Template talk:Europe and seas labelled map

Kosovo

Please stop reverting the page to a map with Kosovo in the list of countries. Kosovo is not considered a country by the UN and a majority of UN states. Even the EU doesn't recognize Kosovo, even though some individual states do. Since Wikipedia doesn't care how many minority countries recognize a province or region (like South Ossetia, Abkhazia or Transnistria...), Kosovo is no exception. Official countries only, please :) --GOD OF JUSTICE 05:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Why doesn't "Budelberger" want to discuss, but is just reverting??? This is NOT the Wikipedia spirit. --GOD OF JUSTICE 16:48, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

« L'esprit de Wikipedia », laissez-moi rigoler… I disagree with the so-called independence of the Serbs Homeland, i. e. Kosovo, but the name is on this map since the beginning (June 18) ; you may add « Brittany », « Provence », etc. in France, « Silesia » in Poland etc., it doesn't matter (for me). Look at this template in another Wikipedia, e. g. this one ! --Budelberger (talk) 17:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC) ()

If this is true, why didn't you label other provinces of Europe? --GOD OF JUSTICE 20:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

HELLO? Budelberger? You just keep REVERTING without discussing!!!! --GOD OF JUSTICE 18:00, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

San Marino

Any reason why San Marino isn't marked on the map? —JAO • T • C 15:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Probably because its small and easy to forget.. I added it now though. Gabagool (talk) 16:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Great! —JAO • T • C 16:48, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Can Someone add jan mayen and the azores —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.185.14.174 (talk) 07:24, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

France, Portugal, Netherlands

As noted on the Europe page, these three states also have territories outside of Europe. Is there a reason why they are not marked blue?--141.161.133.117 (talk) 21:34, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, because they lie in Europe. The UK also has territories outside Europe. Now please do not vandalize the map again. Mathsci (talk) 10:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Just noting here that the UK does not have territory outside of Europe in the way that France, Spain, and the Netherlands do. They have integral territory in other continents, the UK merely has dependents. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:29, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

No, the Falkand Islands is a self-governing British overseas territory. So are the Cayman islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, Bermuda, etc. Mathsci (talk) 14:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes. British Overseas Territory. Not equivalent to Departments of France. The Falkland Islands are not part of the United Kingdom. French Guiana is part of France. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:54, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

There is Metropolitan France and France outre-mer (Réunion, etc). That's how they do things. How countries deal with former colonies is not the issue here. It seems that you are arguing just for arguing's sake at the moment. Mathsci (talk) 15:02, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, the issue that was raised was whether parts of the countries are located overseas. Yes, parts of France are overseas. Parts of the UK are not. Whether that means they get a different colour here is another matter, but the IP seems to think so. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The labelling is for transcontinental country, not overseas territories or dependencies. The IP has also edited other pages to do with Goergia, so is just being disruptive, I will request semiprotection. Mathsci (talk) 15:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

France is on transcontinental country. It's overseas regions are neither territories or dependencies, but full parts of France, as much as Corsica or any other region. I do however agree the IP is being disruptive. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It is a not a transcontinental country, which is a geographic statement. It's not a very good idea to disrupt wikipedia to prove a WP:POINT. You could try changing the article on transcontinental country, but that would contradict all WP:RS. Please calm down. Mathsci (talk) 15:24, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I haven't been disrupting, and it is indeed transcontinental, as it has integral territory in multiple continents. It has French Guiana in South America, Mayotte and Reunion in Africa, Metropolitan France in Europe, and Guadeloupe and Martinique in North America. Also, I don't see how I'm not calm. I'm trying to get you to address the IP's concern. So, when you say transcontinental, do you mean that it has contiguous territory stretching across continents? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:29, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I see that the normal words used are "contiguous" and "non-contiguous". So "spanning more than one continent" in this case means "contiguous territory". On Transcontinental country, lots of other territories of Spain, Italy, Portugal, are mentioned, but the intent of the map is to describe border countries or anomolies like Greenland, Cyprus and Armenia. I think we're in agreement about that. The footnotes for Asia were a great improvement, despite the small errors. This is what happens when matters connected with Georgia surface. Don't say I didn't warn you :) Mathsci (talk) 15:34, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Mathsci, I edit Georgia (country). Believe me, no need to warn me about the issues involved in that! That being said, I'll edit the footnote to note contiguouness (as this is what indeed makes the borders vague). Hopefully than the IP disruption will stop. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I do not envy you! Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 15:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Non-contagious Non-contiguous transcontinental states

