Template talk:Largest Urban Areas of the United Kingdom

Terminology

This template is, potentially, very useful. However, it uses highly confusing terminology. It uses the ONS data for urban areas, as listed at List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, which is fine - but it then describes them as "cities", and names them not in accordance with the ONS terminology (such as "West Midlands Urban Area") but with the name of the principal settlement (such as "Birmingham"). To anyone with an interest in statistics and urban studies in the UK, "Birmingham" does not have a population of 2,284,093, it has a population of 1,036,900 (2010 estimate) - it is the wider conurbation, which extends well beyond the city of Birmingham, that has the larger population. I recognise that, globally, there may well be interest in the population of the whole urban area, and that terminology like "West Midlands Urban Area" can be relatively obscure whereas "Birmingham" is a well-known place. However, we need to be encyclopedic and not attempt to cut corners. What I suggest is that:

• the title of the table be changed from "Largest cities of United Kingdom" to "Largest urban areas of the United Kingdom"
• the first column (after the ranking) be the name of the urban area as given by ONS - headed either "Urban area" or "Conurbation"
• the next column use the "City" names (except for "Tyneside" which should be changed to "Newcastle"), but be headed "Principal city"
• if there is a shortage of space, the region column be omitted as unnecessary
• consideration be given to the fourth photo being of Glasgow rather than Leeds (to give 3 English cities and 1 Scottish)

Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

That potentially may be difficult seeing as this template is based off the largest cities template. See Template:Largest cities. I would consider copying that template and altering it to be more suitable for Largest Urban Areas in Country X but I am not familiar enough with wiki code to really do it myself. Eopsid (talk) 22:29, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah - OK, more difficult than I thought then. But I don't think it can be used in its current format. The idea is right, but the terminology is contrary to UK practice. I'm not clued up on discussions on templates - is it best to copy this discussion over to Template talk:Largest cities, or is there a better forum to discuss it? Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:39, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I completed your first suggested edit and have now created Template:Largest Urban areas. Your other suggested edits would require changing more of the template. All I did was create a new one and replace the word cities with Urban Areas. Also I know of no other better place to discuss this as discussions on this sort of topic are pretty much dead in most places. Eopsid (talk) 22:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually your other suggested edits, bar the Glasgow photo one, would be pretty simple to perform I could just replace city name column with Urban Area and Region/Country column with Principal City.Eopsid (talk) 22:48, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, worth a try. Perhaps our Scottish friends won't complain! Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:55, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I've just modified {{Largest Urban areas}} to swap the "Principal City" and "Urban Area" columns. I hope I haven't introduced any unwanted side-effects. -- Dr Greg  talk  01:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that looks much better - thanks to both of you. I'll remove my message from the other talk pages, because I think it's resolved for the moment. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:10, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

This is a huge improvement - well done. Would it be even better if the population figure came before the principal city though - to make it clear that it's the pop of the urban area, not the individual city? JimmyGuano (talk) 09:06, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Good point - can that be done? Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:23, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I've done it. Also I changed "city" to "settlement" as some of the places in that column aren't cities. -- Dr Greg  talk  20:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Images are wrong

The Manchester image is a photograph of Birmingham and vice versa. Graham Colm (talk) 14:47, 24 February 2013 (UTC) I have now fixed this. Eopsid (talk) 15:03, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

GM/WM pop. data

Just thought I'd note that the Greater Manchester and West Midlands population data are the wrong way around, as per the source. Cheers, 81.96.108.2 (talk) 17:10, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Erm.. the source agrees with the template. The source says:

Greater Manchester Urban Area 2,362,849

West Midlands Urban Area 2,362,065

and so does the template. You maybe confused with the source for List of urban areas in the United Kingdom but that is based on the 2001 census whilst most of this is based on a 2010 estimate.Eopsid (talk) 17:23, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

the actual data in the table is correct, but the labels are mixed up: | city_2 = Manchester | div_2 = Greater Manchester Urban Area | pop_3 = 2,362,849 | img_2 = Aerial photograph of Manchester, Salford and Trafford.jpg | city_3 = Birmingham | div_3 = West Midlands Urban Area| pop_2 = 2,362,065 | img_3 = Birmingham Skyline from Bartley Green.jpg

pop_3 is listed under city_2, and vice-versa, but appears as pop_3 under city_3 and pop_2 under City_3, resulting in the data looking incorrect — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.31.202.4 (talk) 20:51, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

principal settlements 12-15

something has gone wrong between cities 12 and 15.

For example, for "Brighton/ Worthing/ Littlehampton" it has the principal settlement listed as Edinburgh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.246.78.26 (talk) 17:06, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. Also Bristol and Belfast were in the wrong order. I've fixed this as well. Eopsid (talk) 23:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

It says talk edit and view twice

On the template it says talk, edit an view twice (hence the title). Anyone know how to fix this? Eopsid (talk) 20:08, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 March 2014

the population of liverpool metropolitan area( merseyside) is 1.381,200 not 860,000 verify under merseyside

88.104.36.24 (talk) 23:49, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Not done: That statistic is giving the population of the Liverpool Urban Area, which is different from Merseyside (and as such gives the figure correctly). This template uses the urban areas as defined by the Office of National Statistics, not metropolitan counties or other geographic divisions. --ElHef (Meep?) 00:35, 5 March 2014 (UTC)