) are capitals of their municipalities (just like Stockholm is the capital of Sweden), but they are not identical with the municipality. People tend to know if they live "in Varberg" or "outside" but in the municipality. Right now, Skänninge has an article of its own, because it is not the center of its own municipality, but belongs to Mjölby Municipality, but Mjölby hasn't got any article of its own. Shouldn't there be three articles for Mjölby, Skänninge, and Mjölby Municipality? --LA2 21:33, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Well if you want to write a separate article about the town, go ahead. The alternative is to gather all the municipal towns and villages into one article until there is enough material to warrant separate articles. --Fred-Chess 09:47, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

I would prefer that the municipality articles contain only information about administrative details and that article titles like Strängnäs contain history, culture and all that. The municapities are fairly recent innovations after all.

On a side note, what's with the capitalization? "Municipality" isn't exactly part of an official name. It should be Mjölby municipality for example. My bet is that this is another one of Mic's lingering excentricities, like all the latinization and ideas about "the Realm of Sweden".

Peter ^Isotalo 14:47, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you are correct about the last statement, Peter. I have been wondering a little about that too, but prefer not to change it at the moment.

I also agree with your first suggestion. It will require quite some work though.

--Fred-Chess 14:20, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I want to add that this need not be done to all municipalities. With cities in the list Cities of Sweden it could be done to all (except Gothenburg Malmö Stockholm and except if the article is still quite small, less than one page, so not to make two stubs of one stub). But -- with the municipalities that actually are recent inventions from the 1970s, please don't do such a divisioning yet. --Fred-Chess 21:39, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Actually I think "X Municipality" has to be taken as a translation of "X kommun", which should be treated as a compound proper noun. I had a similar discussion with User:Nixdorf a while ago, when he moved Uppsala Cathedral to Uppsala cathedral. I pointed to the example Uppsala universitet, which has an uncapitalized u in "universitet". while the official English name is Uppsala University. If you check other examples of official English names for Swedish government agencies, all the main words are capitalized.

As for municipalities, Lund uses City of Lund, with a capitalized "City" in mid-sentence.[1][2] Likewise is City of Malmö used on the city webpage here. Stockholm seems to use City of Stockholm or "City of Stockholm municipality"[3][4]. I take this as a way to deemphasize the municipality part in relation to the "City" part of the name; it should not be taken as a part of the name, just as they don't like "kommun" in the Swedish name. City of Stockholm is clearly what the city (or its political leadership) wants to be known as, just as it is "Stockholms stad" in Swedish. Falun actually uses "the municipality of Falun", or "the municipality of Falu", in either case with an uncapitalized m.[5]. I looked at a couple of more (Bollnäs, Piteå) and they mostly avoid the issue by just using the name. Some smaller municipalities seem to use capitalization in English where it does not belong (when it refers to general concepts, such as some "Folk High School", rather than a specific, named folk high school) and even in Swedish ("Piteå Kommun") where it is definitely not standard, so I am not sure it can be taken as authoritative for any type of Wikipedia standard.

Anyway, what about simply using "City of X" for those that insist on that usage, and "Municipality of X" for the rest? It avoids the issue of capitalization in the article titles. It should be made clear somewhere, and linked from each "City of X" article, that the modern Swedish use of "city" is related to but still distinct from the historical use, when it actually meant something to be a city. up◦land 07:57, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your suggestions Tups, always a pleasure to see well thought out ones.

Yes good suggestions. Some thoughts in my mind. #1: should we move Stockholm to "City of Stockholm"? I think not -- but I would be happy to change the name on top of the infobox... (Alarm disagreed with me on that on the talk page :-) #2 you are in disaccordance with other wikipedia articles. See Category:Municipalities of Denmark for instance. #3 I will be moving articles to "Municipality of X" then..? #4 "Lindingö stad" (off. name of Lidingö) and similar kommun names are confusing, but perhaps "City of Lidingö"? Or just Lidingö?

--Fred-Chess 08:14, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we don't need to move these articles, and I certainly see no reason to move Stockholm to City of Stockholm: the point of using the latter is really only if we need to disambiguate between Stockholm (historic city) and Stockholm (contemporary municipality/city). Personally I am not sure it is necessary to do so, but I thought that you were about to make such a split for other cities. Actually, I think we can mostly keep things where they are for the time being. up◦land 09:51, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Being back again from a well-needed break, I'd like to weigh in on this.

I am very much against using "City of X" or "X City" as an alternative for "X Municipality" in article titles (redirects are of course fine!). Although official use is a factor in naming Wikipedia articles, I think it would be confusing for non-Swedes to use two different terms in article naming for what is entirely the same concept. As we all know, the concept of "stad" in Swedish is rather fuzzy and "kommun"/"municipality" is the official term on a general level. Furthermore, even "Stockholms kommun" is frequently used in Swedish, although maybe not by the municipality itself. The uniform use of "Municipality" would also mean that problems such as "Lidingö stad" are avoided.