Simply because there is no disagreement on what part of France is European and what not does not mean that it is not worth noting. There does not seem to be a disagreement that geographically Cyprus and Armenia are outside of Europe - at least that is what the footnote implies - so should we get rid of their color as well since there is no disagreement? I fail to understand your reasoning. I'm guessing your reasoning is based on "who would dare to say France is not European," as opposed to thinking that un important countries of eastern peripheries can be easily brushed off like ants.--141.161.133.153 (talk) 17:00, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The page will be semiprotected while you continue vandalizing it with different IPs to make a WP:POINT. I understand that you might be unhappy with the status of Georgia, but your proposed changes are just vandalism. Until the page is semi-protected, they will be automatically reverted as vandalism. Mathsci (talk) 17:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Meanwhile a fixed image has been moved temporarily to Europe until this page is semi-protected. Mathsci (talk) 17:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The countries of Europe which cross that undefinable boundary between whatever Asia and Europe are are much less clearly defined then say France. The location of Metropolitan France is obvious, and doesn't change with borders. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Reading the above discussion(s), I get the impression that the current debate is mostly about what are or aren't transcontinental states. Therefore, dare I first ask if anybody objects to the general idea that non-contiguous transcontinental countries are marked in red (or another color), leaving aside for a moment the question of which country should be in which color? --Skysmurf (talk) 21:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It might be useful to give a little background history. The code in this map was modified by me in April 2009 to explain the boundaries. That happened directly in the article Europe where I added and modified the code:

• [1] I add full code for labelled map in April 2009
• [2] I make modifications to map, including marking Aegean sea and introducing colour code and for different categories; other users later tweak caption to specify countries spanning Europe and Asia in April 2009

In September 2009, Hayden120 copied the modified code to the template and replaced the code in the article by the new template.

• [3] Hayden120 changes template to the version in Europe in September 2009
• [4] Hayden120 replaces my code with modified template in Europe in September 2009

The point of the map was to show one commonly taken definition of the geographical boundaries of Europe. There is no reason why countries with dependencies geographically outside Europe should be marked, as that is not the purpose of the map in the article. So far I am aware that Denmark, France, the UK, Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and the Netherlands have dependencies outside Europe. My suggestion is to mention this in a second footnote in the caption in Europe and on the template page itself, if people think that is at all useful. I'm not even sure how comprehensive my list is. For example I would not be surprised to find countries I haven't mentioned have some overseas dependencies. Again this has nothing to do with the purpose of the map. I'm not even sure present day overseas territories are even mentioned in the article Europe. (There is no mention at all except for colonisation and decolonisation.)

So my preference is for a second footnote in the caption without any change to the labelling on the map. Mathsci (talk) 22:12, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Norway has territories in Antarctica, which are therefore geographically not in Europe. I'll see if they're any others. Mathsci (talk) 22:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. The little history lesson puts things into a different context than became apparent from the debate. The footnote seems like a reasonable compromise, although I probably wouldn't mention specific cases but rather a more generic "certain countries", possibly with a link to List of countries spanning more than one continent#Non-contiguous.

However, if you allow me a bit of playing devil's advocate: you're using the word dependency in a somewhat generic fashion. Certain overseas dependencies of France for example are administered as integral parts of France. French Guyana, for instance, is actually part of the European Union! In other words, such places are more than just far-flung colonies. In mathematical terms, perhaps one could liken it to what I think is called in English a disjoint graph. I can understand that people feel such oddities should be pointed out.

Oh... Geography and politics, what a combination ;-) Speaking of which: nobody actually has possessions in/on Antarctica, so that doesn't really count. There are a couple of articles about the exact situation if you're interested.--Skysmurf (talk) 23:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

A little addendum: the U.K. is perhaps a bit debatable, because its overseas territories are officially not part of the U.K. (in practice, though...) --Skysmurf (talk) 23:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As I say there is no discussion in Europe of modern day overseas territories anywhere at all. The ambiguity with the UK (Falkland Islands, Bermuda, South Sandwich, etc, etc), France's special disctinction between DOM and TOM, Greenland as part of the Kingdom of Denmark—there is so much diversity that it is best dealt with briefly in a footnote with a wikilink to the appropriate article or articles. The map is about a geographical boundary, not a political boundary. It was created specifically for that article so any discussion outside the context where it is being used is really not very helpful. I'll try to think up a footnote, which is simple, accurate and informative (and of course completely uncontroversial, anodyne and neutral). Mathsci (talk) 23:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes it's hard to keep geography and politics separated :-) Anyway, this whole thing popped up on my screen as a potential problem, so I tried to help out. But apparently it's not as big a problem as it seemed and a good footnote should suffice. Cheers, --Skysmurf (talk) 00:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

List of countries spanning more than one continent seems to have a fairly lengthy list of countries, both contiguous and non-contiguous. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

And that is where is my list is from curiously enough (e.g. the Dodecanese islands in Greece). Norway is not mentioned there, but that article has some sourcing problems, as indicated at the top. The labelling in Europe only refers to countries that span two continents, because the purpose of the map is to show one commonly used version of the geographical boundaries of Europe.

