Talk:Spanish Empire

Pic of galleon

In the 'Imperial economic policy' section, this pic appears:

Spanish galleon, the mainstay of transatlantic and transpacific shipping, engraving by Albert Durer

However, according to the discussion on its main page, it's not Spanish, it's not a galleon, and it's not by Dürer. Is there any good reason for keeping it? MinorProphet (talk) 16:56, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Spanish Empire

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Spanish Empire's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Clodfelter":

• From Sack of Rome (1527): Clodfelter, Micheal (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015, 4th ed. ISBN 9780786474707.
• From Philippine–American War: Clodfelter, Micheal, Warfare and Armed Conflict: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1618–1991

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. Feel free to remove this comment after fixing the refs. AnomieBOT⚡ 11:02, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Plagiarism from Portuguese Empire

It says that "In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it was the first empire to usher the European Age of Discovery and achieve a global scale,controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa, various islands in Asia and Oceania, as well as territory in other parts of Europe"

ABSOLUTELY FALSE. The first empire to usher the Age of Discovery (70 years before Spain) and achieve a global scale (50 years before Spain) was Portugal in 1515, with territories in Brazil, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania (Timor). What vast portions of Africa did Spain control? What territories in Persia or Arabia did Spain have? What territories in East Africa, India and the Indian Ocean did Spain have? Ludicrous! Not to mention that Spain only got a foothold in SE Asia after 1550, 50 years after Portugal!

By 1515, Portugal had a presence all over Africa, Brazil, Canada, Persia, Arabia, India, China and all over SE Asia. Spain only had just set foot in the Caribbean. Hadn't even began its conquests of Peru and Mexico, and would only conquer the Philippines in 1565, 66 years after Portugal had built it's first colony in Asia.

And what colonies did Spain have between the Canary Islands and the Philippines? 0! It's a massive stretch between the North Atlantic African coast and SE Asia where Spain was never present (except for the tiny colony of Equatorial Guinea, exchanged with Portugal 200 years later).

Spain had nothing in West Africa, nothing in South Africa, nothing in East Africa, nothing in the Indian Ocean, nothing in the Red Sea, nothing in the Persian Gulf, nothing in Persia or Arabia or India, nothing in the Bengal Sea, and practically nothing east of the Philippines (leaving out most of Asia). Portugal was the only out of the 2 empires that had a widespread presence in Africa, Middle East and Asia (colonies in more than 50 countries on those 3 regions), with a continuous coastal presence between Morocco and Japan by 1543. Spain not only never had any presence in the Middle East, but its presence in Africa and Asia was limited to both extremities of those continents (North Africa and SE Asia), with nothing in between! It's ludicrous to say Spain was the first global empire!

Clearly the person who wrote this is a Spanish nationalist. 81.84.162.251 (talk) 17:39, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Map (again)

The long-standing map for this article is File:Imperio Español (1714-1800).png. This was discussed back at Talk:Spanish Empire/Archive 6#Spanish Empire map including Portuguese Empire. Using an anachronous map was specifically rejected in that discussion. An anachronous map was nevertheless added recently without any preceding discussion. This was reverted by Average Portuguese Joe, who noted that the issue had already been discussed on the talk page. Norprobr then added a different anachronous map (along with one more, different map), again without any preceding discussion. I reverted this, again noting the pre-existing consensus and pointing out that changing consensus would require new discussion. Norprobr nevertheless restored their version, saying There is clearly a lack of consensus for the inclusion of that map since it has been removed by multiple editors, and not all users on the talk page agreed to its inclusion; the ones who agreed were biased Portuguese users. TompaDompa (talk) 02:56, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

There does appear to have been a consensus reached for that particular map. While consensus can change, it needs to be discussed. The map for 1714-1800 corresponds with the peak size of 13.7 x 10⁶ km² per this source cited to the area in the text body. Perhaps the caption should also mention that. The rationale for File:Location_of_the_Spanish_Empire.png is certainly not clear - when/what precisely is this showing (other than it is excluding Portugal and the Azores Islands)? There doesn't appear to be a rationale for showing the map of the Iberian Union, since it was only a brief period in the overall history and not the peak. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:12, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

File:Location_of_the_Spanish_Empire.png is one of the anachronous maps referred to in my initial post. It includes (among other territories) Spanish Netherlands, Louisiana (New Spain), and Spanish Sahara, three territories that were not administered by the Spanish Empire at the same time. TompaDompa (talk) 04:33, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you TD. Nor Portugal and Portugese territories that existed during the Iberian Union. The caption does not explain what it is meant to be but regardless, it is neither fish nor fowl. If it has a place, it should be everything. Also, WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE would tell us less is better and the infobox is already bloated, without having two maps. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:11, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Area

This is a peer-reviewed scientific article specifically about the territorial extents of historical polities. This, on the other hand, fails WP:RSCONTEXT, which says Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible. It's a textbook example, even. TompaDompa (talk) 14:33, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

The author of the latter is also clearly way out of their depth when talking about territorial extents of historical polities. No serious source attributes 24 million km² to the Spanish Empire during the time of the Iberian Union. TompaDompa (talk) 14:42, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

