Talk:North Rhine-Westphalia

Osnabrück

I deleted the sentence:

The northern part of the former Westphalia including Osnabrueck|Osnabrück is a part of Lower Saxony.

Osnabrück was a part of Westphalia before 1815, but afterwards these northern parts were divided between Oldenburg and Hanover and did never become a part of the Prussian province of Westphalia. I will add more details on this to the Westphalia article. -- Cordyph

name

Shouldn't this article be either called Northrhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine-Westphalia? Or does the English language allow to write things like that (it looks rather strange)? -- Sandman 10:04, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sandman is right. The correct translation is North-Rhine Westphalia. North and Rhine linked by - and with a space to Westphalia. I don't know who initiated the new spelling. Any dictionary (Webster's, Oxford) can tell you that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Singularity Rider (talk • contribs) 20:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

List of major cities

As far as I know, cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants are referred to as "major cities".

Iserlohn is not and has never been a major city - it has always had less than 100,000 inhabitants (some 90,000 plus). Witten has had more than 100,000 inhabitants once, but at present time, it has only some 99,000 plus. Therefore, it is no longer a major city. So I took Iserlohn and Witten off the list. I've added Moers (Kreis Wesel), which is a city near Duisburg that (still) has a little more than 100,000 inhabitants. All the information that I give here can easily be checked by visiting these city articles in the German Wikipedia. (Check the box at the right: "Einwohner" means "Inhabitants" - the present numbers are listed there).

I've also corrected the alphabetical order. By the way, the official name of the city of Mülheim is "Mülheim an der Ruhr". The name "Mülheim" is common for German speakers, but actually incomplete. I have NOT changed that, since I do not know if the link would still work then. Maybe, someone would first have to change the name of the Wikipedia article called "Mülheim" into "Mülheim an der Ruhr". I don't know how to do that.

--79.253.219.218 (talk) 22:58, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Someone was too fast!

Minister President Peer Steinbrück is still in office! The Jürgen Rüttgers will be elected by the new Landtag soon - there is no direct election of the Minister President in NorthRine-Westphalia! --85.74.154.165 20:20, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Districts ?

Are the German "Kreise" really to be called "districts" in English language ? What about "counties" ? As the "Regierungsbezirke" are Bezirke, these should be called "districts" in English language - any oher opinion ? Henning-GM 1 July 2005 21:40 (UTC)

There seems to be no standard translation of "Kreis" - when I joined WP years ago User:Cordyph had already started with the Kreise of northern Germany, and he had used the word "district" at first. You are right that county is the equivalent of a Kreis, but that doesn't mean it has to be the translation. The bad thing about "District" is that it's both used for "Kreis", but also for "Stadtbezirk" (otherwise also called borough). However moving and changing all occurances of district to county (or whatever else) would be quite a task - there are 400 Kreise, plus much more references to them. andy 1 July 2005 21:47 (UTC)

A Pleeding for counties:

The correct description for a Landkreis seems to be County. The Deutscher Landkreistag calls itself German County Association. This really makes sense. In the context of the EU the federal system of Germany is structured as follows: 1) municipalities, which are local self-government bodies 2) counties, which are also local self-government bodies 3) districts, which are only an administrative level of the administration of the Bundesland, therefore they are better called “regional district” 4) federal states also called regions in the European context or land This wording is used in the European context by the German County Association, the German Association of Town and municipalities and the German Association of Cities which are the official representatives of the local government bodies. This Nomenclature makes a clear differentiation between the self-government bodies, which are granted by the German constitution and the merely administrative level of the regional district. According to this definition the kreisfreie Stadt should be called County Borough. The term County Borough, even though it is now historical, describes perfectly the fact that this is a city or town independent to a county and with the self-governance competencies of a county. Therefore I have changed this article. --Gereonmc (talk) 17:19, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

official english name

The official name is North-Rhine/Westphalia (see: [1]) Can the article be renamed to this? --ALE! 13:03, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Whether official or not, the most common spelling is "North Rine-Westphalia". I can't see anything beneficial in the "official" spelling -- on the contrary, the slash indicates that Westphalia was an alternative name for North Rhine. Hence, I'd keep it as it is. -- H005 19:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Then let's leave out the slash. The way it is written now reads as "North [something]", which is wrong as "North" only applies to "Rhine". "North-Rhine Westphalia" would be a perfectly proper English compound name that used the hyphen to denote what "North" is associated with. 134.130.4.46 21:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I just saw North Rhein-Westphalia at the BBC's website. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/1053880.stml Has anyone seen something like this before? --M9IN0G 19:55, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The reference on the official name North-Rhine/Westphalia mentioned above changed to http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/de/Infoservice/Terminologie/Bundeslaender/Englisch.pdf --araffals 19:28, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Since this Wikipedia only uses the official names of public entities, and since there exists an official translation for Nordrhein-Westfalen, this article should be renamed to North-Rhine/Westphalia. The current article name as well as the mentioned BBC-version are simply wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Henning Blatt (talk • contribs)

That depends if you trust an "English" translation by a German. I've worked in the translation industry long enough to know that I wouldn't.

"BBC-version" is wrong too

"North Rhine-Westphalia" is completely wrong. I think noone disagrees. So I suggest to move the article to North-Rhine/Westphalia or al least to North-Rhine Westphalia. Opinions? Henning Blatt 14:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The current status quo is fine as is. Think about the alternatives:

• North-Rhine Westphalia sounds like Northern Westphalia on the Rhine (Nord-Rheinwestfalen)
• North-Rhine-Westphalia just doesn't look that great.
• North Rhine/Westphalia lets the unknowing reader think the place has two names. (Nordrhein / Westfalen)
• North Rhine-Westphalia still gives the best rendition of the German name imo, namely "North Rhine" (Nordrhein) - "Westphalia" (Westfalen), which is as close to the original meaning as it gets.

