Talk:List of ONS built-up areas in England by population/Archive 2

Population of London to include London Boroughs only?

I suggest the population given for London should be the population of the area consisting of just the 31 London Boroughs and the Cities of London and Westminster only. At the last census this was 7,172,091.

The current Urban Area population of Greater London listed includes distinct towns like Watford, Woking and Byfleet etc. This will allow Watford to be listed seprately with a population of 120,960 as it is the only town in the Greater London urban area with a population of over 100,000 and is not a London Borough itself. I feel that London should be more exactly defined as the area controlled by the Greater London Authority, namely the 31 London Boroughs and the cities of Westminster and London and led by the Mayor of London.

How do other contributors feel about this?

This is a difficult question. On one hand, we're trying to remove the Local Authority element. On the other, Watford certainly has the "feel" of a different town, and doesn't really function as part of London. Steven J 20:06, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Current definition is weird, and causes Hertford to be 6 miles from part of the London Urban Area. But if you are trying keep local authorities out of the picture entirely, I don't see what can be done.

Was just looking at extending the list further, to towns bigger than > 80,000. I note that the "urban-sub-area" of "Oldbury/Smethwick" had a total population of 139,855 - what would we give as the population of these towns if we were to extend the list?

Also, I note that again the figure of Cambridge/Milton - Parish of Milton has been put on the list. Can whoever did this confirm that the entire parish of Milton was included in Cambridge/Milton? Morwen - Talk 11:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The type given for London in the list is "English Region", this is incorrect as the English Region of London only includes the 31 London Boroughs and the cities of Westminster and London, and excludes towns like Watford, Woking and Byfleet which are indeed part of the bigger Greater London Urban Area population of 8,278,251 that is shown. The London English region is specifically the area controlled by the Greater London Authority. London is already a special case and is the only "city" which seems to have official, widely recognised, urban boundaries. We could be justified in using the Census population of 7,172,091 as it includes the entire "region" of London only and also excludes recognised idependent towns like Watford, Woking and Byfleet, which can then be counted sepratetly. --Statsfan 13:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the "type" column should be outright removed? Morwen - Talk 16:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Seeing as this is a controversial topic, I did a bit more research and found the population to be 2,765,975, which incorporates Inner London only, its still the biggest population by a long way, and is far from perfect but it is the best I can, the actual "city" (i.e. the borough of City of London) has a population of 8,174 people. The ONS proved useless for my query, so I used [www.demographia.com|this site] Medscin 11:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The census gives Inner London (2 cities + 12 boroughs) a population of 2,766,114 and Outer London (19 boroughs) a population of 4,405,977, total 7,172,091. The City of London in the census had a population of 7,185. See table KS01 [1]. The mid-2004 population estimates [2] give population of Inner London 2,931,100 and Outer London 4,497,500, total 7,428,600. City of London 8,600. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:59, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The population for London must come from the offical population figures produced at the 2001 CENSUS ONLY so that it can be compared to the other populations in the table and certainly not from a private website. Nearly every published population figure for London uses both the Inner and Outer London populations together. Using the Inner London population only will not give a true population figure for the capital. --Statsfan 16:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

As the London figure has now been changed to the population of the Greater London Authority as suggested by contributors above, perhaps we should rewrite the paragraph that refers to the population of London (as it's now nonsensical), and add Watford into the list in the appropriate place. I would not add Woking/Byfleet, as I'm sure that the population of Byfleet is more than the 1,000 or so that Woking/Byfleet is above the 100,000 mark. Steven J 20:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Added Watford as suggested Steven. Woking/Byfleet are indeed below 100,000 separately. Also updated the paragraph on London --Statsfan 10:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Warrington

Don't get annoyed at this, after doing a quick search for Warrington on ONS, it gave up a population of 193,200. And judging by the fact there a government agency, they are most likely going to be right!!!! 11:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I am annoyed at this. The figures in the table have been given for all URBAN SUB-AREAS not URBAN AREAS. The Warrington Urban Area population (code D93400) includes the towns of Great Sankey, Risley, Stockton Heath and Thelwell as well as Warrington (code D93401) which only has a population of 80,661. The only areas treated differently are Telford and Milton Keynes because there are no urban sub-areas with the same names within these urban areas. These figures have been taken from the offical 2001 census publication and checked by numerous, highly informed contributors. All the population figures in the tables have been compiled following the same rules. Please respect the intelligence and accuracy of previous contributors before you decide to update the table. I suggest you should get feedback on this discussion page first. --Statsfan 16:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:FLC

I was thinking of nominating this as a Wikipedia:Featured list (see WP:WIAFL); however, given the debate above, I am not sure if I should... -- ALoan (Talk) 19:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Milton Keynes

Why is Milton Keynes in a list of English Cities when it is still a town and not a city? (It has never been granted city status, despite applying for both the millenium and golden jubilee competitions? JonEastham 21:42, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

This page is actually a list of the largest cities and towns, not just cities (yes, the title is confusing). — cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 22:09, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Would it not make sense to amend the article title to reflect this then? JonEastham 22:14, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily. To quote from City, "The difference between towns and cities is differently understood in different parts of the English speaking world. There is no one standard international definition of a city: the term may be used either for a town possessing city status; for an urban locality exceeding an arbitrary population size; for a town dominating other towns with particular regional economic or administrative significance."

The article states in its opening sentence that it is a list of cities and towns. Steven J 00:36, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

An alternative?

Would this article be better replaced by representing the Urban Areas that the ONS use, listing sub areas under the Urban Area they are part of; this will lead to Birmingham disappearing to be swallowed into "West Midlands Urban Area" -- see also Map A5 at URBAN AND RURAL AREA DEFINITIONS: A USER GUIDE. This would also allow those reading the article to compare like for like, whilst also drilling in where there is more information.

Probably best to also rename to "List of English urban areas with a population over 100,000" Ratarsed 16:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I intend to create an article explaining the Geography of the United Kingdom 2001 Census, and the way the mulitple hierachies relate to each other.

List of conurbations in the United Kingdom already covers what you are suggesting. josh (talk) 19:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. List of conurbations in the United Kingdom already has the suggested changes, and you will lose all of the comparison information between towns and cities within conurbations, and those outside.

That doesn't cover what I was thinking of doing -- I had the intention of illustrating a few examples, showing the difference between, say, the Urban Area definition of Ipswich, the borough council boundaries around the town, and maybe the post town. List of conurbations in the United Kingdom covers the case of where cities have ran into each other (which is a subset of the problem with explaining these figures). The original problem came about where people didn't understand how to interpret these figures, for which conurbations confuse matters in one way, but places like Ipswich which overrun their district into rural areas (so not a conurbation) are another case that confuse matters (by about 20% in Ipswich's case) - Ratarsed 17:17, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

These figures do precisely that already. The Urban Area definitions used by the ONS include areas where the city/town has expanded outside the Local Authority boundaries (or the Local Authority boundaries were drawn up in a daft place!). Compare the figures with List of English districts by population. Of the largest 15 on this list, this is true for 5 of them (Bristol - LA 391525, city 420556; Leicester - LA 283913, city 330574; Stoke-on-Trent - LA 237991, city 259252; Wolverhampton - LA 238857, city 251462; Plymouth - LA 241488, city 243795). Ipswich, the example you give, is listed at 138,718 for the town/urban area, compared with 117,400 for the local authority.

Trying to combine this list, List of conurbations in the United Kingdom and List of English districts by population into one big list (which appears to be what you're suggesting) would be hopelessly confusing I think. Your query regarding the fact that some urban areas spread outside their LA boundaries are also covered in the preamble to the list. Steven J 23:19, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

That's not what I meant, I meant explaining the different types oif geogrpahy, and how they relate, keeping a list of districts by population, list of urban areas by population, etc. separate (whilst they would link to the new article to explain how the set of figures they're reading reflects in the real world) -- there is an attempt to do this explaination in the second paragraph of the article, but as the relationship is still relevant the other way round, I think that needs to be demerged.