And removing the maintenance tag without addressing the issue is not helpful. Ping JoaquindeMosquerayFigueroa. TompaDompa (talk) 01:54, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I have restored the maintenance template, and left a warning on the IP's talk page. I find it interesting that an IP with only 20 prior edits would be interested in removing a maintenance template as their first edit in five days. Donald Albury 14:58, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I have spent the morning conducting extensive searches to corroborate the conflicting claims without much success. EB here would confirm the lower figure. EB is acceptable as a WP:RS, particularly when helping to establish due weight between contradictory sources (see WP:TERTIARY). WP:THESIS also cautions us in regard to using a thesis. Taagepera gives the area of the Iberian Union (ie 1640 figure) as 7.1 M km². Prados would give it as 24 M km² for about the same time. The 7.1 figuge would seem consistent with this map - File:Spanish Empire Anachronous en.svg, while the 2.4 figure would probably require a map resembling this - File:Spanish Empire.svg. There is clearly nuance to the larger figure - probably the distinction between what was controlled and what might have been claimed. Considering the prevailing P&G, the lower figure should be preferred in the first instance. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:23, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I have reverted to the lower figure as the status quo for the following reasons. The status quo appears to have been quite long-standing. There proposal is challenged and there is a WP:ONUS to establish consensus for the higher figure. The higher figure in the infobox creates an inconsistency between the infobox and the article text. Consensus can change - through discussion. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:37, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

The Encyclopaedia Britannica is not a good source as it is biased on this subject. The source I have provided on page 109 mentions 24 million km2 and on page 138 you can read the map that supports the territorial data. My citation is more objective and more descriptive as well as providing a detailed description of the territories and therefore I think it is unreasonable to disqualify it. JoaquindeMosquerayFigueroa (talk) 10:52, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

The Encyclopaedia Britannica is not a good source as it is biased on this subject. The citation I have provided on page 109 mentions 24 million km2 and on page 138 you can read the map that supports the territorial data. My citation is more objective and more descriptive as well as providing a detailed description of the territories and therefore I think it is unreasonable to disqualify it. JoaquindeMosquerayFigueroa (talk) 10:53, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

It's interesting that you believe Encyclopædia Britannica to be biased here but not Iberofonía y Paniberismo. I put it to you that the opposite is much more likely. At any rate, no serious scholar on the topic of the territorial extents of historical polities attributes effective control of 24 million km² to the Spanish Empire during the time of the Iberian Union, and no serious scholar on the topic of the territorial extents of historical polities uses any other measure than land area under effective control. The figure you put forth represents a WP:FRINGE view. The source you replaced, on the other hand, is a highly-regarded and widely-cited piece of scholarly work. It is a peer-reviewed scientific article specifically about the territorial extents of historical polities which outlines its sources and methodology. When it comes to source quality and reliability in this context, there is simply no comparison. TompaDompa (talk) 12:51, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

A claim that the Spanish Empire (as the Iberian Union) extended across all of South America would arise from the Treaty of Tordesillas. However, there is a disjunction between this claim and settled areas over which control was asserted as shown in this map File:Philip II's realms in 1598.png. Such a claim arising from the treaty has been selectively applied to just South America. A source does not become unreliable because it is WP:BIASED but we are warned about WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims and WP:FRINGE theories that depart from the general consensus. As I said, I have looked into this quite extensively and EB (a WP:RS) does support the lower figure. Are there other sources for similar figures? Are there sources independent of the two sources being discussed? If published prior to 1997 for Taagepera and prior to 2018 for Prados, the sources would be independent of those authors - though the converse may not apply. One source should not be preferred over another unless there is good reason based in P&G. At present, P&G favours the lower figure. On the other hand, there is nuance to the greater figure, which cannot be captured in the infobox easily - ie per WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE, the infobox is not a place for detail. It would certainly need to be discussed in the body of the article in more detail. Area is not a mandatory field. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:42, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Etemad's Possessing the World: Taking the Measurements of Colonisation from the 18th to the 20th Century, p. 135 gives a figure of 12.3 million km² for Spain's colonial possessions (i.e. excluding Spain itself) in the year 1760. Other than that, it's probably going to be difficult to find quality sources that are independent of Taagepera's research; scholarship on the territorial extents of historical polities relies heavily on it, as it occupies a central position in the literature on the topic in a way that is similar to the position of McEvedy and Jones' Atlas of World Population History in the literature on historical population estimates. For instance, The Oxford World History of Empire, p. 93 gives a figure of 7.1 in 1640 (from Taagepera) and 12.3 in 1760 (from Etemad). TompaDompa (talk) 02:12, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

To paraphrase, there is a body of evidence (some explicitly presented) supporting about 13.7 M km² as the peak area around 1780 and 7.1 M km² for the Iberian Union and this is generally attributed to Taagepera. The sources you are indicating are of good quality. This would strongly indicate that there is a consensus in good quality sources to accept the lower figure. Unless evidence of similar weight can be presented supporting the higher figure, the reasonable conclusion is that the higher figure falls to WP:FRINGE. As such, it might be reported in the article with appropriate WP:WEIGHT (eg as a footnote) but it should certainly not be reported in the infobox. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:16, 18 June 2023 (UTC)