Wikipedia

Template talk:Infobox UK place#Mapframe

would it be useful to add Elevation?

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Could be useful for stuff like "prone to floods due to low elevation"? GeorgeWL 1990 (talk) 11:31, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A weak 'no' from me – I don't have strong feelings either way, but our infoboxes generally getting increasingly long and complex, so we need good reasons for adding yet more to them, following MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE (including: "the less information that an infobox contains, the more effectively it serves its purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance").
If the only reason is something about flooding, it's a definite 'no' from me – as Hebden Bridge#Flooding demonstrates, elevation alone says little about flood risk, which is a topic that needs covering in prose with flood-specific citations, where it's relevant to the article. Joe D (t) 14:10, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
it's a no from me too. We don't have high altitude settlements (over 1000m), anything lower is ho-hum. = clutter.
Height above sea-level is almost entirely irrelevant, as anyone who lives in Cumbria will tell you. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:17, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Didcot - where I live - has elevations ranging from 51 metres (167 ft) to 82 m (269 ft) above mean sea level. Some parts of town are prone to flooding; most is not. If you're wondering, my front door is approximately 84 m (276 ft). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:45, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Location split between two tier and unitary area

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Symonds Yat (more specifically, Symonds Yat East) straddles the boundary between Herefordshire and the Forest of Dean district in Gloucestershire. I've added it to the article's infobox, but it's not perfect for a few reasons.

  • I used pushpin_map to avoid confronting people wth a map of the world. The map looks reasonable, but it's labelled as "##Location within".
  • The layout of the section between Civil Parish and Region doesn't show (say) which county the Forest of Dean is in. Ideally, I'd like it to have the Herefordshire and Gloucestershire data one above the other in some way, and still have it look like a single infobox.
  • I set hide_services because, without it, the template included West Midlands Ambulance Service and nothing else. I would have expected to see the services for Coleford and Ross-on-Wye combined.

Is there a way I can improve any of these things? Thanks. Aoeuidhtns (talk) 14:39, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed mostly. As to point #2, it is split within the fields only, maybe there should be an article for each? Then each can have it's uncluttered infobox? As to this article, wouldn't worry on Forest of Dean not being clarified, that detail should be placed into the article and west/east between the parishes, district, unitary and counties expanded upon there, the infobox is just a high level summary and the multiple districts/counties etc hint at a division so if a reader wants to know more, they should read the prose. However, it could be mentioned in the field in a following bracket if desired like I did with the parishes although it may look untidy. Regs, The Equalizer (talk) 04:10, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. It looks a lot clearer now. Aoeuidhtns (talk) 19:33, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting

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The area_footnotes parameter causes a space to appear between the data being referenced and the ref number, in violation of MOS:REFSPACE. Zacwill (talk) 18:54, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a non-breaking space in the template code, it can be removed but the footnotes are also used for textual referencing such as a year, in which case it is desirable to maintain the spacing as the parameters ignore leading spaces. The population_ref parameter below it has the same issue. The template ideally needs some extra logic to differentiate between the types of referencing and insert a space accordingly. Regs, The Equalizer (talk) 23:12, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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Switch multiple links going to Local government in Wales, to their dedicated articles Principal areas of Wales and Community (Wales). As tested on the sandbox version here.

−
label23 = [[Local government in Wales#Communities|Community]]
+
label23 = [[Community (Wales)|Community]]
−
label25 = [[Local government in Wales|Principal area]]
+
label25 = [[Principal areas of Wales|Principal area]]

Would also be great if the endash in the link [[Dyfed–Powys Police|Dyfed-Powys]] at Template:Infobox UK place/local is replaced with the hyphen as the Dyfed-Powys Police article now uses, as well as adding the s here to "list" for now-titled Lists of places in Wales, matching that article too? Unless I'm being too pedantic over non-important stuff, redirects go green for me :/ Thanks DankJae 20:24, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't use {{Text diff}} for changes to templates, it's not at all useful. The sandbox should be sufficient. On that matter, why do you want to change the |templatestyles= parameter? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:58, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64, noted, the request edit button provided it, so assumed it was fine? I guess that would need tweaking?
What do you mean I want to change the templatestyles? Are you referring to Template:Infobox UK place/local? That merely provides links to the police forces, fire and rescue, and ambulance services? I am only asking for links to be amended? DankJae 17:56, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've made those changes as they all seemed fine to do. -- WOSlinker (talk) 18:50, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! DankJae 09:16, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mapframe