Besides, heck, if people can't agree on anything, just move the whole mess to NRW and be done with it. :P

doco (☏) 15:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Question - is it the case that all German lander have an OFFICIAL English language name as well? If not, then surely the page heading should be the German language name, with perhaps the English version in brackets if in popular usage. Any thoughts?

Yes, please read http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/de/Infoservice/Terminologie/Bundeslaender/Englisch.pdf . BTW the official name of this Land is now North Rhine-Westphalia, so no further action is needed. --ALE! (talk) 08:23, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

--- The "official name" mentioned here seems to be just a lazy translation by a German with no sense for syntax or for the English language. The first level division here is between NR and W, only the second level is between N and R. Thus "N R-W" is just plain wrong, whereas "N-R W" would be fine. Someone needs to protest against this blunder by the German Foreign Ministry and, while this blunder persists, make it clear that they can't be taken seriously as a source of name translation. -- Hartmut Pilch 87.163.96.112 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:06, 11 January 2012 (UTC).

Pader

The link to the river Pader points to the wrong page. There is actually no page for the river Pader. Should this link be deleted?

No, but changed. Will do so in a moment. -- H005 19:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

History

sorry if this doesnt belong here, but I'm not good at posting official stuff so I'd just like to mention that someone should post about the battle in the Teutoburg Forest under history in this article.

May 22, 2005 state election results

Is this important enough for a Wiki article? I am not sure ... --Weissmann 12:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The current parliament belongs into the article, but a list with just the number of seats for each party and a short mention of the changes to the previous elections is IMHO enough. The detailed table and the graphic much better fit into the sub-article on these elections, were they are already anyway. andy 20:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I fixed the results - the FDP entry was missing a pipe character. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.44.229.67 (talk) 16:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

population density

northrhine westphalia (to my knowledge) has the highest population density in all of europe (if you disregard Monaco). It has 529persons/km2, which is higher than South-Korea. A comparision with Taiwan would also be nice: same area, comparable population, both are highly industrialised. -- ExpImp^talkcon 02:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Was denn Nun, wieviele Schulden hat denn NRW?

118.000.000.000 Euro Landesschulden Christlich Demokratische Union Freiheitliche Partei Deutschland

• http://www.wdr.de/themen/politik/nrw03/lrh/080602.jhtml?rubrikenstyle=politik

151.758.000.000 Euro Landesschulden Christlich Demokratische Union Freiheitliche Partei Deutschland

• http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Presse/pm/2008/06/PD08__203__713,templateId=renderPrint.psml

194.66.226.95 (talk) 10:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

language problems

I suggest that a native English speaker edit this article. The meaning of the German-English isn't always clear.124.197.15.138 (talk) 19:56, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Might help to be a little more precise. —mnh·∇· 01:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The state consists of five administrative regions

whoever wrote this then goes on to say the state has three parts?? gosh what kind of parts??

would the author of the article give a proper definition and accounting of the divisions of the state as recognized by the german govt. and drop the 'depending on the concept used' crap and add the previous portions of the state in a historical section or a separate page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sthomper (talk • contribs) 12:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article be either called Northrhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine-Westphalia? Or does the English language allow to write things like that (it looks rather strange)?

are you confused about the title? get a german map and change it if it isnt correct??

are you the english kaiser anyway??

no. just a liar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sthomper (talk • contribs) 12:14, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Why are you so confused about it? Besides from any arguments given above, I like to explain it to you, though I'm not a native speaker. The name consist of two parts.

• a.) the northern parts of Rhineland. Like in "Northern Ireland" or in "North Carolina" cardinal directions and regions are neither connected with hyphens in the English language nor the words are merged. This holds true for other prefixes like "New" (New Delhi, New York) or "Old" in most cases.
• b.) the second part is Westphalia. If not connected by words like "and" (e.g.: Bosnia and Herzegovina) or "upon", geographical names that describe unified or joined regions are often connected with hyphens. This imitates exactly the state's name in German, too. Examples in the English language: Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area, Minneapolis – Saint Paul, Ark-La-Tex

Hope you got my points. I'm not saying that these are strict rules, but North Rhine-Westphalia is far from beeing an extraordianary wording.--TUBS (talk) 09:56, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

besides that: the land was founded by declaration of the British administration after WWII under the name of North Rhine/Westphalia, as one can read in the original 1946 document, which doesn't mean that this is the official translation.--TUBS (talk) 09:59, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The common name in English source is North Rhine-Westphalia, as in Britannica and supported by many other sources. They can be detaile dhere if there is further confusion. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:31, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, hyphens "are mostly used to break single words into parts, or to join ordinarily separate words into single words". I think the "separate words into single words" applies here. In the title of this section, it's called "Northrhine". These two words are usually seperated like in North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota and South Dakota. Kingjeff (talk) 21:07, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Politics section

The politics section is proportionally long - also considering that it has a seperate article. The subsections Responsibility of the Landtag and Legislation as well as Election system and Latest election results seem want to be grouped or structured differently. Maybe some sentences want to be outsorced into the specific article? --ZH2010 (talk) 17:20, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Any section that also has it's own article should be condensed while the article on the specific section should be more detailed. Kingjeff (talk) 17:59, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Architecture

Ok, i have just grouped the whole lot of architecture images into 3 groups. dont know if thats well representative for all regions. --ZH2010 (talk) 22:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)