Perhaps it would be best if I draft something up within my user namespace. -- Ratarsed 12:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I look forward to seeing it! How are you planning on dealing with the likes of Huddersfield, West Bromwich and Sutton Coldfield, none of which have a local authority of the same name? Steven J 12:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

City of Brighton and Hove

I think the figure given for the population of Brighton is incorrect. There are two problems. Firstly, if you look at the Office for National Statistics website link provided at the bottom of the article and look at the table, the figure given for "M83708 Brighton" is indeed 134,293. However the area "M83709 Rottingdean/Saltdean" is actually part of Brighton. So that's another 21,411 people, giving a total population of 155,704 for "Brighton".

[interjected] Rottingdean and Saltdean are listed separately because the government considers them to be separate towns, otherwise they would have been included in the population of Brighton, even if they come under Brighton Council control. If you look at the breakdown of ALL the urban areas in the UK as published at the last census, many people in different towns and cities will argue that the area shown separately should be part of the city. The best way to make sure it is included is to argue the case with the government before the next census. --Statsfan 01:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Secondly, Brighton is not a city. "Brighton and Hove" is a city. The population of Hove is made up of "M83707 Hove" (72,335) and "M83706 Portslade" (19,564) giving 91,899 people.

Again here Portslade is a considered to be a separate town by the government, otherwise it would have been included in the Hove population. If it is incorrect then you must argue the case with the government before the next census and get it changed. --Statsfan 01:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

So... The population of the City of Brighton and Hove is 155,704 + 91,899 = 247,603. (A weird problem is that according to a different page of the National Statistics website [3], the population of Brighton and Hove is 247,817, an extra 214 people!).

I would therefore argue that the urban population of the City of Brighton and Hove will only include the urban sub-divisions listed as Brighton 134,293 and Hove 72,335 which comes to 206,628. The population figure of 247,817 is the area controlled by Brighton and Hove Council not the urban population of Brighton. The urban population does not necessarily match the council population. E.g. Leeds council has a much bigger population then urban Leeds because it includes smaller surounding towns and villages. --Statsfan 01:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Portslade and Saltdean/Rottingdean are officially part of the urban fabric of the city though so why would you exclude this from the official city population? Indeed we could argue that Brighton should have close to 500,000 people as it's official conurbation is recognised by the Government (Littlehampton, Goring, Worthing, Shoreham, Brighton & Hove) as being the tenth largest in England with around 480,000 people.

Anyway, I didn't want to change the table straight away because it would promote Brighton and Hove from 44th to 15th in the list. I'm inclined to be bold, but I'm new to this article so I thought I'd tread carefully. :) --Seaweed 17:03, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to the world of government statistics. Praticaly every city on the list has suburbs that are listed seperately. There are also other inconsistensies. Liverpool has more people in its urban sub-area than in the council district. The only possiblity is if we determine all the sub-areas in each district then that could be used (although that is likely to be objected to by some people). Otherwise we have to put up with the current figures. josh (talk) 17:33, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Extending the list

I've had a look at trying to extend the list to include all urban sub-areas bigger than 75,000, which would catch a lot. There seem to be an awful lot in this range for some reason - it would add

• Oldbury/Smethwick - 139,855
• Wakefield - 76,886 (sub-area of West Yorkshire Urban Area)
• High Wycombe - 77,178 (sub-area of High Wycombe Urban Area)
• Weston-super-Mare - 78,044 (sub-area of Weston super Mare Urban Area)
• Gateshead - 78,403 (sub-area of Tyneside)
• Stockton-on-Tees - 80,060 (sub-area of Teesside)
• Chester - 80,121 (sub-area of Chester Urban Area)
• Warrington - 80,661 (sub-area of Warrington Urban Area)
• Wigan - 81,203 (sub-area of Wigan Urban Area)
• Stevenage - 81,482 (sub-area of Stevenage Urban Area)
• St Albans - 82,429 (sub-area of St Albans/Hatfield Urban Area)
• Bedford - 82,488 (sub-area of Bedford/Kempston)
• South Sheilds - 82,854 (sub-area of Tyneside)
• Hemel Hempstead - 83,118 (sub-area of Greater London Urban Area)
• Halifax - 83,570 (standalone area)
• Birkenhead - 83,729 (sub-area of Birkenhead Urban Area)
• Harrogate/Knaresborough - 85,128
  • no separate figures are given.
• Hastings - 85,828 (sub-area of Hastings/Bexhill)
• Lincoln - 85,963 (sub-area of Lincoln Urban Area)
• Hartlepool - 86,075 (standalone area)
• Darlington - 86,082 (standalone area)
• Grimsby - 87,574 (sub-area of Grimsby/Cleethorpes Urban Area)
• Harlow/Sawbridgeworth - 88,296 (standalone area)
• Maidstone - 89,684 (standalone area)
• Bath - 90,144 (standalone area)
• Basingstoke - 90,171 (sub-area of Basingstoke/Basing)
• Southport - 91,404 (sub-area of Southport/Formby)
• Worcester - 94,029 (standalone area)
• Solihull - 94,753 (sub-area of West Midlands)
• Rochdale - 95,796 (sub-area of Greater Manchester)
• Worthing - 96,964 (sub-area of Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton)
• Gillingham - 98,403 (sub-area of Medway)
• Cheltenham - 98,875 (sub-area of Cheltenham/Charlton Kings)
  • this is a little odd. Charlton Kings was added to Cheltenham in 1974. what about the parishes added to Cheltenham in 1991? are they counted here as part of Cheltenham urban sub-area?
• Basildon - 99,876 (sub-area of Basildon/North Benfleet)
• Chelmsford - 99,962 (standalone sub-area)

as you can see the urban sub-area=town equation really starts to break down in this range, with "towns" such as "Harrogate/Knaresborough" and "Harlow/Sawbridgeworth" (it gets worse later on). however we should be able to extend the list to cover all settlements larger than say 90,000 without conducting any more original research than has already been done. Morwen - Talk 22:16, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

What about the UK?

Can we get a List_of_UK_cities_by_population please? I would quite like to see what size Glasgow is compared to, say, Cardiff. Cheers :) DavidMcKenzie 09:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

There's a UK List at lovemytown.co.uk you may find useful. --Statsfan 12:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Why are some disctricts excluded from Sheffield?

I'm a little confused as to why the entry for Sheffield "Excludes the suburbs of Beighton, Chapeltown and Mosborough/Highlane"!

the page states "In some cases, suburbs of towns that are within the local authority boundary, but have been recognised as part of the larger urban area, have been excluded from the figure" but does not state what criteria are used to make this decision or any others, such as "where the Local Authority has very generously-drawn boundaries, the population of rural areas within the boundary has been excluded". Are these judgement calls by the page authors/editors, or are there set criteria?

I'm curious as this does rather affect Sheffield's ranking - I rather think the residents of those areas would be rather suprised to find out they were not in Sheffield City! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marksky (talk • contribs)

It's the statistics office that has decided to split them up like that. It seems that any area that became part of the city in the latter half of the last century is counted as a seperate area. There have been various debates on this page about how the situation should be handled. josh (talk) 15:55, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Marksky. I feel that the residents Beighton, Chapeltown and Mosborough/Highlane would find it rather surprising that they were not in Sheffield! What do we do about the areas of Sheffield originally in Derbyshire until Sheffield widened it's boarders. Additionally, ask my uncle (from Catcliffe) where he lives, he'll say Sheffield. ditto my cousin (Dinnington), World Superbikes rider James Toseland (Kiveton Park, indeed the article starts by saying "born 5 October, 1980 in Kiveton Park, Sheffield, South Yorkshire"), all Rotherham. Please also ask residents of Eckington (in Derbyshire) and even Worksop (Nottinghamshire) - most will say Sheffield, rather than, say, Chesterfield or Nottingham. Many of these areas are linked to Sheffield both economically and physically, as indeed is Rotherham! Where do we end with this? L.J.Skinner^{WOT?|I did} 21:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Exactly where the ONS leaves them. I'm sure that residents of most large cities would claim that some areas are missing, or are in the wrong Urban sub-area - for example I'm sure some people would claim that Sutton Coldfield should be included in Birmingham as it's within the Birmingham local authority area. Sheffield is not a unique case at all in this respect. The areas that you mention were perhaps not within the Sheffield local authority area in 1973, the last date that local authorities were mostly based around towns rather than being agglomerations due to target populations and the like. Additionally, Chapeltown does not appear to be directly linked to the main Sheffield urban area. Fingerpuppet 23:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Chapletown is - I've driven that road many a time. Please see this map. The northernmost urban agglomeration is Chapletown, the southern is Ecclesfield (a ward and suburb of Sheffield). Indeed, even at a higher magnification, you can see the Ecclesfield factories, Chapletown and what appears to be a small Hamlet and a cul-de-sac (in Chapletown) in the same picture.