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Is there a reason that Module:Infobox mapframe has not been added to this Infobox? There are a large number of pages that use this Infobox and are calling {{Infobox mapframe}}. Would be better to just build it into the Infobox like {{Infobox settlement}}. Happy to do it myself, but want to make sure this wasn't specifically decided against. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:54, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's temperamental. See for instance Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Road maps seem broken and previous threads in the VPT archives. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:28, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok.. So there is 1 user that says it doesn't work on a few road maps... It is in use on 1.2 MILLION pages and is part of {{infobox settlement}} so why can't it be part of this? Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 23:50, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
and previous threads in the VPT archives. Some people don't notice that a map is incorrectly displayed; some notice it but don't report it. By contrast, our established pushpin map feature is highly reliable. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:25, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know of any systemic reason that this would happen these days with the default settings (honoring article coordinates). What were the specific circumstances in those cases that you may remember? --Joy (talk) 07:48, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to happen on random pages, and usually a satisfactory mapframe had displayed previously. It's just that all of a sudden, with no obvious trigger, the proper coords are ignored and 0,0 are used instead. It is also usually reproducible: other people visiting the page observe the same problem. Checking the article's wikitext shows nothing unusual that might cause the coords to fall back to 0,0. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:23, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We can proceed with extra caution and keep the placement near the bottom of the infobox similar to how it is now, so the impact of such bugs remains the same as it is now. --Joy (talk) 15:28, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's usually no particular reason, just inertia. This is going to be especially so in the case of UK places because someone went through the trouble of creating much better location maps.
We should add the standard option of mapframe to the template. Doing so will have the benefit of matching the element widths and possibly some other style parameters, while reducing the amount of intricate template code in the callers.
I haven't checked the numbers, does 464 constitute a substantial sample to make it more than optional for the other however many, but that's a discussion that can be had later. --Joy (talk) 07:46, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with the location maps is that they have to be hand-crafted from OpenStreetMap. For places that don't change much, no big deal. Otherwise it is. See for example Fairfields, a newish civil parish in the Milton Keynes expansion area. There are about 1,000 houses there now: the old location map shows only the planned area. And if you click on the map to zoom in, the pushpin disappears - and there are no zoom controls. Compare that to Bletchley railway station, where mapframe is used and clicking the map expands it and the pushpin persists - and there are zoom controls. So I strongly support discarding pushpin_map in favour of mapframe. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:00, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@JMF, Joy, and Redrose64: I have mocked up adding Module:Infobox mapframe to this infobox in the sandbox. A couple of things to note...

  1. The diff LOOKS much bigger than it really is because I inserted the map at the top and thus had to bump all the label/data numbers by 2. So in actuality very little was added (and nothing was removed).
  2. I based my implemention off of {{Infobox settlement}} with one major change. I set |onByDefault=no. Because of the way {{Infobox UK place}} custom sets the pushpin map for every page, I couldn't use the same logic as {{Infobox settlement}} to determine whether or not to turn the mapframe on. So this way the mapframe will work on every UK place page, but has to be explicitly turned on using |mapframe=yes.
    Note if down the road a decision is made to deprecate/replace the pushpin map, this logic can easily be updated to default to being on, or on if there is no pushpin map, etc. That is not a difficult change to make later.
  3. This means that the 465 pages that match hastemplate:"infobox mapframe" hastemplate:"Infobox UK place" can be converted, but no other pages will be affected.
  4. If you consult the testcases you will see that the only case that has any difference between the sandbox and live version is the very last case, where I have set |mapframe=yes.

Let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns about this implementation. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:53, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can you mock up an example, please? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:02, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@JMF: see the final testcase. You can also see it on any other testcase by simply adding |mapframe=yes Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:04, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that works for me. When can we have it because I really don't want to waste time updating the pushpin map for the settlements I watch but the current one is unacceptably outdated. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:39, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How's right now? Does now work? Let's do now... Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 00:46, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 Done @JMF: about to break for dinner, but my next task will be updating the 464 pages that match hastemplate:"Infobox UK place" hastemplate:"Infobox mapframe" so that they are all using the built-in mapframe. Remember that to turn on the mapframe on any given page you have to add |mapframe=yes. If you have any questions or run into any issues, definitely let me know. This should work seamlessly, but I won't be surprised if there is an edge case I haven't thought of... Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 00:56, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be active already, without the mapframe=yes? (and if I do have mapframe=yes, I get two mapframes – see for example Central Milton Keynes, where I tried it and now I've just deleted the pushpin map and left everything else alone.)
The next problem is going to be that it is outlining the whole civil parish. That is not going to work in many cases – which will be difficult to disentangle because many of the articles about rural settlements are also about the CP. So maybe in some cases we do need two mapframes after all.
We probably need the option to add a caption to the map. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:22, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I see your edit at Abbey Hill, which has a caption (and zooming). I'll look it with fresh eyes tomorrow. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:32, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Zackmann08 - do set the width of the mapframe to 240, that will match the image and pushpin maps widths as per the documentation, thanks. Regs, The Equalizer (talk) 03:00, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 Done @The Equalizer: thanks! Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 03:19, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have just spotted mapframe-point = on, which correctly identifies the location of the core settlement. So no need for two mapframes, thank goodness. There is still an issue with the ambiguous map caption, which I have separately alerted Zackmann08 about. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:20, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which article are you referring to with regard to the location of the core settlement? --Joy (talk) 13:25, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Any article that combines text about the core settlement with text about the civil parish of the same name. A random example that I've just been working on is North Crawley. And it works very well except for combined parishes - see #Edge case, next. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:27, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see, his earlier edit had removed the point marker. I'd assume that's because the folks at Template talk:Infobox Australian place were recently complaining about the reverse - they didn't want that point marker. --Joy (talk) 18:46, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That actually makes sense, because of polycentric parishes like Kents Hill, Monkston and Brinklow. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:59, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to pick a good default there. --Joy (talk) 23:16, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the suburbs Middleton, Broughton, Milton Keynes Village and other settlements are in a parish called 'Broughton and Milton Keynes' active since April. The maps for the settlement articles should only display the point, not the parish boundary, not by default at least. The boundary should ideally only appear on an article named as much.
If you wish to use a custom caption, use | mapframe-caption = The Equalizer (talk) 18:57, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, as I explain at #Edge case below, although there is a Broughton and Milton Keynes Parish Council, there is no single parish of that name. Two adjacent parishes are working jointly to save on overheads.
There is another example at Haversham-cum-Little Linford, one parish described at the Haversham article (which is where it redirects). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:54, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, possibly just for posterity, it should be said that it's possible to use the mapframe-custom parameter and the more complex {{mapframe}} template to render multiple shapes, if available, and if appropriate of course. An example I recently made that is like that is at Gornja Dubrava. --Joy (talk) 23:20, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed the Gornja Dubrava map was not working correctly so have fixed it. Regs, The Equalizer (talk) 23:49, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, the parameter is "title", not "label", okay. I didn't even notice that. It only shows up when you click on a shaded area inside the zoomed map. --Joy (talk) 14:39, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]


