Template:Disambiguation/doc
 | This is a documentation subpage for Template:Disambiguation. It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page. |
 | This template is used on approximately 222,000 pages. To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them. |
 | This template should not be substituted. |
| This template adds an automatically generated short description via an embedded template. If the automatic short description is not optimal, replace it by adding {{Short description}} at the top of the article. |
This is the {{Disambiguation}} template.
This is a general-purpose template, to be placed at the bottom of any article that exists to help readers find other articles with the same or similar names. This concept is called disambiguation and is used with many common words, such as cross, life and work. This template automatically adds articles to the Category:Disambiguation pages.
Page title fixes
This template will automatically detect incomplete disambiguation present in page titles. If the title includes anything other than (disambiguation) in parentheses, it is assumed to be the article type. For example, this template on the page 1st Division (France) would produce the text "This disambiguation page lists France articles associated with the title 1st Division". If the page title contains parentheses that are not used for disambiguation (such as Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)), set |ignore_parentheses=yes. If you wish to manually specify the article type, use the |type= parameter.
Variant templates
Disambiguation
For disambiguation pages requiring cleanup, use {{Disambiguation cleanup}}.
More specific and alternative templates exist for disambiguation pages whose entries are limited exclusively to items of a particular type:
Note: A set index article (SIA) is not a disambiguation page; it is a list article about a set of items of a specific type that also share the same (or similar) name. Wikipedia:Set index articles includes templates for SIAs.
Parameters
Sometimes there isn't a specific disambiguation template (see list above) that fits for a page, or the page has items in more than one of the above classes. Then use {{Disambiguation}} but with one or more parameters telling which categories to use. Up to ten parameters can be fed, and in any order. For example:
{{Disambiguation|school|hospital}}
This list is currently complete as of 28 October 2023[update] and {{Disambiguation}} has parameters for all subcategories of Category:Disambiguation pages; it is recommended to use this template and its parameters instead of adding that categories' subcategory to the disambiguation page manually.
Nocat
If categorization is not needed on pages that are not in mainspace, then the "nocat" parameter may be set equal to "true" or "yes" as follows:
{{Disambiguation|nocat=true}}{{Disambiguation|nocat=yes}}
Redirects
The following redirect to this template:
Technical details
Internally, this template uses {{Dmbox}}. That template categorises pages into Category:All disambiguation pages and Category:All article disambiguation pages.
This template also uses {{Disambiguation/cat}} to handle the categorisation parameters, such as "hospital" and "school".
Other templates and modules used:
- {{Disambiguation page short description}}
- {{Template other}}
- {{Title disambig text}}
- {{PAGENAMEBASE}}
- {{Trim}}
- {{Str rep}}
- {{#invoke:Redirect|isRedirect}}
Template use
Place template at the foot of the disambiguation page after all of the disambiguation content but before any categories (see below) (interlanguage links to Wikidata), as per the WP:DCAT guideline.
TemplateData
TemplateData for Disambiguation
Place at the bottom of Disambiguation pages.
| Parameter | Description | Type | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First category key | 1 | Used to put the page in a category. Can be one of 'split' (dab pages in need of being split); 'cleanup','clean up','clean-up' (dabs in need of cleanup); 'one non-primary topic','non-primary','non-primary topic' (dabs without a primary topic); 'building and structure','building','buildings','structure','structures','buildings and structures' (building and structure dabs); 'airport','airports' (airport dabs); 'architecture' (architecture dabs); 'hospital','hospital name','hospital names','hospitals' (hospital dabs); 'school','schooldis','education','educational institution','educational institutions','college','colleges','university','universities','schools' (Educational institution dabs); 'station','stations' (station dabs); 'religion','hindu','hindu temple','hindu temples','religious building','religious buildings' (religious building dabs); 'church','church building','church buildings','churches' (church building dabs); 'mosque','mosques' (mosque dabs); 'synagogue','synagogues' (synagogue dabs); 'temple','buddhist','buddhist temple','buddhist temples','temples' (buddhist temple dabs); 'science' (science dabs); 'biology' (biology dabs); 'animal' (animal dabs); 'bird' (bird dabs); 'fish' (fish dabs); 'plant','plants' (Plant common name dabs); 'taxonomy' (taxonomy dabs); 'genus','genera' (Genus dabs); 'latin','latin name','latin names' (Latin name dabs); 'species latin','species latin name','species latin names' (species Latin name dabs); 'species latin name abbreviation','species latin name