Regardless, that isn't th point, Areas such as Mosborough are known in Sheffield as the Mosborough townships. They were as the name implies - townships built by Sheffield City Council to solve the overpopulation - effectively a "new town" for Sheffield, linking into Sheffield's amenities - [see here. L.J.Skinner^{WOT?|I did} 00:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

As was Redditch for Birmingham, but that's got its own council and all. And who can deny that Solihull is "really" part of Birmingham? Yet the ONS figures leave them out. Oh well, it doesn't matter - Birmingham is still an order of magnitude bigger than any other city (outside London), so we can afford to be complacent about those outlying areas. TharkunColl 00:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

a) Mosborough/Highlane are still within Sheffield's council boundaries

b) This is not a penis-measuring contest! L.J.Skinner^{WOT?|I did} 02:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think if you're that annoyed by it, you'll need to take this up with the ONS - I'm sure they'll have an answer for you! The urban area "boundary" is taken by the ONS at 50m. Measuring via Google Earth, the Chapeltown/Sheffield gap is of the order of 150m, measured from the small hamlet in between to each side. Mosborough/Highlane may be within Sheffield council's boundaries, but the entire point of the data is to separate towns and cities from the local authority areas. As mentioned above, Sutton Coldfield is within Birmingham local authority area, but the ONS consider it to be a separate settlement. There are many, many examples of this occurring, as there are examples of cities and towns reaching outside the same-named local authority areas, such as Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton and Reading. Fingerpuppet 20:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I do understand where this comes from - hey, Sheffield has less to complain about than Manchester in this respect. I was simply asking about boundaries and where they fall. I have been having a similar arguenment re: Leeds and City of Leeds! L.J.Skinner^{wot|I did} 23:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

In which case, try this PDF which should answer your boundary questions regarding Sheffield. This PDF includes the Leeds and Bradford areas. Fingerpuppet 08:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I've read you all but I fail to see after your arguments why areas within the CITY limits remain excluded from the City limits: Excludes the suburbs of Beighton, Chapeltown and Mosborough are not suburbs of Sheffield they are part of the City itself. Why should this list, which has since its inception been erroneous, have the ONS which is biased and uses its own methods of calculations be the only source for this article? Even taking the ONs into account its calculation of the population of Sheffield city is 520000 [4], it is confirmed that these figures are measured by the precious and all ever accurate ONS [5]. The city boundaries as we know them since 1974 are confirmed here: [6] and included Beighton (bottom right) and Chapeltown (top right). No doubt my companions will agree that these figures must be changed on the main article. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 12:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Because the ONS state that the places you state are separate settlements. Accusations of bias of the Office for National Statistics are ridiculous. The page you direct people to is headed Area: Sheffield (Local Authority) and this is NOT a list of local authority areas, as I am sure you will be aware by now. This is exactly the same situation in pretty much every local authority area: Some areas outside the local authority areas are counted, others within the local authority area are excluded and counted as separate settlements. For example, Birmingham does not include the town of Sutton Coldfield, Leeds does not contain the separate towns of Wetherby or Guiseley, Wakefield does not include the town of Pontefract and so on. If you are interested in the populations of local authorities, then see List of English districts by population. Fingerpuppet 12:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You're still stuck in that time warp of yours. Did you pay attention to the fact that the quoted districts are not seperate settlements, towns are anything of that. Beighton, Mosbrough and Chapeltown are nothing else than Sheffield, my ONS quoted links support this. I took time to explain to you that what you had previously stated was wrong because it was the ONS said so with links supported by the ONS? Do not mistake boroughs, cities, towns, settlements and wotnot. Either article is inherently wrong since in this one Sheffield's data is dimished by your PoV while in the other Leeds' is inflated by the same criteria you fail to apply to sheffield in this one! Edit war in the building or would you like to be sensible a moment? Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 16:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Insulting other editors is not the way to persuade people of the power of your arguments.

Please explain precisely what is PoV about a published list of the ONS. Please explain exactly why the ONS is "biased" against Sheffield. Those areas you mention are within the Sheffield local authority area. Those areas are NOT within the Sheffield Urban Sub-Area, which is what this article is about. The ONS data is the only source for the article because... it's an article on the ONS's data. Isn't that all rather shocking.

Instead of ranting at me, why don't you contact the ONS and ask them why those areas are not considered part of the Sheffield Urban Sub-Area. Alternatively, you could always read the notes on the ONS's own website that are linked to from the article, or read this talk page where you will discover that local authority boundaries are irrelevant with regard to this article. I will help you along a little and quote from the notes:

Major urban agglomerations, cities, and smaller towns defined in terms of their physical extent rather than by any administrative boundaries. Census reports with results for urban areas and the remaining 'rural' populations were first produced from the 1981 Census to meet a widespread interests in towns and cities as such when the administrative distinction between urban and rural areas disappeared after local government reorganisation in 1974.

To take the same example as pointed out above, Chapeltown has a rural gap of more than 50m between itself and Sheffield - therefore it cannot be part of the same Urban Sub-Area as Sheffield. That's what the notes mean by "defined in terms of their physical extent rather than by any administrative boundaries". Fingerpuppet 21:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Time to merge the articles... I see nothing above that persuades me your point of view is correct, all I see is that you really want it to be that way rather than being factually correct. You contradict yourself and are inconsistent in this discussion and your article when you say Chapeltown is seperated from Sheffield by 50m while letting places that are connect to Sheffield such as Beighton left out. Apply rigueur and consistent at least. I maintain there is a bias against Sheffield since double standards (see above, quote blah blah) are applied and different rules seem to apply to a city that is statistically always larger than Leeds, on paper and in spirit. You'll also try and not jump on the token welcome message waggon and avoid references to insluts when there are none, When there is such content, you'll recognise it I assure, there is nothing of the sort from me on this page.

So the following are not intended as insults?

You're still stuck in that time warp of yours

would you like to be sensible a moment?

Fingerpuppet 10:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

For the record constructions are seperated by 400m between Chapeltown and Ecclesfield (why don't you take than one out, it was only recently incorporated), Beighton is not disconnected from the built up core and neither is Rotherham. If these aren't double standards...

Do you want to sit down and discuss this sensibly or shall we start the fun? I see little things to do other than merge relevant list articles, deleting lists with vague and arbitrary notions such as 'areas'. Unless data other than the ONS' can be accepted this article cannot be accepted as having an acceptable format since other sources invariably contradict the ONs and its arbitrary ideas. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 22:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Why do you believe that I personally created the data set? Can you show any other source that counteracts this article, and gives a different population for the Sheffield Urban Sub-Area, which I will point out once again is NOT the same area as the Sheffield local authority area? Rotherham and the other areas that you mention form part of the same conurbation as Sheffield, but are not part of the same Urban Sub-Area. If you can find a different primary source that has a different figure for the Sheffield Urban Sub-Area (preferably, though not exclusively that contains the other Urban Sub-Areas within), then I'll happily concede the point. And it's not "my" article, by the way.

You appear be missing the point entirely, and wish to combine particular areas that you deem to be within the Sheffield Urban Sub-Area, counteracting the national body for such data, creating a new list of your own. If so, then that falls quite firmly within Original Research, and as such is invalid. Alternatively, you wish to apply data from a wide range of sources; which come with different methodologies or use different datasets and therefore comparisons between them are invalid.

The Sheffield Urban Area (which is the conurbation with Sheffield as the largest component part) - being area E17000 in the data given is made up of the following Urban Sub Areas: E17005 Aughton (13,456); E17006 Beighton (10,676); E17004 Chapeltown (22,665); E17007 Mosborough/Highlane (18,585); E17001 Rawmarsh (18,210); E17002 Rotherham (117,262); and E17003 Sheffield (439,866). Urban Sub-Areas are not "vaguely defined" or "arbitrary" - you have the map linked to above to show the boundaries between the Sub-Areas.

