Talk:Belgrade

Belgrade Fortress

The corect is Belgrade Fortress and kalemegdan Park... not Kalemegdan fortress —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.86.45.239 (talk) 15:16, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

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Demographics

There is definitive misunderstanding of what "city" means. According to official Serbian statistics data, population of Belgrade is as follows: Territorial unit of City of Belgrade (Град Београд) 1576124 Urban settlements (Градска) 1281801 Other settlements (Остала) 294323 Belgrade-urban area (Београд-насеље) 1119642

Urban Belgrade (continuous area of urban development) has 1,119,649 inhabitants. Political boundaries of "City of Belgrade" are much broader and include other municipalities/towns/villages as well as agricultural land (total area is enormous, 3,222.68 km² (1,244.3 sq mi) vs. for instance Greater London, which is 1579 km² (609 square miles) with 8M inhabitants) and cannot be regarded as one urban entity. My suggestion would be to correct numbers for "City", "Urban", and "Metropolitan area" should be defined. BR, --Plantago (talk) 09:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Third, or fourth largest city in South-Eastern Europe

I removed Athens, which was listed in the lead-in as second largest city in South-Eastern Europe, for Athens isn't even the top 5 (Istanbul, Bucharest, Belgrade, Sofia, Zagreb, and then Athens, if I'm correct). --Robster1983 (talk) 18:16, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

what about the danubian cities. isn't Vienna larger or higher in population!? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.217.34.139 (talk) 13:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Nope. Sorry. 89.216.129.253 (talk) 14:25, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Oldest Architecture is from 18th Century - False

The fortress of Kalemegdan and its various parts greatly predate the 18th century. Bajrakli Mosque also dates from the 16th century as well.

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "bglib" :
  • {{cite web|url=http://www.beograd.rs/cms/view.php?id=201255|title=History (Liberation of Belgrade)|publisher=Official website|accessdate=2007-07-10}}
  • src
• "beligrad history" :
  • [http://www.beligrad.com/history.htm How to Conquer Belgrade - History<!--Bot-generated title-->]
  • www.beligrad.com/history.htm

DumZiBoT (talk) 11:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

250,000

Are you sure about that? I don't think that there could be that much people in the Ottoman imperial army back in the days of Kanuni Sultan Süleyman. More rational numbers must be pronounced as a normal campaign force would be just over 100,000 people during the 15th and 16th centuries. Remember, European style large infantry armies wouldn't be available in the Ottoman Empire until the 19th century. Deliogul (talk) 11:17, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Problem with origin in the introduction

The information of the founding of the city and naming by Celts does not match the citation (11, currently) which refers to the Romans giving the city, nor does it seem to cohere with the rest of the related information in that section nor with the history section. I would correct this to what 11 does say, except it would still differ, especially with the previous information and its citation 10, which is in Serbian (?). Neither citation seems to bear much authority. Buirechain (talk) 15:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Seemingly inappropriate sentence in Geography section

The first sentence of the second paragraph in the "Geography" section seems both out of place and grammatically incoherent. (The sentence that refers to past wars and the average age of Belgrade residents.) Benjamin22b (talk) 12:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Does this make sense?

Why is the city population of Belgrade listed as bigger than its metropolitan population (urban pop)?? Isn't that impossible? See population section on top of the article to see for yourself. Balkanskiredneck (talk) 14:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Nicknames

I don't think that any of stated nicknames is even remotely renowned to warrant inclusion. All of those (The Balkan Gate; Key to Central Europe; Slavic New York) were one-time inventions by journalists, and all of this stuff was sourced from Google image searches. Belgrade doesn't have a nickname, period. We shouldn't invent names, or repeat others' inventions, if they aren't notable enough for inclusion. No such user (talk) 08:47, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Images

I have recently added a {{cleanup-gallery}} tag to the photo gallery and it was subsequently removed. I'd like to point out that this article already has too many images and WP:IG states: "if, due to its content, a gallery would only lend itself to a title along the lines of "Gallery" or "Images of [insert article title]", as opposed to a more descriptive title, the gallery should either be revamped or moved to the Commons." Admiral Norton ^(talk) 14:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Gallery removed. I agree that the photos were purely decorative, and not too representative at that. Only the victor statue image could reasonably find the place elsewhere, but I didn't find a suitable ones. Featured articles should not have a gallery. No such user (talk) 10:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

FA degradation

The article is/was in a fair mess, and has significantly degraded since the FA times. Particularly, references are loose. I removed some of wildest speculations (such as the one of the city being discovered by Greek Argonauts, sourced by p104.ezboard.com) -- jeez, it's an internet forum, more educated than average one, but still...

In this overhaul, I

• Removed the "second largest on Danube" as 1) incorrect (after Vienna and Budapest) 2) irrelevant 3) badly sourced
• Removed "An economic and cultural boom followed. http://www.beobuild.rs/projects.php http://www.fdimagazine.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/1543/. It's questionnable when the economic boom started; it was before 2006 anyway. Poor sourcing. It's sort of editorializing.
• Removed the statements, sourced from a message board (p104.ezboard.com) about Greek Argonauts who supposedly discovered Belgrade. Sounds like an urban legend. Please give us some reliable sourcing.
• Tighten up formatting of some references.

