Talk:Q269528

Terms for places that are not incorporated municipalities

Seeing the problems at User talk:Magnus Manske#Block of Reinheitsgebot and that Tamawashi (talk • contribs • logs) has just created unincorporated community in the United States (Q17343829), I'm hoping to make an explicit distinction:

• unincorporated area (Q269528): all area not within an "incorporated municipality"; what Americans usually call "rural" or "out in the county" or "outside city limits". I don't know if this is supposed to be administrative territorial entity (Q56061): The basic feature of a unincorporated area (Q269528) is that it lacks an incorporated municipality. (But in midwest U.S. states, for example, it might still within a civil township (Q1394476), which in the midwest is called an "unincorporated" municipality yet has its own border and small government.)
• census-designated place in the United States (Q498162): a specific kind/subclass of unincorporated community in the United States (Q17343829) given its border by the U.S. Census for statistical purposes
• unincorporated community in the United States (Q17343829): an identifiable settlement within the open area of unincorporated area (Q269528)

I have a question for @Tamawashi: Do you intend unincorporated community in the United States (Q17343829) to always indicate a place that some government has drawn a line around (statistical border or otherwise), or also for settlements whose boundaries are amorphous/opinion rather than based on even a statistical border? --Closeapple (talk) 22:23, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

@Closeapple: The term in the page en:unincorporated area mentioned in the section for the United States, the term used in the categorization of the US specific entities in the English Wikipedia and the one on Addison (Q4681232) in the description as well as the attached English Wikipedia article is "community" and not "area". IIRC there is no 1:1 correspondence between a CDP and a UC, i.e. both tags can exist on one item side by side. I am converting unincorporated area (Q269528) to unincorporated community in the United States (Q17343829) for claim[17:30], i.e. country=US. I would apply unincorporated community in the United States (Q17343829) only to items that are stated to belong into that category, e.g. in the English Wikipedia and am not aware of a better source, while I think in the long run this is needed since English Wikipedia cannot be regarded as a reliable source. Regarding "administrative territorial entity (Q56061)" - I understand this as the root class for classes that contain items that have boundaries established by human decision. If an unincorporated community has a boundary, even is not well defined, then this boundary is established by humans. Tamawashi (talk) 22:51, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: It appears that the unincorporated area article is a terrible mess, and makes no distinction between an area that has no incorporated municipality, and the (usually isolated) individual settlements that would be said to be "communities" within the area. For administrative territorial entity (Q56061): If it has no clear boundary and neither the political government nor the statistics agency recognizes it, what makes it administrative? --Closeapple (talk) 00:28, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

administrative with administration level=0 ? Some areas exists for data collection (statistical regions), some for planning (planning region of Latvia (Q3085683)), others have a government elected by the inhabitants of the entity, then there are subclasses of special-purpose district of the United States (Q610237), e.g. water district, there are entities for telephone number allocation and postal services, others for police functions - police districts..., each such "human invented" territorial entity was set up for some purpose. The same way the designation "unincorporated territorial entity/area/community" was created. Each instance can be described with properties, location, head of government -if any-. So, these "communities" are they listed at some government websites as such, labeled as "community" each? Regarding the deficiencies in the English Wikipedia article: Do you mean the communities (or settlements) are located in unincorporated land? Foo Community is located in some unincorporated area near Bar City, maybe called Bar Unincorporated District? The article for Addison (Q4681232) in the infobox has the "type", label is "unincorporated community", link goes to "unincorporated area", then I understood that as a variation in term and thought editors just merged these. Tamawashi (talk) 01:37, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