Unfortunately, you give the impression of proceeding from a personal view that the data MUST be incorrect because "Sheffield ... is statistically always larger than Leeds, on paper and in spirit". I don't care whether Sheffield or Leeds is larger - it really does not affect me one bit - though I warn you that should you follow the methodology that you wish to apply and either claim that the population of the Sheffield Urban Sub-Area is the same as the entire conurbation population, then logically the same criteria must be applied to Leeds, and the Leeds/Bradford conurbation is the larger of the two (1,499,465 compared to 640,720) (see List of conurbations in the United Kingdom). Alternatively, you wish to use the Sheffield local authority area (520,700), which must logically also be used for the Leeds local authority area (723,100) (see List of English districts by population). I have therefore demonstrated three ways in that Sheffield is not "statistically always larger than Leeds". Feeling that your home city is insulted simply because you personally disagree with data from a primary source is unfortunate and unnecessary, and certainly not intended. My apologies if this is not the case, but I hope that you can see how that conclusion may be reached. Fingerpuppet 10:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

From the unsourced information you have brought to my attention I think there is nothing else to do but delte or merge this list into a list which does not comprise arbitrary data: Urban Sub-Area. I hope you understand that personal views have no place here and as such you can understand that your above points seem out of place. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 15:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Moves are proposed, that's what happens sometimes. I do not wish to enter an argument with an employee of the ONS and as such propose an alternative solution where data would be present neutraly as opposed to the present situation where certain cities are put before others on arbitrary grounds. I've moved coments that seemed off topic to this section where it appears they belong, feel free to contribute to the merge/move proposal and offer solutions. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 17:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Decided by whom? Yourself? Individuals have certainly queried the data, but having been informed of the methodology of the report, they appear to have understood that Urban Sub-Areas are not the same as local authority areas. Indeed, it is User:Captain scarlet who has ignored all attempts to explain the data, who has quite obviously not read the associated Primary Sources and the source's notes that accompany the dataset. User:Captain scarlet also claims that the users mentioned above have all demonstrated concerns. In fact, User:joshurtree has assisted in explaining the data and methodolgy for the query made by User:Marksky - who appeared to be content with User:joshurtree's response. User:Lewisskinner also queried the data, but appears to be content with the responses as evidenced by the phrase "I do understand where this comes from - hey, Sheffield has less to complain about than Manchester in this respect. I was simply asking about boundaries and where they fall". User:TharkunColl made a side comment about Redditch being a Birmingham overspill town and not included within the Birmingham figures, but expressed no concern. User:Captain scarlet is therefore misrepresenting their positions.

Any attempt to merge the two lists will end in failure as the two sets of data measure different things: Urban Sub-Areas measure built-up areas that are then split, where appropriate by the ONS; whist Local Authorities measure administrative areas, which may include other towns other than the local government seat, as well as rural areas. I would be very interested to know how User:Captain scarlet plans to merging the data for West Bromwich and Huddersfield (where there is no like-named local authority), and how to deal with the different ranking structure in place.

All sources mentioned by User:Captain scarlet do not measure Urban Sub-Areas, but Local Authority areas. Attempts by User:Captain scarlet to engage other editors by the use of inflammatory language (such as "Sheffield data scandal") have failed to this point. I firmly believe (as shown by the use of phrases such as "Sheffield ... is statistically always larger than Leeds, on paper and in spirit") that User:Captain scarlet is simply trying to push a POV agenda to promote Sheffield. Fingerpuppet 17:31, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Please state why you falsely believe that I am employed by the ONS. It has been explained to you ad infinitum that the dataset is perfectly neutral and not even slightly arbitrary - you are just trying to push your personal PoV regarding Sheffield. Fingerpuppet 17:31, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Which unsourced information? You have been given the source - the Office for National Statistics. You have then claimed that the national body that deals with the Census data is "biased" in some form. The Office for National Statistics is the primary source for that data - a fact you have chosen to completely ignore. Fingerpuppet 09:37, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid your rpely is unsatisfactory and seems driven by a personnal point of view to promote data in a certain manner that appears unnatural. You seem concentrating on irrelevant data; had I said such and such city were mucky you'd be concentrating on this, please remain focused on referenced information not just au-le-vent coments. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 17:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

As usual, I'll remind you that all data is perfectly reasonably sourced, though somehow I doubt that you're going to listen. Fingerpuppet 17:31, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have an isue with adhering with section topics, the merge proposal section is to discuss the merge proposal only and not your disagreement with having a properly sourced article, this snuold be done in an improve article section. You cannot remind me as usual that the article is propoerly sourced since me intervening on this talk page is not a regular occurance but only a recent fact, hopefuly spotted in time. The article is neither properly sourced nor properly edited or maintained since it does not allow:

• other editors to modify it
• its strutcure is rigid and does not allow any editing
• it represents a unilateral point of view
• it allows being referenced by one source alone.

On these grounds the article should be cleaned up and put up to standard but you seem relunctant to veer from a rigid point point of view and pre determined idea of what the article should be, you have dismissed each and every comments in this section and tossed any concerned relating to data quality asside. I must also remind you it is not appropriate to judge someone's actions or presume of what they'l do, this includes comments left in edit summaries.

Should you not be wiling to compromise or work with other Wikipedians the article should go under a review process and have the community judge its quality and the actions to be performed. I will not let you ignore any coments made concerning this article nor wil I allow you to refrain anyone from editing this article since this article does not belong to you. I have just as much right to edit this article as you have and you have removed this posibly, under these circumstances your actions should be review at best. Please be reasonable and listen, this article is inaccurate and does not represent a neutral ground! Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 06:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. Feel free to bring the article to a review process if you like. Just make sure to bring all the other lists based entirely upon Census data and estimates based on Census data, all of which come from the ONS as their primary source, such as List of English districts by population, List of ceremonial counties of England by population, List of English districts by population density, List of English districts by ethnic diversity, List of English counties by population, List of non-metropolitan counties of England by population, List of English counties by area, List of conurbations in the United Kingdom and so on. They all "suffer" from having a single Primary Source (the Office for National Statistics [7]), and hence by User:Captain scarlet's logic, cannot be "neutral". Therefore every list article on Wikipedia based upon UK Census data, both present and past should be brought forward to the same review process and be treated in the same way. Fingerpuppet 00:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge Proposal

Please discuss the merge proposal in this section

From the conversation above the following was decided.

It seems this situation was delt with lightely and concerns by several parties; User:Marksky, TharkunColl, josh, User:Lewisskinner and Captain Scarlet were ignored and dismissed by and including Fingerpuppet. It seems the reasonable compromise to merge both the arbitrary urban sub division list with the districts list. This merge appears reasonable since the urban sub div list data is measured entirely arbitrarily with areas eaqually arbitrarily chosen which have no particular meaning or reason to exist.

Furthermore the only sourc eof information seems to come from one source alone whilst all and any other official and recognised source of information is denied by the said user. The districts list should also be amended to not comprise borough data but local authority data (city/town council) to ensure consistence with sources such as council data. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 17:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The above proposal and discussion can also be found on Talk:List of English districts by population, where the actual discussion is taking place. Please note that my response to the misrepresentations of facts contained above have been moved around and edited by User:Captain scarlet, which is a form of vandalism. Fingerpuppet 00:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

How dare you accuse me of editing your replies, I have done nothing of the sort; see [8]. I have simply moved off topic conversation to the relevant discussion section. Your accusations and light language are becoming tiresome, state facts, not personal opinions, there have been no editions of your comments. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 09:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Chapeltown may or may not be an Urban Sub-division but it is MOST DEFINITELY part of SHEFFIELD. I am from Chapeltown and Chapeltown has been a part of the city of Sheffield all my life. My parents have lived there for many years and remember when it became part of the city. I do not mean that Chapeltown became part of the Urban Sub Division of Sheffield according to the Office of National Statistics and I am not purporting this to be the case (to be honest I haven't even checked). But this list does not purport to be a list of Urban Sub Divisions. It is clearly labelled 'List of towns and cities in England by population'. If it a list of Urban Sub Divisions, then it should be re-labelled as such. You cannot miss suburbs of cities out willy-nilly. Who decides what gets included? Oh yes, that's right, the ONS. But they didn't state that Chapeltown or any of the other aforementioned areas weren't part of Sheffield, did they? No - they just stated that they were Urban Sub Divisions in their own right. I can't be totally sure but I'm pretty certain that Urban Sub Division does not mean the same as city. It's not listed as a synonym in my copy of Collins Compact Thesaurus, but perhaps somebody may be able to suggest otherwise? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thirstyjen (talk • contribs) 15:28, August 23, 2007 (UTC).