Edge case

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No-one said it was going to be easy

Milton Keynes village is in Middleton (the grid square), which is one of four neighbourhoods in Milton Keynes (civil parish), which is one of a number of CPs in Milton Keynes (the city), which in turn is in the City of Milton Keynes unitary authority district. Its parish council operates jointly with nearby Broughton as Broughton and Milton Keynes Parish Council, but there is no such civil parish as Broughton and Milton Keynes civil parish (that page is a redirect.

The infoboxes for Middleton, Milton Keynes and Broughton, Milton Keynes are not showing the maps of their resepective civil parishes. (Milton Keynes (civil parish) redirects to Middleton, Milton Keynes#Civil parish. I assume that there is a similar arrangement for Broughton. And I would be amazed if this kind of arrangement is unique to City of Milton Keynes.

Any ideas? A new wikidata= parameter? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JMF (talk • contribs) 18:32, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@JMF and Zackmann08: This isn't a code or parameter issue.
Remember that any polygons that are shown come from an editor over at OpenStreetMap. If you're not seeing a polygon in a mapframe, it's because editors over at OSM either haven't done it yet, or made a mistake in some way.
The way a map shows up here is that someone at OSM makes a polygon, then assigns it a Wikidata qid. The infobox that corresponds to that Wikidata qid will then show the polygon. Here is the current state of OSM:
There are a number of possible OSM and Wikidata edits you can perform, depending on which you think is correct. I cannot guarantee that these edits will obey OSM rules, since I don't edit there.
  1. Associate the polygon for Milton Keynes village with d:Q2228410, and set the OSM Way ID on that Wikidata item to be 781831520. You would have to remove the wikidata qid from Middleton park.
  2. Somehow undelete the Broughton polygon over at OSM. Associate that with d:Q2293896, and set the OSM Relation ID on that Wikidata item to be 5339189.
  3. Make two brand-new polygons at OSM that you believe are correct. Associate them with d:Q2228410 and d:Q2293896, respectively, and set the OSM Relation ID on those Wikidata items to refer back to the IDs of the polygons you just made.
  4. Like City of Milton Keynes, make a custom locator map using your favorite map editing tools.
Hope this helps. Good luck. — hike395 (talk) 20:24, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the parishes have formally merged? That makes it easier if so, but I haven't found any announcements that say so. I will hunt some more! The only polygon of interest is the parish one(s). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:49, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Best to get it from the horse's mouth:
https://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/your-council-and-elections/councillors-and-committees/maps-relating-parish-and-town-councils
Then if you can make a list of missing polygons on the relevant articles and between myself and @Hike395 we can ensure they show on the correct articles.
Regs, The Equalizer (talk) 20:56, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No need for extra polygons, thanks. What I really need is the formal record of merger but that's not for this discussion. The way forward is now clear (and this is not the edge case you are looking for). Thank you all. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:29, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@JMF: Please see "Broughton and Milton Keynes" at MapIt. It says "exists in generations: 57–58", and the most recent generation of MapIt is 58 - generation 57 was released on 1 May 2025, see "Generations" at MapIt (bottom of list). So I would say that Broughton and Milton Keynes has existed as a civil parish from around the time of the English local elections this year. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:53, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have taken up enough of everyone's time with my little local anomaly, so no further comments here please. The discussion continues at Talk:Middleton, Milton Keynes#When did Milton Keynes civil parish cease to exist in law? Where and when was it recorded? Thank you all for your time, assistance and forebearance. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:13, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Propose addition of county parameter

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I propose we add a parameter for the Historic county it was part of. I'm referring to cases such as in London, Birmingham, Manchester etc. --IWI (talk) 00:28, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So if the boudaries were changed pre-1900, it's not really useful. But when we have new counties with new names, it could be useful. --IWI (talk) 00:31, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This has been proposed and rejected several times. Let's not have this discussion yet again. Joe D (t) 09:59, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Conversion to use Infobox settlement as a wrapper

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So as not to trigger a third world wikiwar: this is not a proposal to replace this infobox with infobox:settlement.

Following the recent conversion of {{Infobox Australian place}}, {{Infobox UK place}} is now the only place infobox not using {{Infobox settlement}} as a wrapper. User:Zackmann08 has very kindly offered to create a sandbox version of Infobox UK place using the settlement wrapper, but it is a considerable amount of work and it would be helpful to sound out the community first before committing the time and effort. Of course, editors won't be able to say for sure until you see a sandbox version. But please would you indicate your position below, perhaps using provisional support if you are uncomfortable committing to a stronger support or oppose. If there is broad support, a sandbox version will be put forward for final approval at TfD.