Elockid on ANI said that he had considering blocking the IPs who've edited here, but that it was impractible. [5] Did you notice that discussion at all? Mathsci (talk) 22:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Elockid said that a range block is impractical, and I agree. I declined your protection request because, as an uninvolved person coming in and examining the edits, it appeared the IP's edits were good-faith attempts at establishing consistency with List of countries spanning more than one continent. I have no opinion about the necessity of doing this, although I think your proposal of a footnote should be an acceptable compromise. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It is unclear whether the IP-hopper has been editing in good faith. Certainly he wasn't when he was blocked 4 days ago. Mathsci (talk) 00:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Footnote seems like a reasonable solution but it is beyond me why you think a footnote will be sufficient for countries like France and not for countries like Georgia and Cyprus. In other words, if for France a footnote can be a substitute for coloring of any kind, why cannot we do the same thing with Cyprus and Georgia without coloring them in rainbow colors?--213.186.218.140 (talk) 00:02, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The map is about geographical boundaries and border countries spanning Europe and Asia contiguously. Overseas territories/ex-colonies are a quite different matter (Réunion or the Azores). Only countries where there is some ambiguity as to whether they are in Europe or not are colour-coded. There is no ambiguity about France or Ukraine (for that matter) being geographically in Europe. Mathsci (talk) 00:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

No Mathsci, there is nothing on this map that suggest that it exists only to show borders between Europe and Asia. If transcontinental countries need to be noted, all of them must be noted regardless of their "contiguousness." It seems that you and Chimpunkdavis are using the "contiguousness" justification with great frequency, including on the List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe page where I first noticed this nonsense. As you can see on the provided link, by far not everyone is agreement with your selective listings. I get an impression that you all use every possible little technicality to exclude countries based on your personal preferences, otherwise the map will become too colorful and the whole point of marginalizing peripheral countries using colors will be lost.--ComtesseDeMingrélie 19:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

If you read what I wrote about the history of the map and how it came into being, you will see that the map was created within the Europe article two years ago and then transferred here a few months later. So the context is provided in the article, as already stated. The footnote in the caption there has been slightly expanded. That part of Europe is impeccably sourced. I don't quite understand what point you're trying to make. Does it have something to do with Georgia? Mathsci (talk) 21:08, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, of course it has everything to do with Georgia. Georgia and other countries have been removed on the List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe based on the very same reasoning you are pushing here.Sometimes I wonder whether there is a conspiracy of several users against me just to push their narrow point of view. Go to Georgia talk page and you will see the most recent example of that.--ComtesseDeMingrélie 22:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi there,

For starters, let me point out that I am fairly indifferent to Georgia. Don't love it, don't have it, never been there, hope to visit it sometime. To me it's just another country and I am not biased by hatred, patriotism or whatever.

As Matsci pointed out earlier, this map is purely geographical, not political. I for one have no problem per se with countries such as France and the Netherlands being marked as transcontinental, but I also think that the difference between contiguous and non-contiguous is notable for one very simple reason: (non-European parts of) contiguous countries are on this map, whereas the overseas parts of non-contiguous countries aren't (unless you can point out, say, French Polynesia on a map of Europe, good luck with that). That is why countries such as France and the Netherlands are dealt with in a footnote but countries such as Georgia and Turkey are in a different color. Again: this map is about geography, not politics (although admittedly the two can sometimes be hard to seperate). I don't know exactly what the problem is with List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe, but that article is subject to politics so other considerations may apply there and I won't comment on that.

P.S. If you wish to mark countries such as France and the Netherlands as transcontinental, then please at least be consistent and mark all those countries, you left out several! --Skysmurf (talk) 00:01, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Greenland is just an overseas dependency of Denmark, listed under "special territories". It isn't any different from the Falklands other than that it incidentially happens to fit on this map. In fact, Greenland has left the EEC as soon as it was allowed to.

I don't have an opinion on what should or should not be labelled on this map, but the three entites currently labelled in green aren't comparable.

• Cyprus is not in Europe but it is a full member of the EU
• Armenia is not in Europe and not in the EU, but it is a member of the Council of Europe
• Greenland isn't in Europe, it is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. It isn't in the EU or the CoE or anything like that.