As for the capitialization in "X Municipality" I'm quite sure it is correct, for the reasons suggested by Uppland. Note that we use capitalization in "X County" (which corresponds to the use in articles on specific U.S., UK and Canadian counties). Most Danish municipality articles seem to be simply at "X", a rather common practice for countries that haven't seen a thorough effort to create articles for all their administrative divisions. The Danish articles named "X municipality" seem to be the ones that don't follow Wikipedia capitalization policies.

As for the choice between "X Municipality" and "Municipality of X" I can't see much reason to change the current standard form, although I must confess I haven't really thought about it. Anyway, I think this should be carefully considered and discussed (preferrably at Talk:Municipalities of Sweden, with a note pointing there posted at WP:SWNB) before any moves are made. Can anyone give some relevant examples from other countries and/or policy/project pages on this? / Alarm 18:21, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fred, I happened to notice that you moved Västerås Municipality to City of Västerås yesterday. How come? Should this be interpreted as an intention to move all other articles on municipalities calling themselves "City" to "City of X"?

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I can't see that this has been discussed anywhere except above on your talk page, where I dropped you a note saying I was very much against such a plan just the day before you moved the Västerås article - to which you haven't replied. Considering the fact that you scolded Bishonen and Peter Isotalo for not getting the chance to comment on the renaming of Scania to Skåne (an operation which had actually been discussed at some length in a largely relevant forum) I am somewhat surprised by your actions. Could you please engage in discussion before moving any other articles in a similar fashion? (Perhaps the discussion above could be copied to Talk:Municipalities of Sweden and continued there, to make it easier to find for anyone interested in the issue at hand.) / Alarm 12:58, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hehe good point -- you spot my double morale. Well, there is no such place as a "Västerås Municipality" so at least that can't be right? There is however a "City of Västerås", which is also "the municipality of Västerås" , but I preferred the first. --Fred-Chess 13:04, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

End of text copied from user talk page. Discussion continues on this page only. / Alarm 13:37, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"X Municipality" must be a name right? So "Västerås Stad" could hardly be translated into "Västerås Municipality". It may however be called the "municipality of Västerås", But note should be taken of the municipal official name "Västerås Stad". At least "Västerås Municipality" can not be right. Other suggestions are: "Västerås City"; "City of Västerås", "Västerås municipality" (incorrect grammar really), and "municipality of Västerås". --Fred-Chess 13:10, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

I would value some consistency. Please see my comments above. I think it could well be argued that "Västerås Municipality" is the most logical English name for an article about the municipality, including its surrounding non-urban area. I take it that you mean that since the municipality uses "Västerås Stad" this should be regarded as the only existing proper name, excluding the possibility of a capitalization of "Municipality". I (and, it seems, Uppland) don't necessarily agree with you on this (I'd like to check what the Government uses), but I would definitely have "Västerås municipality" as my second choice, rather than "City of Västerås". (I can see you've been moving a large number of articles from "X Municipality" to "X municipality" as well, and I can't see any trace of broader discussion about that either.)

My point is that all the municipal articles have been placed at "X Municipality" for quite some time. The only thing I've seen users arguing for is that the articles about the urban areas are covered in separate articles titled "X" only. This, in my eyes, is a kind of consensus around "X Municipality" as the title for all articles on municipalities. I don't exclude the possibility that there are better alternatives, but before starting to move things around a thorough discussion should be held. If we can reach a rough consensus for another alternative, all municipality articles ought to be moved in a swift and coordinated effort, to avoid confusion and inconsistency. / Alarm 13:37, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sure move the discussion.

Well, I have admitted to have been acting inpolite about the Skåne / Scania issue, so that is no justification of not doing it.

Those names I have changed I have done due to names used on official pages. Thus it seemed pointless to keep Västerås Municipality. Without that information, the arguments of Uppland and yourself do not matter, and needless for me to wait for your approval first. See http://www1.vasteras.se/english/ and see the name of the first link.

Once again my point is: Västerås Municipality is not correct, consensus or not, there is in this case a better alternative. I am not suggesting moving articles as a general rule. And yes, I will continue to move articles if there are better alternatives. Also note that many moves are done after splitting them up first, so City of Västerås is only about the municipality.

--Fred-Chess 13:47, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, Fred, but are you actually saying that as long as you think another title is better you will move an article, even if there is no consensus for a move and vocal opposition? If so, I'm rather surprised. Anyway, I don't agree that the arguments of Uppland and myself do not matter. You seem to confuse what a municipality chooses to call itself with an official name. Since the municipal institution is regulated by the Swedish government, the names used in central government documents might be considered equally or more important - but I have yet to check those out (which I intend to do). I just wanted to stop you from embarking on a mass-move operation before such arguments could be thoroughly vetted. I'm not dead set against any change of policy - but I can't see the hurry in overturning a long-standing principle which has arguably worked reasonably well. Alarm 14:45, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nope... I'm not going to move if there is opposition.