The conversion has advantages and disadvantages which I have outlined below. The main advantages are technical and presentational and should be uncontroversial. The arguments against, however, involve the loss of a small number of fields and this is the main issue we seek to resolve before moving forwards. Some fields have been suggested for removal below and your input would be much appreciated.

Advantages
  • Standardises the appearance of this infobox to match the appearance of infoboxes used on UK local authority district articles (which use Infobox settlement), English county articles (which use {{Infobox English county}} with Infobox settlement as a wrapper), and every other place article wherever in the world, all 576,000 of which use Infobox settlement directly or as a wrapper. Whilst several other countries have their own custom infobox, UK place is the only one that does not use {{Infobox settlement}} as a base.
  • Takes advantage of ongoing code improvements at Infobox settlement and allows technical editors to concentrate their efforts there
  • Standardises the microformats and HTML classes that are applied to information
Disadvantages
  • As there are so many bespoke fields in Infobox UK place, some will need to be removed as not all can be mapped to Infobox settlement. Zackmann08 has examined the code and has proposed the removal of:
    • Distances to different cities (use the Mapframe for this?) I must admit, I have never wanted to know at a glance the exact distance to Cardiff as the crow flies and I doubt many readers do either.
    • Names of and links to the police/fire/ambulance services. These services are typically organised at county, region or nation level, and this location information is already given in the location fields. This information is usually never then referenced later in the article which is in contravention of MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. The removal of these fields would also shorten the infobox by three lines which is a huge space saver.
    • The 'statistic' fields which are almost always unused. It seems that most editors either decline to use these fields or are unaware of their existence.
Addressing concerns
  • The conversion does not automatically enable all the fields used in Infobox settlement. They would remain disabled and this is not a proposal to add or enable any fields which are not already in Infobox UK place.
  • None of the parameters will change names. If this conversion is implemented, almost no work will be required to convert existing pages to the new format.
  • To repeat, Infobox UK place will not be replaced by Infobox settlement. Almost all of the bespoke fields will remain.