Other issues with the map:

• I have yet to see a reference confirming that Franz Josef Land is somehow part of Europe
• I have yet to see a reference confirming the Azores are somehow part of Europe
• if Greenland may or may not be "Danish", the Canary Islands are certainly Spanish. If Greenland has any claim to being labelled, so do the Canary Islands.
• the Greek islands off the coast of Asia Minor (Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos, Rhodes) are indicated as "geographically European". This is completely unsubstantiated, and without any rhyme or reason. These are the remnants of Greek territories in Asia Minor, and they cannot be placed "in Europe" simply because they happen to be Greek.

--dab (𒁳) 14:15, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Country with limited recognized

I found among the countries with limited recognized, only Kosovo is showed on the map, i suggest that the map should also include the countries with recognized with at least one UN member in Europe. Or, move Kosovo away from the map. I think the situation of Abkhazia, Northern Cyprus and South Ossetia also should be inclued, Jiangyu911 (talk) 03:06, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Well you missed out Cyprus and Armenia who have limited recognition too. Also it is unfair to group Kosovo together with Abkhazia and Northern Cyprus ect as they're only recognised by a very small amount of countries. Kosovo on the other hand is recognised by over half of the world's countries, is a member of a growing amount of international organisations, sporting federations and is an active member of the international community; Abkhazia and Northern Cyprus are nowhere near this. I have also noticed that you have opened this discussion and removed Kosovo without consensus. Why bother opening this discussion if you're just going to remove it unilaterally? Build a consensus first per Wikipedia:Consensus. IJA (talk) 16:43, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I apologize for removed Kosovo without consensus.That was my fault, i have been on Wikipedia for a long while but still like a new comer, sorry. However, i would like to disscuss more. I think what be shown on this map, should be all relevant entities of the continent of Europe, it seem like you mean only countries with recongnation of more than half of the world nations could be shown here. But i noticed that Faroe Islands, a dependency of Denmark and not a Sovereign state,is shown here, but Abkhazia and South Ossetia not, which are de facto indenpendent and with at least recognition of one UN member. And, what i find interesting, is Taiwan,like Abkhazia and South Ossetia,only recognised by a very small amount of countries, is shown on the Template:Asia Labelled Map. So, i would like to add all countries with recognition of at least one UN member to this map, or just show UN members. Or, we follow what you said, only countries recognised by over half of the world's countries and growing amount of international organisations, sporting federations and is an active member of the international community can be shown on this map, i will delete Taiwan on that template, course if do not have the recognition of half of the world countries. Jiangyu911 (talk) 17:08, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for seeing sense that there is a difference between recognised by so few countries that you can count them on one hand and being recognised by over half the world / many international organisations. The Faroe Islands is a recognised territory, no-one disputes this. I don't really deal with Asia, but if you want to remove Taiwan, then you should take it to the talk page first before deleting it without consensus. IJA (talk) 17:15, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the first question to answer is whether Cyprus, Abkhazia and South Ossetia are in Europe. The colouring of the map suggests they are not (but in Asia instead), which makes this discussion irrelevant here. Arnoutf (talk)

On the map, Cyprus is green because it is culturally European as it was part of Greece but it lies geographically in Asia. For the sake of the argument, lets say Abkhazia and South Ossetia are countries. Abkhazia would be green because it is considered European but geographically outside Europe's boundaries. South Ossetia would be blue because part of it lies in Europe and part of it lies in Asia. IJA (talk) 10:37, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually I'm mistaken, South Ossetia entirely lies in Asia, however it would be deemed culturally European. IJA (talk) 10:40, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Contiguous transcontinental states... arbitrary criteria?

I question how the states being "contiguous" makes them more special than states which also have territory outside of Europe but are not contiguous? Also Turkey is not contiguous by land given there is an ocean straight in between its European and Asian side, although maybe this is close enough to be regarded as "contiguous" since they are adjoined by Turkish territorial waters, which are part of Turkey.

Portugal and Spain each have territories quite close to Europe (Madeira and the Canaries) but both are situated closer to Africa. These aren't contiguous transcontinental states, but they still aren't entirely in Europe. The Netherlands and France also have fully incorporated territory outside of Europe.

But the only issue I have with the distinction between "contiguous" and "non-contiguous" is that it is arbitrary. I think the actually reason we are wanting to distinguish these states is because a large portion their territory is outside of Europe, unlike Portugal, Spain, France and the Netherlands. Possibly an alternative would be "states with a majority of their territory outside of Europe". This would result in the same states, but not be based on an arbitrary criteria.

Thoughts?

Rob984 (talk) 15:42, 4 August 2016 (UTC)