Talk:Gran Valira

Spain Stub‑class

	Spain portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spain, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Spain on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SpainWikipedia:WikiProject SpainTemplate:WikiProject SpainSpain articles
Stub	This article has been rated as Stub-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Correct name is Gran Valira

The request to rename this article to Gran Valira has been carried out.

If the page title has consensus, be sure to close this discussion using {{subst:RM top|'''page moved'''.}} and {{subst:RM bottom}} and remove the {{Requested move/dated|…}} tag, or replace it with the {{subst:Requested move/end|…}} tag.

There is no river in Andorra called "Valira". The largest river is called the Gran Valira. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 19:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Evidence? — AjaxSmack 02:28, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion follows below (I would have replied here, but for some reason I didn't see your question before I replied). 91.187.66.243 (talk) 01:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Oppose Without evidence or an explanation I fall back onto WP:ENGLISH for this one. But I an willing to change if the name is shown to be the most prominent in English.--Labattblueboy (talk) 12:59, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment — "Gran Valira" is the official name used on local maps of Andorra published by the Andorran Government, as well as on tourist maps of Andorra written in the English language, published by the Andorran Ministry of Tourism, and the guide to Andorra (p.4), published by the Andorran Government's Department of Statistics.

"Valira" is ambiguous because there are three main rivers in Andorra with Valira in their names: the Valira del Nord, the Valira d'Orient, and the Gran Valira. The printed maps are in copyright and cannot be copied here, but the same dataset is used on Google Maps showing the Gran Valira and the other Valiras too.

It is fair to say many internet sources are not particularly reliable and do not distinguish between the different Valira rivers in Andorra. I'm not sure what the best solution is. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 01:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link to the guide to Andorra. I'm still curious as to why the usage on other interwikis (ca:Valira, es:Valira, fr:Valira) doesn't reflect this. What is the usage in Spain where the river flows for roughly half its length? The Spanish article implies that the name "Gran Valira" is only used in Escaldes-Engordany. — AjaxSmack 20:31, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I too am curious about the usages on other wikis and in Spain. fr:Valira is a direct translation of es:Valira and is almost identical to it. Both articles state that the name of the river in Andorra after the confluence of the Valira del Nord and the Valira d'Orient in Escaldes-Engordany is Gran Valira (Spanish) / Grand Valira (French). I don't see anything in es:Valira that says the name Gran Valira is only used in Escaldes-Engordany; I think it says it is the name of the river after Escaldes-Engordany. The creator of es:Valira also created es:Gran Valira. I think the distinction between the Valira and Gran Valira made in the content of all of these articles, albeit not in their titles, is identical to that made by the Andorran Government in its maps. By contrast, ca:Valira makes no distinction between Valira and Gran Valira, and perhaps this is not surprising (see next paragraph for why) given that it appears from its editing history to have been written by Spaniards, not by Andorrans. There is of course no Andorran wiki.

Regarding the usage in Spain — more specifically in Catalonia — there is a popular series of Spanish maps published in Spain by Rando Éditions. The latest December 2001 edition of their 1:50000 map of Andorra–Cadí based on survey data of the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya (an institution of the Catalan Government, the Generalitat de Catalunya) uses Valira both for the Spanish part of the river in Alt Urgell and for the Andorran parts of the river up to the Escaldes-Engordany confluence. Whether this is the result of a printing error, ignorance of the Andorran names, or Spanish custom is not clear and needs further investigation. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 01:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Spanish Berga 1:200000 geological map of the area, calls it Rio Valira, without any "Gran". It marks the branches as mentioned above and other smaller tributories. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:40, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is that map published in English or Spanish? And do you have the full title of the map? Per WP:ENGLISH, we should prefer English-language sources in determining what is the common name. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 00:12, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Summary of reliable sources

English-language sources — country of publication

English (Andorra) The Guide to Andorra (p.4), published in English by the Andorran Government's Department of Statistics, uses the name "Gran Valira" to refer to the 12km length of the river inside Andorra from the Escaldes-Engordany confluence to the Andorra–Spain border, and it does not mention any name for the 12km length of the river inside Spain.
English (Andorra) The tourist maps published in English by the Andorran Government's Ministry of Tourism use the name "Gran Valira" for the 12km length of the river inside Andorra from the Escaldes-Engordany confluence to the Andorra–Spain border, and they do not cover the 12km length of the river inside Spain.
English (USA) Google Maps uses the name "Gran Valira" for the 12km length of the river inside Andorra from the Escaldes-Engordany confluence to the Andorra–Spain border, and no other name is shown for the 12km length of the river inside Spain from the Andorra–Spain border to the La Seu d'Urgell confluence with the Segre.

Non-English-language sources — language (country of publication)

Catalan (Andorra) 1:50000 map and other scales including 1:2500, Andorran Government's Ministry of Town Planning, latest edition 2009, uses the name "Gran Valira" for the 12km length of the river inside Andorra from the Escaldes-Engordany confluence to the Andorra–Spain border, and they do not cover the 12km length of the river inside Spain.
Catalan (Spain) 1:50000 map of Andorra–Cadí, Rando Éditions, December 2001, uses the name "Valira" for the 12km length of the river inside Andorra from the Escaldes-Engordany confluence to the Andorra–Spain border, and also for the 12km length of the river inside Spain from the Andorra–Spain border to the La Seu d'Urgell confluence with the Segre.
Catalan (Spain) 1:200000 geological map, Berga, uses "Valira" for the 12km length of the river inside Andorra from the Escaldes-Engordany confluence to the Andorra–Spain border, and also for the 12km length of the river inside Spain from the Andorra–Spain border to the La Seu d'Urgell confluence with the Segre.

Please add additional reliable sources in the appropriate sections above using the same format.

The main difference between these reliable sources concerns the name of the river inside Andorra from the Escaldes-Engordany confluence to the Andorra–Spain border. Official Andorran Government sources published in English and Google Maps say "Gran Valira". These sources seem to me to take precedence over Spanish sources published in Catalan or Spanish that use the name "Valira" for the 12km length of river inside Andorra. If the article is re-titled "Gran Valira", it should probably mention "Valira" as being the Spanish name. What do other editors think? 91.187.66.243 (talk) 00:12, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]