Cambridge/Milton

Ok, another attempt at asking this question. I notice that the Cambridge/Milton population has had the population of the civil parish of Milton deducted from it, to attempt to produce a figure for Cambridge. This is only valid if every single one of those people in the civil parish in Milton is included in the Cambridge/Milton urban area figure. Do we have a reference showing this? Morwen - Talk 11:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

What??

I came across this in the notes for Birmingham:

Metropolitan district, minus Sutton Coldfield, which is counted separately, plus areas in the north of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull (Castle Bromwich etc). Population of entire West Midlands conurbation is 2,591,300 (2005 estimate)

What in god's name is it talking about. This is total garbage. G-Man * 19:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It makes more sense with the explanatory text, which I've reinstated, after an anonymous user removed it earlier today. -- Ratarsed 19:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not total garbage, but a description of the ONS's Birmingham Urban Sub-Area. Similar notes can be found on other cities. Fingerpuppet 23:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Southend

Uh, Southend is included in the table, but is not actually a city. What's going on? Modest Genius ^talk 01:00, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

You could read the introduction - this is a list of towns and cities. Given that the large majority of entries are cities, it seems to me that the current title is a useful shorter form of "list of English towns and cities by population". Warofdreams talk 01:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Population and settlements

I moved this list (twice by accident) as it shows the largest English settlements by population. This does not show only cities but towns as well and so for clarity i have moved it here.

Also, on a related note, Template:UKLargestCities was created recently but then moved to Template:EnglandLargestCities. The redirect is up for RfD with another suggestion for the template itself there. Simply south 19:36, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Withdrawn

It would have been nice to discuss the move before carrying it out!

The use of "cities" in the title is due to the English language meaning referenced in City as "City is primarily used to designate an urban settlement with a large population.". Additionally, settlements are not co-terminus with local authorities which are Cities in the legal sense - note the difference between Leeds (the urban core, used here) and City of Leeds. It could therefore be argued that the legal City/town difference is irrelevant here, therefore the more commonly used language term "city" (small c) would be preferable over the less common "settlement".

Having said all that, I'm not particularly bothered if the move sticks, though I'd prefer it moved back. Fingerpuppet 20:44, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I've done the same to the UK cities one. I thought settlements was fairly used and quite neutral. Should i do the same to the others? Simply south 20:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

State of the English Cities

Per this report from the Department for Communities and Local Government, who are the Government department responsible for city-related policy, a city is defined as a Primary Urban Area (note, not the same as an urban area) (Volume One, 2.3.5):

"The point of departure for our definition was the official set of Urban Areas definitions based on 2001 built-up areas. Hence we identify major cities in terms of their physical extent and not in terms of local authority areas or administrative boundaries."

EarlyBird 18:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Again, from the same department, the population figures for the English cities are as follows:

London - 8,294,058
Birmingham - 2,293,099
Manchester - 1,741,961
Liverpool - 830,112
Newcastle - 794,500
Nottingham - 667,218
Sheffield - 656,160
Leeds - 596,027
Bristol - 558,566
Leicester - 447,328
Portsmouth - 438,489
Bradford - 417,061
Bournemouth - 382,536
Reading - 373,836
Huddersfield - 367,976
Middlesbrough - 367,583
Stoke - 360,810
Coventry - 335,274
Birkenhead - 331,232
Southampton - 305,887
Hull - 299,724
Sunderland - 295,503
Wigan - 285,347
Brighton - 280,187
Southend - 269,714
Preston - 267,209
Blackpool - 259,872
Bolton - 253,672
Aldershot - 248,208
Plymouth - 245,783
Luton - 237,360
Chatham - 235,614
Derby - 233,559
Barnsley - 211,807
Northampton - 200,092
Norwich - 195,623
Milton Keynes - 186,949
Worthing - 182,817
Crawley - 179,987
Rochdale - 166,932
Warrington - 163,479
Mansfield - 158,496
Swindon - 155,970
Burnley - 146,419
Ipswich - 145,583
Oxford - 145,095
Wakefield - 144,654
Grimsby - 139,458
York - 139,237
Telford - 139,071
Doncaster - 138,643
Peterborough - 136,963
Gloucester - 135,845
Blackburn - 133,926
Cambridge - 131,144
Hastings - 125,524

Source: State of the Cities Database EarlyBird 18:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

As this is the only official source I have come across that actually defines cities I am proposing changing the article to use this data if there are no reasonable objections over the next couple of days. EarlyBird 21:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I strongly object to any change of the current population figures using the list above. The figures for Birmingham includes the CITY of WOLVERHAMPTON and the large towns of Dudley, Walsall and West Bromwich. The population given for Manchester includes the CITY of SALFORD and towns such as Sockport, Oldham and Bury. I find in incredulous someone would want to change the list to exclude large and historic towns using population figures, which are in fact for the urban areas of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. The use of urban sub-divisions that identify individual towns within an urban area is a more accurate method as used in the current list. --Statsfan 00:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Statsfan, if you believe it to be incorrect please show a trusted source (preferably government) that categorically states how they define a city. ONS do not do this, they simply talk about local authorities, urban areas and urban sub-divisions. This, however, is an official Government source that defines cities and gives the population figures for them. Everything listed below is open to interpretation as nowhere does it explicitly state that the values used were those of towns or cities. As far as I am concerned this is a definitive source on the matter. If you have the evidence to contradict my claim then please post it, otherwise you are simply posting your opinion which is not backed up by the facts. EarlyBird 16:21, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

18 more reasons why the population figures from the "State of the Cities" database are inaccurate for giving populations of English cities

• The whole of the Dearne Valley area is included in the figure for Barnsley
• The whole of the Wirral area is included in the figure for Birkenhead
• Birmingham includes the separate city of Wolverhampton and Black Country towns of Walsall, Dudley and West Bromwich
• The town of Darwen is included in the figure for Blackburn
• The town of Poole is included in the figure for Bournemouth
• The town of Nelson is included in the figure for Burnley
• All four Medway towns of Gillingham, Rochester, Strood and Chatham are included under the figure for Chatham
• The town of Bedworth is included in the figure for Coventry
• The town of Cleethorpes is included in the figure for Grimsby
• The town of Bexhill is included in the figure for Hastings
• The town of St. Helens is included in the figure for Liverpool
• The town of Dunstable is included in the figure for Luton
• The city of Salford and the towns of Stockport, Oldham and Bury are included in the figure for Manchester
• All the towns in Teeside are included in the figure for Middlesbrough
• Nearly all the towns in Tyneside are included in the figure for Newcastle
• The towns of Bracknell, Wokingham and Crowthorne are included in the figure for Reading
• The town of Rotherham is included in the figure for Sheffield
• Newcastle under Lyme and Kidsgrove are both included under the figure for Stoke-on-Trent --Statsfan 22:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