Dgp4004 (talk) 13:23, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Provisional support. All for it, but want to comment on the disadvantages opined above.
  • Distances I add usually, plenty I'd expect use place articles to research where to visit and the parameter gives a good idea of how achievable it is to get there from a capital. In fact, I would ask why does the settlement infobox not have them?
  • Agreed, the services should be referenced within the article body as per the instruction at WP:UKVILLAGES, the infobox is generally summarising detail from there but there will be other content missing I'd imagine, and it doesn't mean it isn't relevant. If anything, a banner should be added to articles where you see this encouraging editors to align the detail. Space saving all of three lines isn't an major concern for the UK place infobox as it is typically far shorter than the infoboxes used for the higher level geographies. I would expect this detail to be retained and think there will be some pushback on this proposal with others as the fields are quite notable, although appreciate the code uses logic to pull the services detail from a subtemplate, this will have been easily done before and should be replicated onto the new implementation.
  • The statistic fields are extended population entries, those and probably the distances could be mapped to | blank_name_sec* = | blank_info_sec* = fields in the settlement infobox.
I'd like to see solutions for all these, the UK infobox has been a thing since 2007, after nearly two decades another few weeks or months looking at the true feasibility of the above should be done and shouldn't be rushed.
Regs, The Equalizer (talk) 16:36, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we can assume that "plenty ... use place articles to research where to visit" or that "a good idea of how achievable it is to get there from a capital" is key information. Most of our UK settlements are not tourist destinations (consider Warrington, Wigan, Widnes, Walsall etc), Wikipedia is not a guidebook, and presenting English settlements' distances from London as key information about them is a problematically London-centric stance (and likewise for Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish settlements, mutatis mutandis).
The provision of police, fire and ambulance services largely depends on the settlement's county or region, and thus repeats information already provided in the infobox. The significance of those details for readers familiar or unfamiliar with the settlement is not obvious, Wikipedia is not a directory, and per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE The purpose of an infobox is to summarize, but not supplant, the key facts that appear in an article. Barring the specific exceptions listed below, an article should remain complete with its infobox ignored. The less information that an infobox contains, the more effectively it serves its purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance.. NebY (talk) 12:02, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And, actually, distances can be actively misleading in that regard. York, for example, is nearly 200 miles from London and yet you can be there in 1hr50min on the train, whereas many places that distance away will take you twice that time or even more regardless of which transport mode you use. Black Kite (talk) 12:26, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, while from Hull to Halifax is even slower via London. NebY (talk) 12:51, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good Lord, deliver me! --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:53, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see no problem whatsoever in those examples. The average English reader - who is not necessarily going to be a local by virtue of this being a general, global encyclopedia - genuinely might not have any idea where these places are, but might have a more general idea where a major city is. Telling people where the place is in relation to the capital is not going to be perceived as some sort of an expression of bias, but a fairly mundane, practical matter. Balancing this seems easy to do by simply adding a few more distances to other relevant places.
Also, the placement of this field in the current infobox sounds like it might be giving the matter more prominence than it deserves - with WP:IAUP, this sort of a field was placed below the more general location information. --Joy (talk) 17:50, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support for all the reasons that Dgp4004 has already outlined. This would be a huge improvement and make the infobox conform to WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE (which it currently does not). As Dgp mentioned, I am committed to doing the technical leg work. The reason I haven't already created a sandbox version of this is that in order to do so, I must remove some of the fields. There are just too many custom fields right now for a template wrapper to function. Once some sort of agreement is reach on which fields can be removed in a sandbox version, I will create a mockup for full consideration. Zackmann ;(Talk to me/What I been doing) 17:20, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One thing I would want retaining is the ordering of the location fields which are the reverse of the settlement version. Keith D (talk) 01:38, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Keith D: can you explain why UK places should have the opposite order from the other 590,000+ settlement pages on wikipedia? Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 02:06, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
From a presentational point of view, having the fields in the same order as every other place infobox is one of the main benefits.
As an example, at present the infoboxes on South East England, Buckinghamshire and City of Milton Keynes all share the same order of fields: location fields from largest to smallest, government, area, population, codes.
Then, inexplicably and unhelpfully for the reader, we jumble it all up when they drill down to Central Milton Keynes. Then it becomes area, population, location fields in the reverse order and so on. It's difficult to justify. And the primary piece of information for a reader landing on a page should really be what country this place is in. I think tucking it away and teasing them with parishes and ceremonial counties first is not the best way to present it. Dgp4004 (talk) 10:54, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The natural way of addresses and locations is smallest to largest. Looking at most other infoboxes and text in articles that is the way they are displayed, the settlement infobox is out of step with all the others for some strange reason. Keith D (talk) 21:55, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Keith D: can you link to an example of this natural way? I think what you are referring to is when you see an address, which is not what is shown in the settlement infobox... When you have a street address then yes you talk about it starting with the number, then the street, then (in the U.S. at least) the city, state, country, then weirdly backtrack to the zip code. When you talk about a generic location, I would argue you do the reverse. For example, where is Greater Manchester? Well that is in the sovereign state of the United Kingdom, in the country of England, in the region of North West England (as is displayed on that page).
In short with a specific address you go bottom up, with a general location you go top down. As Dgp4004 said, the primary piece of information for a reader landing on a page should really be what country this place is in.
I will also say that I think UK places should follow the pattern set out by literally every other settlement on wikipedia (well over half a million). If you think that the top down approach by {{Infobox settlement}} is wrong (a totally reasonable position) I think that warrants an RFC on that templates talk page. If consensus is to reverse it, that can be easily done... But since current consensus is clearly to have country at the top and then work down, I see no reason why the UK should break from that consensus. Is there some reason that you can think of that the UK is unique in some way that warrants a break from this pattern? (Full disclosure I'm American so I genuinely don't understand a lot about the UK and am honestly curious if I am missing something). Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 00:19, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, now that you mention it, the listing of area and population up front is something I actually think is a problem with Infobox settlement, because I often find myself scrolling and spending way too much time in search of this sort of basic info.
With regard to the order of listing subdivisions, I can't say I have a preference. As long as it's made consistent, either is fine - the problem in those Milton Keynes examples is that we mixed both infoboxes. --Joy (talk) 18:00, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's made consistent is the entire point here. Currently {{Infobox UK place}} is inconsistent with EVERY other settlement infobox on wikipedia. It should follow the same pattern. If that pattern is believed to be wrong then an RFC should be opened to change it. The issue I have is the notion that "I disagree with the consensus so I'm going to create my own infobox so I can do it my own way". As Joy said, it should be consistent. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:03, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah but that part is largely orthogonal to the migration process. For example, we could make all UK places use the Infobox UK place wrapper, while the wrapper also nicely communicates an internal parameter like |subdivision_ordering=reverse to Infobox settlement which then shows that list consistently that way.
