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Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about districts

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Naming conventions

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The article naming policy, particularly WP:Common name and WP:Precise, indicates that we should use the name commonly used in reliable sources, and that if we need to disambiguate that we use a natural title if possible before we resort to brackets. We also have the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) guideline, which for administrative subdivisions suggests "do what English does". For example, Hundreds should be written and titled as Hundred of Foo, Foo Hundred, or simply Foo (if unique), rather than Foo (hundred).

Overlap

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Districts that are also settlements

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In most cases two articles are used. The district takes the form as outlined above and the settlement takes the name according to normal naming conventions. Single articles are generally created where the settlement/district matches most of the following criteria:

  1. The built-up area closely matches the boundaries of the district with little or no rural hinterland
  2. There is a lack of other distinct settlements in the district
  3. The ONS population for the settlement is roughly the same, or larger than the district
  4. The current boundaries of the district are long-established and predate reforms in 1974
  5. There are very few or preferably no civil parishes in the district

Some tables can be found at User:Crouch, Swale/District split for some controversial/borderline ones.

Sometimes the district is not named for the largest settlement, such as Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley and Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, in which case two articles should be used. Where one article is used, WP:UKCITIES gives guidance about article structure.

Districts that are also counties

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Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, County Durham, Dorset, East Riding of Yorkshire, Herefordshire, Isle of Wight, City of London, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Somerset and Wiltshire are special cases as they are ceremonial counties as well as districts. WP:UKCOUNTIES gives guidance for those articles. Other unitary authorities should be dealt with in a similar fashion to other districts. County Durham (district), Dorset (district), North Yorkshire (district), Shropshire (district) and Wiltshire (district) have separate articles to their ceremonial counties, while Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, East Riding of Yorkshire and Somerset currently do not, though their councils may have articles (e.g. Buckinghamshire Council). Bristol, Herefordshire, Isle of Wight, City of London, Northumberland and Rutland have the same area as their ceremonial counties and do not need separate articles.

Article structure

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A variety of infoboxes have been used in the past. However, all district articles should be using {{Infobox settlement}}.

Reconstituted districts

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Most districts' boundaries date from 1974 (or 1965 for London boroughs) meaning that is the start date for the scope of the article. However, some districts were reconstituted with exactly the same boundaries or only minor changes, when this is the case the article's scope should deal with the previous district as well. Examples:

As noted above many reconstituted districts such as Eastbourne are combined with the settlement but this point deals with how the article should be structured if it is decided to split. Some like "Epsom and Ewell" are not settlements but are still reconstituted.

An exception is York since the 1995 order said "The existing city of York shall be abolished" when the boundary changes and unitary status came in. This means election articles prior to 1996 should link to the settlement (or older district) not the post 1996 City of York.

Local authorities

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When district articles become large enough, details about the local authority (council) often get moved to a separate article. This should be avoided until there is enough content to support two articles as they can easily become forks or mirrors of each other (for example Colchester Borough Council redirects to Borough of Colchester) unless like Eastbourne/Eastbourne Borough Council (see above) the district doesn't have a separate article.

Categories

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Each article has a related category within Category:Districts of England. All articles relating to things within the district are contained within the category. The categories are further subdivided by features (i.e. Transport in X, Buildings and structures in X) not by further geographic precision.