There may be an issue to do with your mention of Stoke above. However, I don't want this to devalue in any way the force of what you are saying here. This is merely a clarification of a possible problem. Stoke-on-Trent is a city which totally includes six towns, and was created a city after a federation between these towns had been in existence for a while: the federation was converted into a city on a basis never tried before, nor tried since in the UK as far as I know. The town of Newcastle under Lyme declined to join in with the city, but I am not sure whether Newcastle under Lyme is counted as being "a town of the potteries". It does seem to be lumped in with Stoke-on-Trent, the village of Kidsgrove, and a few otherb places but no other towns to form the "Potteries Urban Area". If it is included, then your point holds. If it isn't, then your point doesn't seem to be correct. One further complication is that one of the towns' full name is Stoke-upon-Trent, and to be exactly clear, one has to be a bit pedantic and insist on the full names of this town and the full name of the city ("Stoke-on-Trent" - note the "on" rather than the "upon") to be absolutely clear. It might be easier to drop this entry from the list if you are not sure about the status of this entry, but your point would still remain valid with all the others as far as I know and accept.  DDStretch  (talk) 08:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks ddstretch, forgive me for failing to list the correct name of Stoke-on-Trent. This has been rectified and the fact highlighted that both Kidsgrove and Newcastle under Lyme are indeed included in the figure for the city of Stoke-on-Trent --Statsfan 15:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Fingerpuppet below has laid out the case exactly as I see it. Census urban sub-divisions have been used by the Government to identify towns and cities since the 1981 census and I see no reason why that should change now. As fingerpuppet suggests read the information below. Primary Urban Areas are not cities, as I have already pointed out as an example, they have lumped together the City of Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall and West Bromwich with Birmingham. These seprate four towns and cities are part of a separate region called the Black Country and are not, and never have been, part of the City of Birmingham. For this reason PUA's are an inaccurate measure of English city populations. I am in the process of getting clarifictaion from the Department for Communities and Local Government to confirm the latter. --Statsfan 22:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I've had a look through the report, looking for the methodology used within. I quote:

• The point of departure for our definition was the official set of Urban Areas definitions based on 2001 built-up areas. Hence we identify major cities in terms of their physical extent and not in terms of local authority areas or administrative boundaries.' Fine so far - they've taken the ONS Urban Areas and gone from there.

• We created a set of Primary Urban Areas (PUAs) which have a minimum size cut-off 125,000 in terms of their 2001 population. This definition produces the list of 56 cities (PUAs) shown in Map 2.1. Now this is interesting. There is no hint of the methodology used, and the PUAs are inconsistent and ill-defined. For example, the Greater Manchester Urban Area appears to be randomly split into "Manchester", "Bolton" and "Rochdale", with no hints of why this is so. Certainly I cannot fathom why "Rochdale" is in the list, yet Oldham is missed out. However, in the West Midlands Urban Area, Wolverhampton which is much larger than either Bolton or Rochdale is missed out. Other conurbations appear to be separated or kept together on a seemingly random basis.

• It is important to remember throughout this report, that PUAs are not coterminous with local government boundaries, even though the names are sometimes the same. PUAs are larger than local authorities and frequently contain several of them. Annex 2 specifies which individual local authorities are grouped into the 56 PUAs. The SOCD does have data about individual local authorities which can be accessed in future. However, the spatial unit for our statistical analysis of cities in this report is not local authorities. So, the PUAs are not conterminous with local authority boundaries - as indeed is the case for Urban Sub-Areas. However, if the base unit is not local authorities, then how can "individual local authorities" be "grouped into the 56 PUAs"?

All in all, the report appears to be desperately flawed as a method of measuring population (though it has merit in other areas).

Additionally, the links that you pointed out also talk about "56 City Regions (Travel to Work Areas)". In fact, there are 308 Travel to Work areas (ONS link) so presumably they have invented their own versions of these too.

I would also like to point out that this is a list of settlements, not Primary Urban Areas; that Cities are defined by the Government at The Department for Constitutional Affairs; and that you are inconsistent with your arguments, as shown here and here on the Glasgow article where you state categorically that Urban Areas (i.e. conurbations) and Local Authority areas are the only two ways to define a city population: yet here you are arguing for a third.

I would also like to point you to this section below where you will find the information that you seek.Fingerpuppet 19:11, 18 July 2007 (UTC)--Statsfan 22:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought it best to clarify a few points from the above comments. Firstly I'll go with the Department for Constitutional Affairs. Whilst it is true that they are responsible for conferring city status upon a local authority, there is no information provided anywhere as to how they define that city.

Next I'll move on to the claims about the ONS urban sub division figures. Taken from the research summary for the SOCD:

"The development of Super Output Areas by Neighbourhood Statistics developed by National Statistics (see www.statistics.gov.uk) offers the prospect of aggregating data from micro areas to fit the physical reality of towns and cities."

As you can see, the Super Output Areas, which conform to the PUA model, are being developed to represent cities. If ONS feel the need to do this, why are we using sub-divisions of the urban areas to define cities when no evidence from ONS exists to suggest that this is what we should be doing? I agree, the list shows settlements in the UK. Cities, however, are made up of numerous settlements. Just look at London, New York, Tokyo or any other city in the world and you can see this. This page, however, inaccurately states that these settlement figures represent the cities as a whole.

The Department for Communities and Local Government also give an explanation in their FAQ as to why this measure is being developed for our cities:

"it reflects the “common sense” understanding of anyone who looks at, for example, Manchester and Salford in the real world – or indeed an ordinary map – and sees just one city rather than two."

There was also a claim earlier about the department having invented their own definition of TTWAs. This is inaccurate. The TTWAs are the same as ONS TTWAs, but only 56 are shown because there are only 56 cities in the UK. The remainder appear in the "town and cities indicators" database.

As for many of the other questions asked, I think the two documents I linked you to above explain many of the reasons. The population figures, however, were compiled not at local authority level but at ward level, though local authority level population figures are available.

My final point, do you guys not find it odd that, if the urban sub-divisions are representative of cities, many Government departments including ONS would have been working on this new definition?

All in all none of you have put forward a decent argument so far as to why the sub division populations should be used to represent cities. Nowhere does it say that this is the case, whereas the documents I linked you to specifically stated that they represented cities. EarlyBird 13:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to include this, a map of the primary urban areas. EarlyBird 13:11, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

So you agree that the Department of Communities and Local Government is not the primary source then? That rather seems to undermine all your claims. If this is correct (and I believe that it is), then a number of your "cities" are invalid, and a number of real, large, cities are missing. The issue of London (including Westminster within) is covered in the lead section of the article.

Let me quote from slightly further down the FAQ document you mention.

As such the 56 PUAs were always intended purely as an analytical device for the State of the Cities Report (SOCR)

This shows that despite all your claims, PUAs are simply a device created for this one report and should not be used for any other purpose.

Some of the available data then had to be approximated as a “best-fit” in terms of whole local authority areas

Again, this quite clearly shows that PUAs are simply groups of local authority areas, and are actually not "identified in terms of their physical extent". Therefore the parts of the built-up area that just happens to fall outside a local authority boundary is not counted - hence your arguments in this respect are invalid.

If the 56 "TTWA"s are the same as the ONS's TTWAs, then what has happened to, say, the Wolverhampton & Walsall TTWA, or the Dudley & Sandwell TTWA, given that you claim that none of these places actually exist? I also note that there is no Sheffield TTWA as is claimed by the report you quote, but a Sheffield & Rotherham TTWA? All can be quite clearly seen here. Fingerpuppet 23:49, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

In addition to Fingerpuppet's points, the claim that there is no other definition for cities other than the ones you have given (although in other places, you claim "no clear definition of cities") is false. A cursory websearch throws up a Department of Constitutional Affairs webpage that does define them by enumeration. It is an enumerative definition, which is fairly frequently used to define finite small sets of things.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:57, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Earlybird you're full on wrong. Although this article is wrong in itself, you are wrong too. The most relevant list would be

Birmingham 1,010,200

Leeds 761,100

Glasgow 580,690

Sheffield 513,234

Bradford 497,400

Edinburgh 468,070

Liverpool 439,473

Manchester 392,819

Bristol 380,615

Wakefield 315,172

All gained from the Office for national statistics. I actually have never seen a more incorrect list than yours Earlybird. This article is not correct but yours would be much worse; far more misleading. Just to mention, you seem to take into account conurbation population. These are not city populations and it seems your knowledge of these is limited at best. Leeds for example has a conurbation population of 1,499,000. There's so much wrong with your list I don't fully have time to list all that is wrong with it. --Tubs uk (talk) 00:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with the list currently in the article, other than that there are many different definitions of what constitutes a town or city. Your figures can be found at list of English districts by population, as they are the populations of districts. They are of interest, but are not what this list shows. Warofdreams talk 14:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Status