It's too easy to make the argument that each per-country settlement infobox is just NIH under the guise of local consensus, but likewise it's easy to make the argument that a centralized settlement infobox is just elitist gatekeeping under the guise of global consensus. We should avoid either one of these extremes. --Joy (talk) 18:52, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I just have the opposite view. This seems like a clear care of WP:OWN to me... The convention on 591,000+ pages is top down. The use of {{Infobox UK place}} with bottom up, is a drop in the bucket (29,000) compared to the global consensus...
That being said, I think I am going to follow the suggestion that you made regarding {{infobox Australian place}}. From a TECHNICAL standpoint, I actually can reverse the order already. (just place country at |subdivision_type6= and work backwards). So let's agree that for now we will not change the order of the locations as part of this conversion. We already know we have to loose SOME information to make this possible. Let's not throw more fuel on the fire.
Dgp4004 I recommend we keep the current order in the wrapper, and if/when we get this wrapper implemented, we can then have a separate discussion about reversing the order (easy to do down the road). How does that sound to everyone? Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:58, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, the trick with that 591k is that nobody ever !voted on the entire scope and the entire feature set - it mostly just grew organically. We don't necessarily know that it's the best possible solution. Likewise for UK place, just the same.
Postponing that discussion for after the technical migration definitely sounds simpler than bothering to figure all this out up front. --Joy (talk) 19:20, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it helps to carry more editors with it, I'm happy to retain that feature and discuss the order later, either to change the settlement order or the UK order. For me, the main thing is that it becomes consistent. Dgp4004 (talk) 23:02, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can you give us some practical examples of these distances that you want removed?
If they're like those in WP:IAUP, these can be harmless, and useful for general orientation. --Joy (talk) 17:40, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Joy: for what it is worth, I argued for their removal from {{Infobox Australian place}}... We have a mapframe, why do we need the cardinal direction of arbitrarily chosen cities?
Additionally, the issue here is that there are just too many custom parameters in Infobox UK to map to the custom fields in Infobox settlement (unlike Infobox Australian place where we were able to safely map everything). Something has to go in order to make this technologically feasible. Caridnal directions of seemingly random cities just seems like a low hanging fruit... If I need to know where Sausthorpe is, I already have the pushpin map and can easily include the interactive mapframe to find where it is. Adding MORE to the infobox about where it is in relation to other places just seems to violate MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE... Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 17:46, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I would argue in that example that "~200 km from London" that we can read immediately is no less useful than seeing the map:
Map
And then having to click once to enter it, then click zoom out 3 times to get to the level where you see Liverpool and Birmingham, and then a 4th time to see London, and then place my finger on top of the 100 km ruler, and then vaguely measure that to get to the same information. I don't think the visual way is necessarily better for everyone :) --Joy (talk) 18:42, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the SPECIFIC information you are looking for is "how far is Silsby from London" then you are 100% correct, the mapframe is in fact less helpful. I would argue that is NOT what this information is about though. Listing relative location of a city is about giving the person an idea of where the place is. I.E. "I've never heard of Spilby, but I know where London and Liverpool are. Oh I see that Spilby is 23 km NNE of London and 45 km SW of Liverpool" (obviously making up directions and numbers, also using London and Liverpool because they are the only UK cities this dumb American has heard of). Anyway... I would argue that information, relative location, is better fulfilled with a mapframe where you can view it relative to any number of other places, not just the places that have arbitrarily been chosen for that page.
I will alose add that if the information you are truly looking for is "how far is Spilsby from London", I think wikipedia is the wrong place. Everyone I have ever met would just Google it and get a much quicker answer.
Let's remember MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE here as well. I have no objection to having the lead of an article say that "Spilsby is located 23 km NNE of London", I just think having relative locations AND a pushpin map AND a mapframe AND a list of the location in the form of District-County-Region-Country is just too much of the same information. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:52, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Small details: {{Infobox UK place}} does not allow for distances from Liverpool, only from London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast, plus two cities which aren't in the UK, Dublin and Douglas. The specific use of |direction= isn't documented but the examples show the direction of London etc from the settlement, the reverse of {{Infobox Australian place}}. NebY (talk) 19:14, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That seems awfully restrictive. Why wouldn't we allow people to also list a distance from the nearest metropolitan area like Manchester or Glasgow? --Joy (talk) 19:16, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know, but that's how it is right now. NebY (talk) 19:19, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The intent, IIRC, was that each place would have a distance from the relevant capital. Places in England would have a distance from London; in Scotland, from Edinburgh; and so on. For places close to a border, two distances would be permitted - e.g. Berwick and Carlisle (Edinburgh and London); Chepstow and Chester (Cardiff and London); Derry and Newry (Belfast and Dublin). Non-capitals simply weren't considered, and I can see why not: pretty soon we would have infoboxes listing the distances to ten or a dozen "major" cities - infobox bloat in other words. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:50, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That makes a lot of sense. Oh, I see I was wrong above; the template allows for distances from Charing Cross too. Template:Infobox UK place/full syntax shows 21 distance parameters: |london_distance_mi=, |london_distance_km= and |london_distance=, repeated for Belfast, Cardiff, Dublin, Edinburgh, Douglas, Dublin and CharingX, as well as 7 direction parameters, |london_direction= etc.). Can anyone say how often they're actually used, out of the ~27,000 uses of {{Infobox UK place}}? NebY (talk) 14:00, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you can have a look at e.g. https://bambots.brucemyers.com/TemplateParam.php?wiki=enwiki&template=Infobox+UK+place to see how parameters are used. --Joy (talk) 14:38, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks! That gives 5,429 uses on 24,461 pages using the infobox, 18 parameters used of the 21 offered:
parameter uses
belfast_distance 65
belfast_distance_km 3
belfast_distance_mi 97
cardiff_distance 47
cardiff_distance_km 260
cardiff_distance_mi 314
charingX_distance 2
charingX_distance_km 1
charingX_distance_mi 206
douglas_distance 8
dublin_distance 3
dublin_distance_mi 30
edinburgh_distance 138
edinburgh_distance_km 5
edinburgh_distance_mi 211
london_distance 1402
london_distance_km 283
london_distance_mi 2354
NebY (talk) 15:08, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It also shows 2,132 uses of direction parameters, but none to Douglas.
parameter uses
belfast_direction 3
cardiff_direction 12
charingX_direction 202
dublin_direction 4
edinburgh_direction 26
london_direction 1885
NebY (talk) 15:22, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Australian template restricts that by simply having a limit of up to 5 places one can link to. This is not inherently a source of bloat, only if people get carried away, just like any other fields. (I say this as someone who fixed dozens of infoboxes which contained truly arbitrary blobs of data in a variety of fields.) --Joy (talk) 14:37, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I guess that's a slippery slope. It's reasonable to argue that listing distances to some major points of reference is in fact summarizing key facts. Instead of forcing readers to go read about the territorial extent of Lincolnshire to figure out how far Sausthorpe is from various major but distant places, we give them a map view and these distances, so we make it accessible in two different ways, which is technically redundant but each may fit a different contingent of readers.
I see your point about how the subdivisions also provide a geolocation, but that also strikes me as a bit too intricate by default - you again have to already know about Lincolnshire and East Midlands to really be able to use that to immediately orient yourself.
On the matter of both pushpin map and mapframe, I agree they could be redundant, that's something we've recently discussed elsewhere. I think the latest was Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Merging OSM and Pushpin and custom maps into one radio-button element - I mentioned how the maps could plausibly be part of the same switcher. --Joy (talk) 19:14, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I will just again point out to make this conversion, SOMETHING has to be removed from the Infobox. The lowest hanging fruit seems to be the distances to neighboring cities which as I described above can be inferred other ways and doesn't need to be in the infobox. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:26, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't quite see what do you mean? Surely if we're lacking the space for everything, we can just add a few extra fields to Infobox settlement? --Joy (talk) 20:38, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So I attempted to create the wrapper (see User:Zackmann08/UK) and there are not enough custom fields in {{infobox settlement}} to map all of the custom fields in {{Infobox UK place}}.