I actually thought that the official name of the municipality was , e.g. "Västerås Stad". If you are correct in it not being so, then matters are changed.

Okay I will not move any more municipal articles, until it has been confirmed how it is. (But I will still do the split between e.g. "Västerås" and the municipal article, "Västerås Municipality". I think this should be done to all former Cities of Sweden, but not to necessarily to small recent municipalities such as Emmaboda.

I will consider "X Municipality" used in the same way as "X County" -- capitalized.

Fred-Chess 15:24, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Fred! As I've written before, I'm all in favour of branching off an article about the urban area (e.g. "Västerås") from the "X Municipality" articles, and that the major cities should be on the top of the list for such changes. So we're on exactly the same page there. As for the rest, I'll look more closely into the matters as soon as I can and get back on this. Anyway, I'm sure we can reach a workable consensus solution - it's the Wiki way, after all. / Alarm 22:02, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The facts are as follows:: In Sweden there is since the municipal reform in 1971 only one type of municipality, called in Swedish "kommun". Most municipalities contain rural as well as urban areas, and there is no administrative difference whatsoever between "town" and "country".

Some municipalities, which derive ther names from former chartered towns or cities, dislike this order. Therefore they prefer to call themselves "stad" (city) sometimes including large rural areas in the "city". This is not really illegal, but it is not recognized by government agencies. The government decides over the names of municipalities. At present there are 13 out of 290 municiplities, which call themselves "stad". But in all official contexts the proper term for all municipalities is kommun --Andhanq 19:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting maps-images[edit]

03-Sep-2007: Many people are asked to edit articles, without an intro session explaining formatting of images + text. An image reference ("[[Image:mypic|right|thumb|170px|My caption]]") can have screen placement "right" or "left" or "center" to control text-wrapping alongside the image. When tall, vertical navigation-boxes appear in an article, then using image-parameter "left" will allow text to wrap between the image and righthand nav-box; however, standard Wiki format tends to avoid squeezing text between images, so try to keep side images very small (such as 170px) when wrapping text along a nav-box. When placing map images in an article, there is a tendency to want the map large to cross-reference against the text; however, maps can be a nuisance to experts who don't even need the map at all, so embed maps as smaller images and allow "click to enlarge" as a separate window, for other users to switch between the article & map windows for cross-checking. Putting giant maps in an article can be less informative than encouraging side-by-side windows of article against click-enlarged maps, as a technique of cross-referencing data against maps. Outsiders who've never seen the map might prefer a giant map, but balance that against local people who don't need such maps at all, and keep maps as "click to enlarge" smaller size. -Wikid77 08:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Municipal populations[edit]

Some editors STILL confuse the populations of municipalities with the populations of the seats. As an example: Kungsbacka Municipality has a population of about 71,000, but in the town Kungsbacka only some 18,000 persons live. That might sound odd to some, but nevertheless it is the fact. The cities, towns and other localities of Sweden are NOT local government units, but parts of municipalities which include several loacilities and also rural areas. There are 1940 localities, but only 290 municipalities. --Muniswede (talk) 23:10, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merger ?[edit]

Someone has proposed that the article Stad (Sweden) should be merged into this one. I don´t think that's a good idea. Since 1971 a stad (city or town in Swedish) is NOT a type of municipality, but a non-administrative built-up area. Therefore the article could just as well be merged into Urban areas of Sweden. As this fact still seems to be hard to understand for some, I think a separate article describing it is necessary. --Muniswede (talk) 23:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Muniswede. 'Stad' as a historical form of local government deserves its own article. It can easily be edited in such a way that the difference between 'Urban areas', 'Municipalities' and 'Stad' can be made clear. I'll have a go at it soon. --Pepijnk (talk) 00:08, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Stad and Kommun is NOT the same thing. Also all "kommuner" are definately not Urban areas as MuniSwede suggest - some ar VERY small when looking at a population of maybe 7000 people in a VERY large geographic area and spread out over several smaller villages. A Kommun is a Kommun - period!. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.55.123.83 (talk) 20:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly do not know why the above unsigned user attacks me. I did certainly NOT say that "kommuner" are urban areas. Just the contrary. Urban areas in Sweden are non-administrative. Up until 1971, however, one type of "kommun" was called stad (which is the Swedish word for city or town). The fact that many of the städer included large rural areas (Kiruna was the ultimate example, called the largest "city" of the world) was one of the reasons why the system with different types of municipalities was abolished alltogether.--Muniswede (talk) 21:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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