Would anyone object to me adding whether it is a town or a city? Simply south 15:49, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't, sounds like a good idea. --Statsfan 16:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a problem - although some will have an issue with the fact that most "cities" are actually local authority areas with city status rather than the settlement themselves. For example Birmingham, the settlement or city proper, contains the suburb of Castle Bromwich and does not contain the separate town of Sutton Coldfield, whilst the City of Birmingham local authority area does not contain Castle Bromwich but does contain Sutton Coldfield. Fingerpuppet 20:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly Fingerpuppet the Letters Patent dated January 31, 2001 ordained that "the Towns of Brighton and Hove shall have the status of a City" and "the Town of Wolverhampton shall have the status of a City". This suggests they did not award the city status to the Councils of Wolverhampton and Brighton and Hove directly. I know that Brighton and Hove Council had a meeting to change the name to a City Council as I think did Wolverhampton a few months later. So again this suggests the possibility the urban towns were awarded the status which had to be formally acknowledged by the Local Council administering the area. I'm currently looking into the matter to get a clearer picture. --Statsfan 23:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

How could that be sorted then? Borough with city status? Simply south 20:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

As I say above Simply south it could be argued that the Letters Patent awarded the city status to the town (urban sub-division), and since the populations listed are of urban sub-divisions identified as towns, then adding a column listing whether the "town" has city status or not, could be justified. --Statsfan 23:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Should the column be changed to "City status" with a yes and no? Simply south 19:52, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Page Redirection

The redirection page List of English cities by population has been changed so that it points at List of largest cities in England by population, rather than List of largest settlements in England by population. The new page pointed to was created by User:Earlybird and the change was made without, as far as I can see, consensus or discussion. Since it is a matter that seems still to be in dispute, I have reverted it. The new page includes places that I do not see as formally being cities, since the necessary letters patent have not been issued for them, and the opening sentence, about cities "with in England and the United Kingdom as a whole" having "remained largely undefined" seems misleading. Please forgive me if this has been discussed and consensus achieved in places I have not looked. But I felt it better to revert and post a notice here.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:26, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Per the Office for National Statistics and Department for Communities and Local Government, urban sub-divisions do not represent settlements. ONS actually define a settlement as an area with a population below 1,500. I feel the settlement link should be removed entirely. The cities link should link to a page which reflects city populations. The Department for Communities and Local Government sources cited are the only ones which actually define a city. The redirect for this has been reinstated for this reason. EarlyBird 19:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The following webpage from the Department of Constitutional Affairs clearly defines cities in the UK by the simple act of listing all the cities: Department of Constitutional Affairs webpage. It also gives some information about how city status is awarded. So, the Local Government sources that are claimed to be the only ones which actually define a city are not the only ones. Additionally, I think the comment that "ONS actually define a settlement as an area with a population below 1,500." seems quite odd. Does it mean that large places (with populations over 1500) are no longer settlements? Or is it the kind of definition that really means that, although places with populations over 1500 are also settlements, there are other descriptors for them that are (sometimes, often, usually?) used in place of "settlements"?  DDStretch  (talk) 23:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The main issue here in this section is your unilateral redirection without gaining consensus to do it first.  DDStretch  (talk) 19:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The latest changes you have carried out just now (in addition to the ones I commented on to begin this section) are major and have been done without gaining any kind of consensus. They must be discussed and consensus achieved first. I have reverted them.  DDStretch  (talk) 19:20, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Consensus, "Note that consensus can only work among reasonable editors who make a good faith effort to work together to accurately and appropriately describe the different views on the subject."

This redirect constitutes an unpublished theory that an urban sub-division constitutes a city. There are no official sources which back up this claim. It is, therefore, an inappropriate description of the subject and fails guidance within Wikipedia:No original research. This is the reason I made a redirect to a page with verifiable citations from a UK Government source which defines cities. EarlyBird 19:25, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

"The are no official sources which back up this claim" is just plain wrong. See Department of Constitutional Affairs webpage, mentioned above. It defines the cities in the UK by means of an enumerative definition - i.e., by listing them all.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:45, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Your preferred move is extremely flawed for the reasons stated above. Your preferred item does NOT contain cities as demonstrated on this talk page. If it did, then there would be entries for settlements such as the City of Wolverhampton and the City of Salford. Creation of empty pages in an attempt to prevent their return whilst a consensus is reached is vandalism. Fingerpuppet 19:40, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

That is completely irrelevant. The fact is that this page uses a definition which is not appropriate to a redirect regarding cities. There is NO Government source which states that an urban sub-division is a city. There are, however, Government sources which state that the entities named on the alternative page are cities. There is no Westminster listed in the list on this page despite it having city status. Why is this? The simple fact is that the redirect stating that these are cities is blatantly inaccurate. I am in the process of putting in a request for deletion on the redirect. EarlyBird 19:45, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The main issue is the now disruptive behaviour you are engaging in to advance a WP:POINT. That is the issue under discussion in this section. You may also like to explain yourself on WP:AN/I#Disruption arising from a Content Dispute, where I have raised the issue.  DDStretch  (talk) 19:52, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The redirection of "List of largest settlements in England by population" was incorrect. The very source cited in this document, the ONS list of urban areas, explicitly states that a settlement is an area with a population under 1,500. If it is over 1,500 it becomes an urban area. For this reason I am proposing the removal of this redirect. EarlyBird 20:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The need for a WP:RfC concerning this ongoing escalating dispute

It has been suggested on WP:AN/I that this dispute has now entered a stage where a WP:RfC would help. I agree. Since I have not been central to the discussion, perhaps someone else should open the issue and allow this to proceed. A failure to engage in discussion would be construed unfavourably by the relevant people.  DDStretch  (talk) 21:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Redirects for Discussion

People may like to comment, either way, on Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2007 July 21 concerning the change of name from List of largest settlements in England by population to List of largest urban sub-divisions in England by population, which was proposed by User:EarlyBird.  DDStretch  (talk) 22:57, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

A redirect is not appropriate and User:EarlyBird is simply trying to twist facts and push a POV agenda to promote Manchester. His actions are not appropriate and show no consideration for other users of Wikipedia.79.73.183.95 23:28, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The discussion has now been speedily closed with the reason that a RfD should not play any part in an ongoing content dispute, which needs continued discussion and dispute resolution procedures.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

I have created an RM to resolve the dispute over the name of this page. There are a number of options I can forsee:

• List of largest urban sub-divisions in England by population (the current name)
• List of largest towns and cities in England by population (I support this option)
• List of largest settlements in England by population
• List of largest cities in England by population
• List of towns and cities in England by population (I now support this option.)
• List of urban sub-divisions in England by population
• List of settlements in England by population
• List of cities in England by population
• List of English cities by population (Included for reference purposes - this was the page title since 2006 or earlier, prior to the current dispute.)

I consider the current page name confusing and unncecessarily over-disambiguated. The page was moved to the current title contrary to consensus, and I consider a better title should be agreed. Cheers, DWaterson 23:41, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

The mover claims that urban sub-divisions is the term used by the census authorities, who provided this data. If that is the case, then the current name should stay. Andrewa 04:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The mover, myself, does not claim that urban sub division is used by census authorities nor have I used to term census authorities. your comment Andrewa is unsourced. DWaterson is correct in saying that the term over-disambiguated as proven by the confusion and questioning of many Wikipedians above. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 09:28, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Apologise for any confusion, I didn't mean to imply that you used the term census authorities, and would have italicised it had I intended this meaning. I gather your proposal is List of largest urban sub-divisions in England by population -> List of largest towns and cities in England by population. I suggest you add a concise statement of your reasons for this proposed move in terms of WP:NC and any other Wikipedia policies and guidelines that you feel are relevant. Andrewa 14:59, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The term used within the data is "Urban Sub-Areas", not "Urban sub-divisions". I would prefer User:DWaterson's preferred choice, as the associated notes that are with the data talks about "towns and cities". Whilst "settlements" is a nice phrase that avoids the need for the city/town/village clause, ONS specifically use "settlements" to mean localities with a very small population. Fingerpuppet 15:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I have checked the source data and the term used does appear to be urban sub-divisions and not urban sub-areas --Statsfan 01:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. All of the places on the list are towns or cities, and so I see no reason to come up with a new euphemism. Andrewa: pretty much any of these titles technically conforms with naming conventions, it's just the precise wording that is the issue. I don't see any specific policy-related concern here, other than to avoid unnecessary confusion, overdisambiguation, and POV. DWaterson 19:01, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Look more closely. The function of policies and guidelines is to help with day-to-day decisions such as these. They are here to help us build the encyclopedia.