Now yes, from a technical perspective, we can add more custom fields to {{Infobox settlement}}. But Infobox settlement is arguably the gold standard. It is one of the (if not THE) most used Infobox on English wikipedia. Changing IT to conform to the (I would argue) poor design choices of {{Infobox UK place}} is NOT the way to go.
Custom fields in general are problematic. They open up the inclusion of ANYTHING in the infobox. This is where we often see people inserting things like the phone number to city hall or a link to the town's Facebook page. I would not recommend adding even more of these fields. Instead I think we need to take a hard look at Infobox UK and ask what TRULY belongs in the Infobox and what is better suited for the article.
I've already voiced my opinion on distances to neighboring cities, but another is a whole custom section for links to fire/police/ambulance services. I would argue that if none of the over half a million transclusions of {{Infobox settlement}} have found the need for this parameter, we do not need it in the UK either. Again, NOTHING against including it in the article! But the infobox is supposed to be a quick glance of vital information about the article. I don't think the name of a town's police department qualifies as that.
Likewise I don't think that EVERY place in the UK requires 3 separate params for languages. Langauge has long not been included in {{Infobox settlement}} but IS included in {{Infobox country}}. There are official national languages, I don't know of any town/city/suburb that has an official language (correct me if I'm mistaken and I'll strike this). You certainly can have stats about what languages are spoke in a place, but does that really need to be in the infobox for every town/city/shire/etc. in the country? Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 21:18, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
About the gold standard, I addressed this above - I don't know this to be true, rather it seems it just evolved into its current state. As templates become highly used, they become naturally hard to change, both because of protection levels, and because of inertia, and also because of technicalities - for example it's so annoying to have to shift the numbers in an infobox template in order to insert a field.
I agree about custom fields in general. At the same time, I just think the distance fields shouldn't take a custom field, they should get their own named field(s), and be made available to all other users, too. We already know Australia and the UK could benefit from it, so it makes sense to just allow it for others, too. I can immediately think of many useful distances to show. It's also a possible slippery slope. I don't remember hearing about any major edit wars about those in case of Australia and the UK, though. So it stands to reason that nothing catastrophic would happen if it was also available elsewhere.
With regard to languages, I see this elsewhere, too, usually stuffed into some combination of other fields. There's a lot of officially bilingual settlements out there, and Infobox settlement doesn't really seem to care much for that. This is probably one of those reasons why we've seen people complain it's too US-centric. --Joy (talk) 21:54, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, whether Infobox settlement is properly designed or not is a discussion for Template talk:Infobox settlement. It IS the convention and reflects the global consensus. Not displaying distances to neighboring cities has nothing to do with it being too US-centric... You are trying to change a MUCH more widely used template to fit this template. If you think that Infobox settlement needs to be changed then you should start an RFC to change it. How it got the way it got is frankly irrelevant. It IS undisputedly what consensus currently reflects.
As for your assertion that we already know Australia and UK could benefit from it (it being adding distance to neighboring cities) let me be clear, I 100% disagree with the statement. I think including this information in the infobox is a BIG mistake. I caved on that point on Infobox Australia place to reach the broader goal of converting it from its disastrous form to the standard layout. I maintain that information violates MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE and has no business being in the Infobox. If you want to propose adding it to {{Infobox settlement}}, I encourage you to do so. I will of course bow to consensus, but I want to be clear I do not agree with your assertion that we know it is a benefit. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 22:35, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, how is it more or less relevant that there's organic consensus over there compared to there being organic consensus over here? It seems somewhat arbitrary to consider one template to be open for discussion, while the other is treated as the gold standard and closed to any potential changes, without a concrete rationale for that distinction. --Joy (talk) 23:18, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the editors there are closed to changes but almost certainly closed to additions. The settlement infobox is already huge. Dgp4004 (talk) 23:24, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Joy we are talking about converting UK Place to us Infobox Settlement, not talking about converting Settlment to use UK Place. You are saying that we must change over a half million pages to satisfy the preported "needs" of 27,000 pages. THAT is why the discussion needs to happen at Infobox settlement.
Whether the fields get added or not is another mater. We cannot reach consensus on adding to {{infobox settlement}} with a discussion on the talk page for {{Infobox UK place}}. That discussion MUST happen on settlement's talk page...
Again, I'm not saying it CAN'T happen (though I do not support it) I am saying the discussion needs to happen there, not here... Not sure how to explain that any clearer... Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 23:27, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Most of Infobox settlement is already optional fields, most of which don't get used by most callers, so I don't quite see a reason for so much apprehension towards even more similarly optional fields. I added several similarly far-reaching changes to its optional fields during the Australian place conversion last month, and nobody cared. --Joy (talk) 23:32, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's up to you of course. But I know there is a guideline on it at WP:TPECON. If it adds minor functionality, it may be done without discussion. If the edit will 'significantly change the template's usage or display', then it requires 'at least some discussion'. The examples given for changes without discussion are very minor indeed. Dgp4004 (talk) 23:40, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The intent of that guideline as well as WP:HRT is to make sure we don't break half the site by happy-go-lucky testing in production. This level of caution is not meant to derogate the basic principles of being able to improve Wikipedia; there's no higher consensus requirement for template changes than that explained by the WP:Consensus policy. --Joy (talk) 12:39, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As Zackmann says, we know that some features will have to go, and the prime contenders are the distances to capitals and the emergency service fields. For some time and quite rightly, proposals to add fields to the settlement infobox have been opposed on the grounds of bloat. So that's a non-starter.
It does feel a little like the Liberals trying to get home rule through the House of Lords. The danger is that by refusing to give any ground, we end up with something worse. There will be global users voting at TfD and a dozen votes for 'convert but drop X' could sweep us anywhere. Much better to present a united front by compromising here first. Dgp4004 (talk) 23:17, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't happen to know what you're referring to. A search of that template's talk page for "distance" brings up nothing about this sort of a field.
A search for "bloat" brought up one person claiming that when you asked about police and fire. There was no further discussion. I don't think that that is necessarily a representative response. All other search results were over ten years old and don't seem to be clearly related to this.
So overall I wouldn't be so sure that Infobox settlement is as immutable as it may seem. --Joy (talk) 23:26, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well there we are - I already brought it up in an attempt to bring uniformity but it was opposed. You could try proposing it again and may be more persuasive. Dgp4004 (talk) 23:29, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do have to recognize that maybe my particular predicament of being an old admin is what gives me a certain dubious confidence that we can make good things happen. :) --Joy (talk) 23:36, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please see Template talk:Infobox settlement#wrapping of Infobox UK place. --Joy (talk) 13:41, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The language params aren't for official languages (I know of nowhere in the UK with an "official" language), but for the locally-spoken language: there are certainly areas where the predominant language is not English - parts of north and west Wales, for example.