The vocabulary is very confusing, and the same phrases can mean either concept. But you are right; there are two separate concepts: The "unincorporated" communities (settlements) are, in most cases, located in/on "unincorporated" land. Foo Community is located in some unincorporated area near Bar City. In some jurisdictions, there could be a Bar Unincorporated District for the area that is not Bar City, and Foo Community could be in Bar Unincorporated District. (This appears to be how it works in Wisconsin.) In other jurisdictions, there could be a Bar Unincorporated District that doesn't exclude incorporated municipalities, just overlays an area without regard to incorporation; and then Bar City could be in that Bar Unincorporated District, and Foo Community could also be in Bar Unincorporated District but nothing more specific. (This is actually how it works in the U.S. with a county (Q28575) in some states, or with a civil township (Q1394476) in most states outside the northeastern U.S.) And then in some jurisdictions, there is no such thing as unincorporated land; everything is inside a fully-empowered incorporated municipality. This leads to the confusing situation of someone (imprecisely) saying that a rural community Foo is itself "unincorporated" (has no legal form of its own) but the land it's located on is "incorporated" (because it's in Bar's borders); it would be more precise to say that Foo is "inside Bar's borders and not separately incorporated" instead. (Confused yet?) --Closeapple (talk) 04:09, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

On the subject of Addison (Q4681232) specifically: Addison (Q4681232) is a specific, unincorporated and shapeless settlement that is within Addison (Q2219309), a civil town of Wisconsin (Q15219655) with the same name, a specific legal entity with defined borders within an unincorporated area. Apparently, in Wisconsin, only the unincorporated area of a county (Q28575) is divided up into one or more of civil town of Wisconsin (Q15219655). (In other states, like Illinois, the county (Q28575) is divided into political divisions called a township of Illinois (Q17198545), which is sometimes said to be a type of "unincorporated municipality", and both of them generally disregard and overlap incorporated municipalities: or, to put it another way, incorporated municipalities can straddle the lines of multiple county (Q28575) or township of Illinois (Q17198545) without regard to those lines.) --Closeapple (talk) 04:09, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

(@Tamawashi: Forgot to ping last night.) --Closeapple (talk) 16:05, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

@Closeapple: Thank you very much. This will be relevant for "is located in" statements. One question: "Apparently, in Wisconsin, only the unincorporated area of a county (Q28575) is divided up into one or more of town in Wisconsin (Q15219655)." - and the rest? Also, I converted some "town" to "town of/in the United States", but there is probably no definition on the federal level, an all the items could be moved to "town of <Foo State>". Tamawashi (talk) 16:20, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tamawashi: In Wisconsin, the rest is inside incorporated municipalities; entities of type civil town of Wisconsin (Q15219655) are not allowed to overlap into incorporated municipalities (cities or villages). Every point in Wisconsin is either within an incorporated municipality, or within a civil town of Wisconsin (Q15219655), but never both. In other words, any point in Wisconsin that is in an unincorporated area must be in the territory of some civil town of Wisconsin (Q15219655). As for towns of the United States: In most cases, the U.S. Census has already done this for you: minor civil division (Q1995480). They designate a township as minor civil division (Q1995480) whether it's of the incorporated-municipality-everywhere type (northeast U.S.) or the unincorporated type (midwest, etc.). I think a couple states may have minor civil division (Q1995480) that is not called civil township (Q1394476); but I don't know if there are any civil township (Q1394476) that aren't minor civil division (Q1995480). And if a state has no minor civil division (Q1995480) for its counties, then the Census invents its own for statistics: census county division (Q1053448). (census county division (Q1053448) never overlaps an incorporated municipality, though. Kind of the same as civil town of Wisconsin (Q15219655).) --Closeapple (talk) 16:02, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

@Closeapple: Thank you. I think at first classes need adjustment: Talk:Q17361443. Afterwards one can check for complete coverage. US census grouping of equivalent entities may help to check completeness. Tamawashi (talk) 09:22, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

unincorporated area vs unincorporated territorial entity

To my understanding "area" could mean two things here: 1) a designation for a territorial entity like district (Peru), department (France), region (Italy). 2) a physical dimension, another term for surface of a planet. To avoid such confusion I renamed the item to "unincorporated territorial entity", so it inherits "territorial entity" from some of the parent classes. Specific classes taken from the page en:unincorporated area then are:

• unincorporated community (USA)
• unincorporated region (Australia)
• unincorporated settlement (Canada)

Tamawashi (talk) 23:12, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

OK; but if that's the case, then until recently unincorporated area (Q269528) was used in the sense of #2 (a general amount of surface outside an incorporated municipality), not as a #1 (a territorial entity), right? It seems that we have, maybe, 5 different levels here:

1. political territorial entity (Q1048835): a specific place with a defined border (more or less) and its own public body or government agency for general public services: e.g. instance of (P31):country (Q6256),U.S. state (Q35657),county (Q28575),civil township (Q1394476),municipality (Q15284)
2. ?: a specific place with a defined border (more or less) and separately-designed government services, but no separate self-government: for example, any "official" neighborhoods or districts within a municipality
3. statistical territorial entity (Q15042037): a specific place or subdivision with a defined border (more or less) designated only for statistics, without its own public body or government agency: i.e. something that has instance of (P31):statistical territorial entity (Q15042037)
4. ?: a specific place with a name/identity but no legal or official statistical recognition: for example, unincorporated villages/settlements, culturally-recognized but unofficial neighborhood names or area names, etc.
5. an expanse of geographic area that is missing a type of administrative entity: for example, international waters (Q25855) is the lack of a county; I would have thought that unincorporated area (Q269528) would be similar

Would we consider international waters (Q25855) to be a administrative territorial entity (Q56061)? What makes unincorporated area (Q269528) different? --Closeapple (talk) 00:28, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

@Closeapple: "Would we consider international waters (Q25855) to be a administrative territorial entity (Q56061)" - Since it is geographic area with special rules, I would. BTW, that would make it the largest administrative territorial entity on earth. Tamawashi (talk) 01:40, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Citations

• "The Unorganized Territory of Maine (UT), is that area of Maine having no local, incorporated municipal government." [1]
• "According to the Maine Department of Audit, there are 34 unorganized territories in Washington County. An unorganized territory is any territory in Maine that does not have a locally elected municipal government."[2] and then follows a listing, first item "Berry Township". Tamawashi (talk) 01:46, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Any unincorporated settlements outside the USA?

Should I (or someone) create a new item "unincorporated community" that is worldwide, and Q17343829 becomes a US-specific subclass of? I ask this because of a couple of edits in the last 24 hours: Hawke666 (talk • contribs • logs), a fairly experienced user, just added "unincorporated community" to unincorporated area (Q269528) and when I undid it, I realized that Andrea Shan (talk • contribs • logs) just changed the Q17343829 label from "unincorporated community" to "unincorporated community of the United States of America". There was already a discussion, above, of the distinction between Q269528 and Q17343829. But I think made the assumption that "incorporated" vs. "unincorporated" was a USA-specific concept. Are there places outside the USA that are specific settlements but have no "municipal government" over them? (And I guess I should ask @Hawke666: Was your intention to apply Q269528 to something outside the USA, or was it a U.S. use and I just clarified it?) --Closeapple (talk) 02:13, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

@Closeapple: The label was enlarged by the name of the parent entity because that is what mostly is done with plain English words in this tree: http://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/tree.html?lang=en&q=Q15916867&rp=279 . They UI is not properly working, so this is the only way to show the reader in many places what an item is about. Otherwise there would be hundreds of "municipality", "state" etc. It is a descriptive label. official designation can go into a designated property, "district of Peru" would get "distrito" , and the item that I changed would get "unincorporated community" - if that is the official term. Andrea Shan (talk) 14:30, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

@Closeapple: It's been awhile but I think it was a U.S. use and you clarified it. Thanks! --Hawke666 (talk) 23:09, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

My edit got reverted

I think this _is_ an instance of an administrative area. Why not? --Anvilaquarius (talk) 09:04, 20 February 2021 (UTC)