It seems to me that listing this on WP:RM was premature, not because the proposal is vague as to the proposed new name (although that doesn't help), but because it's based on personal opinions rather than on the policies and guidelines. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of largest cities in England by population for another example of this.

Some reading of the policies and guidelines, and also on the procedures that support them, would help greatly. That might also produce a definite proposal, and/or aid in consensus building in support of the proposal. I'd suggest delisting while you do this.

I know it can be frustrating getting the hang of everything that's going on, and dealing with the instruction creep that bedevils projects like this one. Hang in there! Andrewa 21:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Um, thanks for the advice but I have been active on Wikipedia for over two years and am quite familiar with policy, thank you. I refer you to WP:IGNORE if necessary. DWaterson 00:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

My compliments, I've been active for a bit longer than that and still haven't learned it all. I recommend you stay open to learning new things even so, and perhaps even to ignoring WP:IGNORE at times. Andrewa 01:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I've changed my mind and my preferred option - it suddenly occurred to me that the word "largest" is completely redundant in this title (given that the list runs down to 100,000 population, which some people might not actually consider all that large). I'm not sure at what stage the word "largest" crept into the page title, but it wasn't used historically and seems inappropriate to me. I've changed my vote and added further options to the alternatives list to reflect. DWaterson 19:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

However, if the new preferred title was added, then we would have to lengthen this list to include every town and city. Simply south 20:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Andrewa for the input. List of largest towns and cities in England by population is indeed a much more fitting name for the article. I understnad Waterson's worries with the notion largest but it must be remember that as a vague term it enables us to chose an arbitrary limit to which we ignore any smaller towns and cities, it also is different to ignoring an area of a city as the article currently does but simply a point at which we can consider candidates seriously. What would an article called Twenty largest towns and cities in England by population, not so nice is it? Largest is precise and vague enough to make people understand what the list is about, it also is a résumé of what the article is. The list of largest districts is also spot on in the way that the criterion is clearly stated in the title. Lists whose title include area and urban are open to misinterpretation and should ideally be renamed to a less ambiguous term, what the merge/move proposal is all about, although the precise reasons were ignore and personnal views put forward as a reason to ignore it. The title List of towns and cities in England by population has no clear defining point in it, largest offers the clear notion that it is not an indescrimnate list but clearly a podium of the largest, using an appealing word. We do want people to enjoy reading Wikipedia do we not? Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 23:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Once again I point out to you that Urban Areas and Sub-Areas are defined areas. Just because your PoV means that you don't agree with the boundaries chosen by the ONS doesn't mean that you can pretend that they don't exist. Fingerpuppet 13:54, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

"Largest" serves no useful purpose and can safely be removed from the title of the article. If we are limiting it to only those places with a population over a certain limit, then this should be dealt with in the introduction. "List of towns and cities in England by population" or some similar formulation would be my choice for the title of this article. Warofdreams talk 00:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

But List of towns and cities in England by population does not state what it is a list of as I've said above, it could just as well be a list of the smallest towns and cities. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 06:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

By the same token, you could argue that "largest" is overly vague. Shouldn't it therefore be "list of towns and cities with a population over 100,000 ordered by population". No, because we should look for the most succinct title. Compare with list of islands by population or list of cities by population. Warofdreams talk 15:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

If you read me attentively you'll see I pointed out that the term largest is vague in its scope but precise enough to make the title of the article understandable to the reader. list of islands by population or list of cities by population are two uninspired and vauge titles that don't explain what they're about in the title, they could be about anything. Move fest or less condescendance Warofdreams? Gosh if that's not being bitter... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Captain scarlet (talk • contribs)

"Move fest of less condescendance"? I don't understand what you are on about. There are a large number of articles using the more succinct title; that makes sense to me. "Largest" is not needed. We're not looking for inspired titles, just accurate ones. List of islands by population does what it say in the title. Surely you wouldn't misunderstand its purpose? But if you really think that the established practice is confusing, then you should find all the large number of lists using this format and propose that they are moved to the more wordy form. Is that sufficiently attentive? Warofdreams talk 21:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Consensus hasn't been overwhelming in this discussion, but it does seem that the term "urban sub-division" is not preferred in an article title, so a move of some kind is warranted. Rather few comparable lists include the word "largest", and I don't think that Captain Scarlet's concerns are really justified. The typical reader seeing "list of cities by population" will assume that the list covers the largest (or all) cities. This article has been renamed from List of largest urban sub-divisions in England by population to List of towns and cities in England by population as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 08:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Where to now

We have a number of related lists under discussion, at least one nominated at WP:AfD, at least one at WP:RM, and talk of at least one merge. None of these specific proposals seem likely to gain consensus. A related WP:RfD (above) was speedily closed.

Perhaps we should move slowly until the other formal requests are formally closed, but IMO we need to seek consensus on an overall strategy rather than on these piecemeal proposals. As well as List of largest urban sub-divisions in England by population (this article, proposed for move), we have List of largest cities in England by population (proposed for deletion) and List of English districts by population (proposed for merge).

There are other cleanup flags on the three articles affected, and these also seem to be part of this discussion, and there's been a suggestion that one of the discussions could go to WP:RfC, and another suggestion that dispute resolution may be needed.

What other articles (lists or otherwise) are relevant? Are any other specific, formal proposals outstanding?

Or, is the failure of all these proposals (assuming I've read that correctly) a symptom that there's not really a lot to correct? That's my suspicion. Much of this activity seems to stem from misunderstandings of existing policies, guidelines and procedures. This documentation is voluminous and imperfect, which is one of the reasons we have WP:IGNORE as part of it, but it's more often useful than not. Andrewa 16:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I've been away for a few days; sorry for the slow reply. As the requested move on this page has been successful and gained a (fairly) consensual title per Stemonitis's closing comments, but the AfD on List of largest cities in England by population has been closed with no consensus although considerable consensus was indicated in the debate for a move, I suggest an RM on List of largest cities in England by population to move to List of Primary Urban Areas in England by population? The merge proposal on List of English districts by population can be closed now as it is clearly opposed. DWaterson 20:37, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been in contact with the Professor involved with providing the Geographic Information for the "State of the Cities" report and he has agreed they are not the largest 56 official cities in England but the same applies to urban-sub division populations produced by the ONS at the last census, as the Government shies away from any "official" definition. The nearest he suggests we come to "official" cities are administrative areas. I would therefore propose we have one article entitled "Populations of English Towns and Cities" with three sections, 1) populations by District, 2) populations by Urban-sub Divisions and 3) populations by Primary Urban Areas. We could include at the start an introduction about the unclear official defintion of an English city as far as populations are concerned, and the reason for the three sections. In each section we could list the advantages and disadvantages of using the method and which areas are included within the populations shown and which omitted. All three have supporters who claim they are the most accurate measure for the population of English towns and cities, why not have them all in the same article? What do fellow contributors feel about this proposal? --Statsfan 01:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The obvious initial problem is that that would be an overly large article. Additionally, you're talking about "official cities", i.e. towns with city status - of which there is quite clearly a list at City status in the United Kingdom. I would suggest, therefore, that the two district and sub-division articles are left "as is", but with work done to the lead section (including better cross-links) to make the issues and differences clearer. As you say, the differences are badly understood and better wording would undoubtedly help. Primary Urban Areas are different things altogether, and are only meant for use in one context whilst dealing with one report. Nevertheless, they are interesting statistical items (if seemingly somewhat bizarre and inconsistent in the way it deals with conurbations and naming them after the largest individual components) - though I would agree with a move to List of Primary Urban Areas in England by population as suggested by DWaterson above. Fingerpuppet 07:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify I mean a list of "official" English city and town "populations". It seems some prefer District populations, others urban sub-divisions and a few want to push the primary urban area method. I accept the article would become pretty big but then again all the discussions would be centred in one place. If we are to have three articles then I agree there should be an RM on List of largest cities in England by population to move to List of Primary Urban Areas in England by population --Statsfan 09:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. People's preferences seem to be guided by how far up the list "their" town/city is! Personally, I think that both "major" ways of doing things have value in themselves, but neither is perfect. Fingerpuppet 17:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)