Arbitrary section break

[edit]

As I recall, there have been arguments about the distance item: is it "as the crow flies" (source?), "by road" (but but but "Google Maps is not an RS"). So if we are to keep this in the infobox, it needs to be better defined. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:22, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]

Is there any point in this link? [[List of sovereign states|Sovereign state]]. No-one coming to an article on a UK place would be wanting a list of all the countries in the world. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:14, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Linking the parameter name like that does mean that anyone wondering why we use such terms as "country" and "sovereign state" can at least see that we do indeed list the United Kingdom in List of sovereign states. (Such terminology's a perennial issue at Talk:United Kingdom.) In processing terms it's cheap, and in presentational terms it's consistent with all the parameters above it. It might look odder and more questionable if it wasn't wikilinked. NebY (talk) 15:03, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Might a better link be just to sovereign state then? At least that explains the concept. Colonies Chris (talk) 15:27, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed Dgp4004 (talk) 16:49, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Arguably, but linking to articles about pluralities is the norm in that section and others, e.g.
. NebY (talk) 17:09, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But those aren't list articles. The list of sovereign state articles would only be appropriate for a link like 'the UK is one of 180 odd sovereign states'. The reader would then be expecting a list article. Linking to a list article with the simple text 'sovereign state' is an Easter egg. Dgp4004 (talk) 17:26, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request 10 December 2025

[edit]

Description of suggested change: No-one coming to an article on a UK place would be wanting a list of all the countries in the world, but an explanation of what exactly is a 'sovereign state' might be helpful.

Diff:

−
[[List of sovereign states|Sovereign state]]
+
[[Sovereign state]]

Colonies Chris (talk) 10:08, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I quite agree, as stated in the conversation above. It would need a template editor to make the change though. Dgp4004 (talk) 10:11, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not disagreeing but I would like to point out that a lot of the uses of Infobox settlement use the "List of sovereign states" link. See this search. -- WOSlinker (talk) 13:45, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that link is widely used, but it's just as pointless everywhere. I think it's just one of those things that people keep copying, assuming it must be some sort of standard. You often see it in US setttlement article infoboxes as [[List of sovereign states|Country]] or [[Countries of the world|Country]], which I've been delinking for years now without a single complaint. Colonies Chris (talk) 16:08, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom and discussion.
For the comfort and convenience of a friendly local template editor, please change
:label46 = [[List of sovereign states|Sovereign state]] :
to
:label46 = [[Sovereign state]] :
(without the leading colons, some wierd artefact.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:26, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the 263,000+ incoming links to List of sovereign states show that this is used in over a third of pages using {{Infobox settlement}}. It is very common. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 16:32, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A high number of links is not at all the same as a high number of clicks. And even those users that do click probably aren't ending up with anything useful. Colonies Chris (talk) 20:04, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Colonies Chris. This is a clear case of wp:EGG violation.. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:35, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]