Template talk:Sovereign states and dependent territories in Oceania

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Sovereign states and dependent territories in Oceania template.

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This page has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination.

Discussions:

No consensus, 8 November 2025, to Template:Countries of Oceania, see discussion.
Moved, 15 December 2025, from Template:Countries and territories of Oceania to Template:Sovereign states and dependent territories in Oceania, see discussion.

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Oceania

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Requested move 8 November 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. This has now been open for over a month. We have one support, one oppose, and a few alt rename suggestions to "Sovereign States"; however, the renames talk about all the templates being renamed, not just one, so a larger RM would be required. (closed by non-admin page mover) – LuniZunie ツ_(talk) 14:50, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Countries and territories of Oceania → Template:Countries of OceaniaTemplate:Countries of Oceania – That's because the other continent's countries or sovereign states navbox templates don't include the words 'dependencies' or '(dependent) territories' in their titles. PK2 (talk; contributions) 07:06, 30 October 2025 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). C F A 22:35, 8 November 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 01:12, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Simple case of WP:TITLECON. The other continental templates all include territories in their lists, but not in the template name. Template:Sovereign states of Europe is the odd one out in a different way, but perhaps that one just deserves a move request anyway. Ilvekset (talk) 20:44, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But this template clearly does include places that aren't sovereign states – see the section of "Dependencies and other territories", for example. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The other continent's countries or sovereign states navbox templates also include "Dependencies" or "(Dependent) terriories" sections. PK2 (talk; contributions) 06:20, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My preference would be to rename this to Template:Sovereign states of Oceania. This matches the overall format of the List of sovereign states article and is much preferable to the less rigorously defined "countries" term. I'm not too fussed on whether "and territories" should be included, but would lean towards not including it per other such categories, even if it does happen to put the dependencies in as well. — Amakuru (talk) 11:48, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The related template for that list is Template:Lists of sovereign states and dependent territories by continent, the related article for the template in question being List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Oceania. Examples of other templates within the same framework: Template:Countries of South America (titled: "Countries and dependencies of South America"), Template:Countries of North America (titled: "Countries and dependencies of North America"), Template:Sovereign states of Europe (titled: "Sovereign states and dependencies of Europe"), Template:Countries of Asia (titled "Countries and dependencies of Asia"), and Template:Countries of Africa (titled: "Countries and dependencies of Asia"). So there is certainly some leeway for a variety of different names and titles here, whether it be "Countries of" (like most of them) or "Sovereign states of" (like Europe). Probably worth an RM for that reason. CNC (talk) 12:19, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment would prefer all of them switch to "sovereign states" to match the title link. The real issue making the European template out-of-sync is the multiple definitions of "country" there, so better follow what the lists did and all adopt sovereign state. Dank Jae 23:52, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Geography, WikiProject Countries, and WikiProject Oceania have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 01:12, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose if the only argument is consistency for consistencies sake. There are more territories in the Pacific than other regions of the world, the difference is not arbitrary. CMD (talk) 02:12, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Alternate rename of the template for each continent to "Sovereign states and dependencies of X". It's confusing to just have "Countries" or "Sovereign states" in the name because dependent territories are always included. Editors should be able to reliably pick the right template and predict the name of parallel templates. This parallels the pattern "List of sovereign states and dependent territories in X", and follows the requirement that template names be clear (WP:TG). -- Beland (talk) 09:16, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(I assume the only reason we don't use "countries" by itself is that the UK considers England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to be countries?) -- Beland (talk) 09:18, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 15 December 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 01:48, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

– The template names are currently inconsistent with each other, and the name of the European template is inaccurate (non-sovereign dependencies are included). They are also inconsistent with the articles they link to, but the articles do have a consistent naming pattern:

-- Beland (talk) 10:19, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support, WP:CONSISTENT with the main pages and more precise on scope to avoid the disputes. Dank Jae 22:49, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.