Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline

This is a proposal guideline for the structure of city articles on Wikipedia. Please review and feel free to leave comments on the talk page.

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This is a recommended guideline for the structure of a city article on Wikipedia. The order of sections is also completely optional, and sections may be moved around to a different order based on the needs of their city. Editors are strongly encouraged, however, to at least begin with the lead/infobox, followed by history, geography, demographics, and economy, since these sections have some good basic information that might be sought after by readers first. Beyond that, editors working on city articles are advised to come to a consensus that works best for the city in question.

While it is just a guideline and there are no requirements to follow it in editing, it contains some of the basic elements of a city article, as well as useful tips that would help to bring the article to good article or featured article status.

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City Name, State/Province Name
City Skyline City Skyline
Flag Seal
Nickname:  Include from 1-3 informal nicknames (e.g. "River City")
Motto(s):  The city's official motto, if applicable, goes here
Location in the state of Indiana, USA
Country	United States
State	Indiana
County	Allen
Founded	October 22, 1794
Incorporated	February 22, 1840
Government
• Mayor	Name (D)
• City Clerk	Name (R)
• City Manager	Name
Area
• City	79.12 sq mi (204.92 km2)
• Land	78.95 sq mi (204.48 km2)
• Water	0.15 sq mi (0.4 km2)
• Urban	135.25 sq mi (350.30 km2)
• Metro	1,368 sq mi (3,554 km2)
Elevation	810 ft (247 m)
Population  (2004)
• City	219,351
• Urban	287,759
• Metro	502,141
Time zone	UTC-5 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (EDT)
Website	http://www.officialcitywebsite.org/

LEAD section

The introductory section should introduce the article about the city, serving as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points, and explaining why the subject is interesting or notable.

This section should follow the guidelines specified under WP:LEAD. Additionally, a couple of items should be included in the lead section for city articles, including:

• Name of city and location in state
• City proper population (one number)
• Metro population (one number)
• Brief note about historical roots/founding
• Nicknames, if notable
• Primary industries supporting its economy (e.g. service, manufacturing, tourism, etc...)
• Notable unique characteristics and characteristics commonly associated with it

History

Main article: History of _

A description of the city's history, from initial settlement through present day, should go here. Try to write this out as prose, and avoid simply listing a timeline of events.

Since this section tends to get very long, it is often recommended to have a separate article and link to it using the main template.

Geography

Provide a description of the overall geography and topology of the city's area. You may wish to link to an online map of the region using template:coor dms. This section might also include a description of the various neighborhoods in the city, although since listing and describing neighborhoods can get very long in an article, consider briefly mentioning the major neighborhoods in this section, and linking to a separate article (Neighborhoods of _).

Climate

Since the overall climate tends to be related to geography, a brief description of the region's climate, including average/high/low rainfall and temperatures, and other climatological information, should go here.

Demographics

This section should provide some basic demographic information on the city, usually obtained from the latest census. Examples of things to include might be population density, racial makeup, household size, age groups, income, etc. If religion and crime are important factors in the city, you might also consider adding subsections for each of these two areas.

Economy

Main article: Economy of _

A description of the city's economy should go here. Avoid simply listing the companies that are located in the city, and concentrate on prose that discusses the types of businesses and industry that contribute to the economy. You might optionally want to provide a link to a list of businesses at the end of the section (see example).

See also: List of Fortune 500 Companies in _ and List of Corporations in _

Arts and culture

This section should include a description of the cultural aspects of the city, such as points of interest, museums, parks, mentions of the city in the popular entertainment, etc. You might consider dividing this up into several subsections, like so:

Annual cultural events

Yearly events that occur in the city (state fair, art show, festivals, etc)

Museums and other points of interest

Talk about some of the major points of interest.

Sports

Are there any major league or other professional sports teams in the city? What about other sports that people might participate in (skiing, swimming, golf, tennis).

Parks and recreation

Are there any major parks in the city? What do people do for fun?

Since this article is somewhat related to sports, it would be advisable to place it immediately after the sports section. In smaller cities and towns with no major league professional sports, it might actually work better to combine this section with sports, using a suggested section title of 'Sports and recreation'.

Government

This section should include a description of the local city government, such as the mayor's office, city council or legislature, city manager (if applicable), and how these entities interact. For larger cities, you might include information on the local government politics as well.

Education

Provide information on the K-12 public and private schools in the city, as well as any colleges and universities that might be present. You might also include some information on the school board, as well as how many students and teachers are in the system. Are there any top-rated schools in the city? What about top-rated teachers (teacher of the year)? Be sure to include references for top-rated schools/teachers.

Avoid listing all of the schools in the city, as these lists can get quite long.

Transportation

Describe the street layout, and access to major highways leading into and out of the city. Is there an airport that serves the city? Regional train service (amtrak)? Local bus service? Subway system? Do a lot of citizens ride bicycles?

Media

What is the major daily newspaper in town? Are there any alternative weekly publications? Television and radio stations? You might also talk about the city's media market and audience demographics here. If any major motion pictures, television shows, or syndicated radio broadcasts were filmed/recorded or originated in the city, this would probably be a good place to put that information.

Notable natives and residents

Provide a listing of any celebrities or famous individuals that were born in the city, or that might have taken up residence in the city. Since this section can get quite long, and is best organized in a list format, it is probably advisable not to include this as a major section in the article and link to a List of famous people from _ article, which you can link to under the 'see also' section.

Other topics

Additional subject headings might be added depending on the city. For example, the Louisville, Kentucky article has a section dealing with the city's nomenclature and pronunciation, since its name is often mispronounced.

It is also common for many early articles to contain trivia sections, such as generic listings of information, usually near the end of the article. This is ok in the early stages, as it enables many users to quickly add information to the article without worrying about where to place it. But keep in mind that trivia sections are discouraged in articles, and should be removed prior to nominating the article for good article or featured article status.

Sister cities

List any sister city relationships that they city might have engaged in here. Sister city relationships are generally international relationships between two cities that might have some common roots or similarities between culture. A good reference for sister cities is the Sister Cities International website.

There is a flagicon template available that can be used to provide a small national flag icon next to a listing of each city. An example of how to list cities using this template is below:

• - Washington, DC (United States)
• - Ottawa (Canada)
• - Mexico City (Mexico)

See also

A brief listing of other wikipedia articles that might be related to this city.

References

<references/>

The above text should be the only thing in this section, which compiles and lists an automatically generated listing of inline citations used in the article text. For information on how to format and use inline citations, go to WP:CITE.

Further reading

A brief listing of books and external sources that are not directly cited within the article (under references), but might be of interest to the reader.

External links

A link to some of the official websites should be provided here, such as the official city government, the chamber of commerce, and the convention & visitors bureau. Providing links to every commercial, educational, or other entity within the city is not appropriate for this section. Information about such entities should actually be written into the article, with links to wikipedia articles on notable entities. Remember, Wikipedia is not a linkfarm, and excessive lists of links on articles will generally be removed.

Use the Geolinks-US-cityscale template to provide links to city maps via online mapping sites.

You may use the Sisterlinks template, or other individual sister project templates, to link to some of wikipedia's sister project sites that might have pertinent information on the city.

Additional guidelines on external links can be found at WP:EL.