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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by Giants2008 17:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

List of United States counties and county-equivalents

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List of United States counties and county-equivalents (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator:  Buaidh  16:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this list for featured list because it is simple, straightforward, efficient, and contains basic information for all 3143 counties and county-equivalents of the United States.  Buaidh  16:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. What about former and proposed counties? Also, do we need to have a Etymology, Founding Date origin etc etc? I ask this because it is a "requiremnent" for individual US State County lists, featured and not....Coal town guy (talk) 17:52, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, there are 3143 counties in the US. I'm very happy with this list just covering current counties and leaving those specifics in the state lists. Though as I mentioned to you before, Buaidh, this will need a WP:LEAD. It doesn't need to be long or detailed, but a few paragraphs summarizing what counties and county-equivalents are. Reywas92Talk 18:13, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
CommentDo you then think, it should be noted that specifics, founding dates, former and proposed counties, etymologies etc etc will be in the specific state county lists? Also, do you think that we need to at least follow the ref format for the tables used in speciofc state county lists. Me4aning that the header for each column would have a specific ref for that data? Additionally, while we have noted, (very nicely by the way) its a current list of equivalents, what about indepedant cities? Do they also get a notation? I am not trying to be picky here, I also agree that the intro would need to be lengthened. Overall, this is a hell of an ambitious list, I like it, alot. There are a few states that will require a look see as there current county or county equivalents are changing (Alaska)Coal town guy (talk) 18:32, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the counties in the U.S. have been redefined over the years, and many have been renamed or abolished and recreated. This sometimes makes the date of creation not a simple matter. Do we use the earliest date of establishment, or the date the county was established in its current form?
Independent cities are noted with the suffix ", City of". I'll make a note.
This list is current as of March 15, 2013. I'll also make a note.  Buaidh  19:47, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
MOST Excellent! As to the date to use, I would use a as of.......BUT, thats me, I am certain others will chime in. As to the data sources did you plan on putting those in the column names/as a column with a ref as opposed to the table of sources.....?Coal town guy (talk) 21:14, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I added Template:As of. I think it is better to leave the references in the column descriptions rather than clutter the column headers. Let me know otherwise.  Buaidh  23:09, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment We also need to look below at Reywas comments County (United States) says 3033 counties + 107 equivalents = 3140 total. Do you know what the discrepancy is? This proposed list has 3 extra.....AND the intro has to be expanded.Coal town guy (talk) 23:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • County (United States) says 3033 counties + 107 equivalents = 3140 total. Do you know what the discrepancy is? Reywas92Talk 01:47, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do now. The County (United States) article is incorrect. Its count is based on the obsolete Census Bureau document Local Governments and Public School Systems by Type and State: 2007 which purports to show the number of local government units. This document uses an unusual method to count local government. For example, the state of Colorado has 64 counties, of which two have combined city/county governments, and 271 municipalities (270 in 2007), including the two combined city/county governments. The document above counts these as 62 county and 270 city governments. The document above also finds no counties in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and only five in Massachusetts. While most of the government functions of the demoted New England counties have been relieved, the counties still exist as legal and census entities.
The correct count is from County Totals Datasets: Population, Population Change and Estimated Components of Population Change: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2012 issued by the Census Bureau on March 15, 2013. This detailed document identifies 3007 counties, 64 parishes, 18 organized boroughs, 11 census areas, 42 independent cities, and the District of Columbia for a total of 3143. We need to correct the County (United States) article.  Buaidh  08:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
FANDAMTASTIC!Coal town guy (talk) 12:21, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'll add notes to the table for the county-equivalents and the demoted counties.  Buaidh  15:36, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, BUT cautiously. The state lists do a great job of the area, Population is here, it would follow with some logic area should be here as well. The CAUTION is that the repetition of data in the State lists could be a bad thing. Maybe a notation in this article that area specifics would be addressed in the specific state list???Coal town guy (talk) 00:23, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's definitely value in having the nationwide comparison for area though, the same way as there is for population. Another way to do this is to have a separate list-article for the area statistics, since this list is already huge. It's also probably more feasible to do it that way, since adding all the area data to this article would be another monumental effort. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 01:13, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note of caution: This list is currently the longest list in the article namespace of the English language Wikipedia. (Please see Wikipedia:Database reports/Long pages.) This list currently weighs in at 615,196 bytes. Its sortable table is quite efficient, so it handles well despite its size. We can certainly create sibling lists with other types of information.  Buaidh  11:56, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
With a few minor enhancements, the list is now 617,231 bytes long.  Buaidh  17:54, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

County area: The United States Census Bureau has not updated census geographic data since May 1, 2008. The next update is due in 2018. (Please see the County and City Data Book.) The Census Bureau has also terminated its support for the USA Counties database. (Please see USA Counties.) While the boundaries of most counties no longer change, a few do.

The area of a county or county-equivalent includes both land area and water area. An area table should properly include land area, water area, and total area in both square miles and square kilometers. Michael J's County table includes these, but measures an incredible 1,306,134 bytes in length. Yours aye,  Buaidh  18:30, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The table I created is in my userspace because it is so big, I did not want to put it in the mainspace yet. It is updated to include 2010 Census information. For some reason, the coordinates used by the Census Bureau changed from 2000 to 2010, but I don't know why. (It is not due to changing boundaries. I checked counties in my area that I know did not change, and there are different coordinates.) The data is all gathered there. Use it as you see fit.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 02:46, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • I don't think you need the {{main}} articles at the top of the article, it's crowded enough already up there, and you link both these articles in the first line of the lead.
  • Overlinking in the lead, you've relinked the US and county in first and second para of the lead.
  • "eight of the 14 counties" -> "eight of the fourteen counties"...
  • In the population column you use a comma for 1,000+ numbers but not the rank column, nor the lead or lead image caption... consistency needed.
  • Per WP:DASH I would expect the "statistical areas" to use an en-dash to separate them, not a hyphen.
  • What do blanks mean for the "Core Based Statistical Area"/"Combined Statistical Area" cols?
  • Refs 4 through 21 are footnotes, not references.
  • I personally think the See also section is way over the top, many are covered in the four templates at the bottom of the article.

The Rambling Man (talk) 16:22, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your good suggestions. The power-of-one-thousand comma is usually omitted when a column contains integers that do not exceed 4 digits. If there is an entry in the Core Based Statistical Area or Combined Statistical Area columns, the county is a component of that area. If the column is blank, the county is not a component of any such area. Wikipedia has yet to officially distinguish footnotes from references.  Buaidh  20:49, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You should have a note about the blank/filled in cells. And no, perhaps no "official" prescription but many articles have a "Notes" or "Footnotes" section and a separate "References" section. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:03, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I just saw this list, but I would strongly suggest trimming this list. An initial table should focus on stuff like # of counties in each state (with a list of the largest as a separate column) and then a table containing ONLY the counties above 100k inhabitants - which would still be almost 600 entries. Nergaal (talk) 04:33, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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