abbr','species latin name abbrs','species latin name abbreviations' (species Latin name abbreviation dabs); 'linguistics' (linguistics dabs); 'math','mathdab','mathematics','mathematical','maths' (mathematical dabs); 'social science','social' (social science dabs); 'economics' (economics dabs); 'geo','geodis','geography','geographical','place name','place names','place','places' (Place names); 'county','counties' (county dabs); 'uscounty','uscounties' (United States county dabs); 'department','departments' (department dabs); 'district','districts' (district dabs); 'municipality','municipalities' (municipality dabs); 'parish','parishes' (parish dabs); 'province','provinces' (province dabs); 'township','townships' (Township name dabs); 'arkansas township','arkansas townships' (arkansas township dabs); 'illinois township','illinois townships' (illinois township dabs); 'indiana township','indiana townships' (indiana township dabs); iowa township','iowa townships' (iowa township dabs); 'kansas township','kansas townships' (kansas township dabs); 'michigan township','michigan townships' (michigan township dabs); 'minnesota township','minnesota townships' (minnesota township dabs); 'missouri township','missouri townships' (missouri township dabs); 'nebraska township','nebraska townships' (nebraska township dabs); 'new jersey township','new jersey townships' (new jersey township dabs); 'north carolina township','north carolina townships' (north carolina dabs); 'north dakota township','north dakota townships' (north dakota dabs); 'ohio township','ohio townships' (ohio township dabs); 'oklahoma township','oklahoma townships' (oklahoma township dabs); 'pennsylvania township','pennsylvania townships' (pennsylvania township dabs); 'south dakota township','south dakota townships' (south dakota township dabs); 'callsign','call sign','call signs','broadcast call sign','broadcast call signs','callsigns' (broadcast call sign dabs); 'caselaw' (caselaw dabs); 'chinese','chinese char','chinese-char','chinesechar','chinese character' (chinese character dabs); 'culture','language','languages','nationality','nationalities','language and nationality','languages and nationalities','cultures' (language and nationality dabs); 'date time','date','time' (date and time dabs); 'flight number','flight','flight numbers' (flight number dabs); 'opus number','opus','opus numbers' (opus number dabs); 'hn','name','names','human name','human names','hndis' (Human name dabs); 'surname','surnames' (surname dabs); 'given name','given names' (given-name dabs); 'hangul' (hangul dabs); 'ih same title','ihs same title' (ih same title dabs); 'letter number','letter-number' (Letter-number combination dabs); 'military' (military dabs); 'number','numberdis','ambiguous number','ambiguous numbers','numbers' (Lists of ambiguous numbers); 'political party','party','parties','political','political parties' (political party dabs); 'road','roaddis','roads' (road dabs); 'road same title','roads same title' (road same title dabs); 'ship','ships' (ship dabs); 'technology and engineering','engineering','tech','tech and engineering','technology' (technology and engineering dabs); 'template','templates' (template dabs); 'temple name','temple names' (temple name dabs); 'tndis' (title and name dabs); 'transport route','transport routes' (transport route dabs)
| String | suggested |
| Second category key | 2 | Further category keys, as parameter 1.
| String | optional |
| Third category key | 3 | Further category keys, as parameter 1.
| String | optional |
| Fourth category key | 4 | Further category keys, as parameter 1.
| String | optional |
| Fifth category key | 5 | Further category keys, as parameter 1.
| String | optional |
| Sixth category key | 6 | Further category keys, as parameter 1.
| String | optional |
| Seventh category key | 7 | Further category keys, as parameter 1.
| String | optional |
| Eighth category key | 8 | Further category keys, as parameter 1.
| String | optional |
| Ninth category key | 9 | Further category keys, as parameter 1.
| String | optional |
| Tenth category key | 10 | Further category keys, as parameter 1.
| String | optional |
| Human name | hn | Human name disambiguation page with its own sort key. | String | optional |
| page-title | page-title | Page title to use, only useful for special cases when default does not work.
| String | optional |
| nocat | nocat | Set to 'yes' to prevent categorisation. | String | optional |
| demospace | demospace | Used for testing. | String | optional |
| ignore_parentheses | ignore_parentheses | Set to 'yes' to prevent parentheses in the article title from being parsed as incomplete disambiguation. | String | optional |
| type | type | Manually specify the article type in the descriptive text ('This disambiguation page lists {{{type}}} articles...') | String | optional |
See also
- Wikipedia:Hatnote
- {{Dablinks}} – lists wikilinks on the page that link to disambiguation pages
- {{dabsearch}}
- {{Disambiguation needed}} – Adds an inline "disambiguation needed" tag to an ambiguous link within an article, see Wikipedia:OTHERUSES for more.
- {{WikiProject Disambiguation}} – for disambig talkpages
- {{Redirect}} – for linking to disambiguation pages in an article that is the primary topic of a redirect
- {{Other uses}} – for linking to disambiguation pages in articles