Still to do:

• Summarize now overlong history section, and make a separate article History of Belgrade. I don't plan to do that soon, but it's worth
• Remove mentions of every single ethnic group on the planet whose member happens to live in Belgrade. I suppose only Chinese are worth mentioning, along perhaps with African students. Everyone else should go out. Indonesians are sourced from YouTube.

No such user (talk) 08:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The article had the FA review and it was kept. There aren't enough people watching the article so unfortunately some spam and nonsense that gets added by IP users stays in the article. There isn't that many of it as you suggest and it can be removed right here through discussion rather than through official process of FA review. For an example that stupidity on Indonesian people based on one traveler, it's nonsense and should be removed immediately.--Avala (talk) 15:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Train station gallery, again

Avala, you keep on reverting the galery on Beovoz. Why is this gallery so important for the article? Heck, even the Beovoz is not so important for Belgrade to deserve a separate 2-sentence section. You said "(per WP:IG - However, the use of galleries may be appropriate in Wikipedia articles where a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by)" -- now, please demonstrate what these pictures of train stations, already present in main Beovoz article, illustrate so beautifully? Those are just underground train stations, present in every city with underground metro. I'm reverting the section to the version after my previous editing. No such user (talk) 08:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Images add to the article becausethe use of galleries may be appropriate in Wikipedia articles where a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. You can not describe these stations by text, these images are not present elsewhere and individual images would break the article text. It is all per WP:IG, please read it. Instead of spending your energy on destroying and reverting the work of other people, maybe you should consider contributing by content.--Avala (talk) 15:08, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

"Energy destroying and reverting the work of other people"? Such as this overhaul of content and references that I spent entire morning on [1]?

Please do answer the direct question rather than quoting the guideline -- which "aspects" exactly does a collection of 4 similar-looking images of train stations illustrate? And why would we want to describe 4 underground stations in the article about city? By necessity of lack of space, a lot more of interesting buildings had to be omitted from the article. Please, don't make me dig through FARs and FARCs to search for immediate dismissal of galleries. No such user (talk) 15:23, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why do you have such a big problem with this gallery? Is it really the biggest problem, something you can't stand to see, something that even though it is perfectly by the rules is so problematic to you that you would get yourself involved in all this discussion, reverts and fighting for it's removal? Is it really that bad for you, when you wake up and the see the small gallery on Belgrade transportation at the bottom of the article that you can't let it go even if it is something that is the matter of preference and that can be in the article as it's not some nonsense or spam? Do you ever stop to wonder if this gallery is really that much of a problem for you and Wikipedia? I don't get it.--Avala (talk) 15:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I guess I could ask the same in turn, i.e. why you like it so much that you keep returning it? My point is, simply: Featured Articles should not have image galeries. I don't mind it in Beovoz or Transportation in Belgrade. No such user (talk) 15:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I like it because it illustrates the system nicely. The usage of pointless galleries with heaps of images is discouraged but no rule forbids their usage, otherwise the code for galleries would be removed. I really hope that you can accept these 4 images.--Avala (talk) 21:08, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Population references do not work

The population references based on note 3 [https://zis.beograd.gov.rs/upload/G_2007E.pdf] (Statistical yearbook of Belgrade, Zavod za informatiku i statistiku Grada Beograda) do not work: I tried this source again on 5 May 2009, and it is not accessible under this URL. Someone has to provide proper references for population numbers. --Zlerman (talk) 16:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The problem seems to lie somewhere in https protocol and/or its implementation on either server or client end. I couldn't have downloaded it with Firefox either, but it works with IE after you confirm that you want to use the site's invalid security certificate. I understand that it's inconvenient, but it's not our fault that their IT people are incompetent (why the heck are those documents under secure protocol anyway?). If anyone knows a workaround, I'm all ears. No such user (talk) 07:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for investigating and clarifying. I can indeed access the 2007 yearbook from IE, although the security failure screen at the beginning may put some users off. --Zlerman (talk) 07:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

These figures can be added to estimates but let's please use the official census information in the infobox rather than yearbook. It's simple - the yearbook is not a serious reference. Their total population figure is significantly lower than the number of registered voters in Belgrade (18 years and older) which brings us to conclusion that something is wrong with the yearbook. I appreciate your effort in trying to find a newer population figures but unfortunately there aren't any or at least there is no serious source. --Avala (talk) 21:03, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

But this is City's Institute for Informatics and Statistics? What more official can we find? The discrepancy between those data and the voter's record is already explained in the text. No such user (talk) 08:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Ancient Greeks

Can we please get that "discovered by ancient Greeks" stuff referenced by something better than a personal web page of a biochemist, http://nenadiricanin.com? There's also a fork at http://www.dc-media.ca/slobodan/belgrade.pdf, which says "Copyright S.Solajic, 2009". So much about copyvios.

