Talk:European microstates

Dependencies

Should we make a list of dependencies? Technically they are not states, but they might be handy for the traveller. Although they might also mess up this page. (WT-en) Globe-trotter 09:04, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

Formatting

This article should be just "List of European microstates" or something similar, since there's no other sensible information to give. (WT-en) Jpatokal 10:17, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

I think I have to agree with that. They all are small, but don't have that much in common. (WT-en) Globe-trotter 18:49, 13 December 2009 (EST)

I was just about to type up a post asking why this is a justifiable article, so I agree, too. (WT-en) Ikan Kekek 19:10, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

There are other articles of this nature, eg: Islands of the Indian Ocean. Not sure they are terribly helpful.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 19:18, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

I turned it into a disamb page, which is slightly better. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 19:22, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Yeah, except it now means we have a disambiguation page in the breadcrumb trail. That's pretty non-standard, but many of these states don't have any other place in the geographic hierarchy. (WT-en) LtPowers 21:03, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Surely all of these European microstates breadcrumb to a proper region and not this page? If not, I am sure that can be fixed.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 21:19, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Some do, but not all. Check out San Marino, Monaco, Malta... (WT-en) LtPowers 21:28, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Edit conflict....I see that Monaco and San Marino are problems. Regionally, Monaco should be part of France as that is unquestionably how a traveler sees it. San Marino likewise - it is part of the Italy region. I think the others are already dealt with?--(WT-en) Burmesedays 21:31, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Malta.. part of Iberia? --(WT-en) Burmesedays 21:33, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Malta's nowhere near Iberia. It's only close to Sicily, Tunisia, and Algeria. I understand your point about Monaco being "part" of France and San Marino being "part" of Italy... but it's very unusual to have Country articles inside other country articles. (WT-en) LtPowers 21:44, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Iberia was a brain-warp typo as I was staring at the southern European divisions - apologies. I meant to type Italy. Agreed on these one country regions, they are a bit unusual and create a problem. We managed to treat Vatican OK as part of Rome. Perhaps the problem lies with treating France and Italy as whole, separate regions on their own?--(WT-en) Burmesedays 22:07, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Adding them to Italy and France is just wrong, as they are separate countries for a reason. We could fix this issue by creating a Latin Europe region (as I proposed on the Talk:Europe/Hierarchy page), but for now they should just breadcrumb to Europe (except for Andorra which is in Iberia and Liechtenstein which is in Central Europe). --(WT-en) globe-trotter 22:41, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Latin Europe is worth debating I think. For now I think your solution for San Marino, Monaco and Malta is a good one. I think all the others are already taken of.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 23:21, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

I think it would be fine to have the breadcrumb trails direct to France and Italy. Breadcrumbs deal with geographical location, not sovereignty or anything else to do with nationalism. After all, we even have one country as a district of a large city! I don't think we should let nationalistic concerns get in the way of what makes sense from a travel perspective, and from a travel perspective, San Marino is within Italy. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 06:20, 14 August 2011 (EDT)

Well, it's not just the breadcrumbs but also the other direction -- linking to lower levels in the hierarchy. Where on a Country page does one link a "subordinate" Country? (WT-en) LtPowers 09:33, 14 August 2011 (EDT)

I think inhabitants from San Marino would be offended if we'd list them as being a part of Italy. They are not a part of Italy in any way whatsoever, except that it happens to be totally surrounded by that country. It's like adding Lesotho to South Africa or Brunei to Malaysia. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 12:39, 14 August 2011 (EDT)

I guess this means switching from isIn to isPartOf was indeed a mistake! --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 23:32, 14 August 2011 (EDT)

Logistically, it probably was. We really probably ought to merge them. (WT-en) LtPowers 08:49, 16 August 2011 (EDT)

Out of interest, and as it was long before my time here, what was the reason for that change? They seem to perform the same function, with IsPartOf just being a lot more stable? Whenever I see isIn it seems to mean broken breadcrumbs.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 11:28, 16 August 2011 (EDT)

Oh, IsIn only works if you URL-encode the link (which means underscores instead of spaces and any special characters need to be escaped). IsPartOf was written so that you could type the article name normally. Based on this discussion, it appears the template was never merged in because the IsPartOf code doesn't work with escaped characters, so many pages that currently use IsIn would break. (WT-en) LtPowers 20:06, 16 August 2011 (EDT)

All very clear and thank you for that.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 22:24, 16 August 2011 (EDT)

Other territories

There is a wikipedia article (I don't recall the exact title of it) that lists some of the territories put in the "dependencies" category here as well as other places, that have certain rules and regulations differing from the "mainland" that might be important for travellers. Heligoland for example is no member of the Eu-duty zone although there is no immigration control between it and Schengen and you can pay in Euro. Büsingen am Hochrhein (part of Germany but surrounded completely by Switzerland) is a similar case as are some of France minor DOM/TOM or Ceuta an Melilla. I don't know whether an exhaustive list such as wikipedia's does any good, but there might be a benefit in a kind of "cheat-sheet" that tells travellers whether you can pay in Euros in a certain "place", whether you can shop duty-free, whether there is immigration control coming with a Schengen visa etc.Hobbitschuster (talk)

Yes, "special" areas like Büsingen should definitely be here, that's what the list is for.

For destinations that are on (or closer to) some other continent (Canary Islands, French Guyana etc.), I'd rather put them in a completely separate section under a level 2 header or not list them at all. ϒpsilon (talk) 15:39, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

This isn't really a disambiguation page - no-one lands here because they don't know which of several Andorras they want. It's more like an extra-hierarchical page so I'm taking it in that direction, with a bit more explanation. For instance, whether a place is duty-free is aside from whether it's sovereign or dependent. Grahamsands (talk) 14:44, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Thinking on, what it does disambiguate is categories like microstates versus micronations, which are easily muddled, but extra-hierarchical still feels the right label.

SHB2000, you reverted my throwaway mention of the Spanish exclaves in Morocco. Their relevance is that they are European, populated, and a short travel time from their home nation. We include Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia on this page, all geographically in Asia but culturally regarded as part of Europe. Restore? Grahamsands (talk) 08:41, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

That's because we categorise the Caucasus as part of Europe, and whether those countries are in Europe or Asia is questionable, unlike these which are unambiguously in Africa. Plus, Spain's Moroccan exclaves are not dependencies, unlike Gibraltar which is an overseas territory of the UK. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 08:48, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Likewise, it's a similar reason why Réunion, French Guiana, the Canary Islands, or Sabah aren't mentioned here. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 08:50, 1 May 2023 (UTC)