Even if we take that stuff from granted, it says the following about the "discovery":

Belgrade was referred to in history much later for the first time, probably by Apolonius of Rhodes (about 295-216 B.C.) in his EPIC ABOUT THE ARGONAUTS. Apolonius describes a rock the argonauts sailed by, at a point of the Danube's bifurcation. This rock is undoubtedly the Kalemegdan crag, the surroundings of which were inhabited by members of the Thracian-Cimmerian tribes.

So, they found a rock in a Danube, which is undoubtedly the Kalemegdan crag, and we call it "discovery of Belgrade" in an encyclopedic article. Please... No such user (talk) 09:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

And, by the way, some original research: "the rock where the Danube bifurcates" perfectly describes Babakaj, map, located across the Golubac Fortress, some 150 km downstream of Belgrade. The old island is now mostly submerged by the hydroelectric lake. No such user (talk) 11:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not the discovery of Belgrade but its first mention as a strategic location in history. NeroN_BG

Even if we agree about the relevance, we need much more reliable source. The above sounds like a wishful thinking by an amateur historian. No such user (talk) 12:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

http://books.google.com/books?id=EZ7sO2tGbdkC&pg=PA306 is better, but it's a one-liner saying

"...two geographical fallacies...[First] it is the notion of the Danube... dividing at a central point, the Kauliakos spur (4.323-26 perhaps ^{emphasis mine} based on the actual junction of Danube and Sava near Belgrade; see Delage 1930a, 209), with one arm emptying eastward into the Black Sea, and the other westward into the Adriatic".

Sorry, way too speculative. As Green puts it, the origin is difficult enough to interpret, let alone to reach a definite conclusion. Even if we take it for granted, is it enough to justify the inclusion in the article's lead? No such user (talk) 08:11, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Infobox image

I made this montage for infobox image. The image includes: West of Novi Beograd with Genex Tower, the Cathedral of Saint Sava with Karađorđe monument in front, Jugoslovensko dramsko pozorište with Beograđanka on the right, and the Sava bridge. I chose images taken at night. As British Times proclaimed that it is "Europe's best nightlife in buzzing Belgrade",[2] I think that this "night look" suits well. --Lošmi (talk) 03:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Um, I appreciate your effort, the images are nice indeed, but I think that it's too much of "galleritis" (aka "postcarditis"), i.e. a tendency to include as many nice-looking images into an article as possible. I think that the old image (aerial view) does the better job of depicting the city in one brief look.
I was about to say that it's against common practice to use such images, especially in Featured Articles, and wanted to use New York City as a counterexample, but, heh, it uses a collage of same style. So does London.
I must say I like "iconic", semi-panoramic images much better, like the ones at Paris (Eiffel), Berlin (TV tower in panorama), Sydney (Opera House in panorama) better. I'm reluctant to revert, though, as I'd like a wider input on the issue. It's more or less a matter of taste, after all (and mine leans on minimalist side, admittedly). No such user (talk) 07:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism?

Um... someone put that Belgrade was the Capitol of Croatia, which is clearly wrong. I changed that but have no idea how long it has been up for. It makes me suspect that other things may have been modified. Perhaps someone with knowledge of Belgrade should fact check this whole article for other "mistakes." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.253.103 (talk) 17:51, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I have gone back through the last few versions of this page and tracked down and reverted similar vandalism by the same editor on other pages. They have been warned and will get blocked if this continues.--Charles (talk) 19:30, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Naming

I edited the article and write after the Serb names: "in Hungarian: Nándorfehérvár". I can't understand why have somebody deleted it. Belgrád (Nándorfehérvár) was part of Hungary for a long time enought to represent its Hungarian name too. Not just in some footnote. In the Bratislava (Pozsony) arcticle the hungarian name is also presented just like other earlier Hungarian cities, so I can't understand why somebody consider representing the Hungarian name vandalism.

Picture

The title picture is simply awful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ardura (talk • contribs) 21:46, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

old photos of belgrade

Hey I think we should add a couple photos of belgrade from pre-WWII era. The city has changed a lot since those times especially since much of the city was destroyed during WWII. Anyways here are a couple links with some awesome photos that we could use.

http://unkool.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/fsbhd/

The picture of Kalemgdan fortress before it was bombed by Germans is particularly interesting

http://arhitekturabezbeograda.wordpress.com/slike-iscezlih-gradova/

http://forum.b92.net/lofiversion/index.php?t38376.html

and here's some of the same photos with explanations about them

http://nikibgd.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/old-belgrade-photographs-from-the-1920’s-and-1930’s-part-2/

anyways if anyone figures out a way to add these to wikipedia I think one or two should be added to the article. My vote goes to the pre WWII Kalemegdan fortress just because I had no idea it looks like that before the war. Also a picture of Brankov Most would be interesting since that also was destroyed.

Yugo91aesop (talk) 04:28, 17 April 2010 (UTC)