Talk:Maryland

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Regions

I created the regions from the Maryland Department of Tourism list. Recently the creation of Prince George's County has led to the question of whether we should include counties as another level on the hierarchy. My inclination is no -- that's a greater subdivision than you see in most tour guides, and it would lead to some pretty empty pages. On the other hand, there aren't a ridiculous number of counties (can't remember back to fourth grade off the top of my head to get the exact number), people identify places fairly strongly by county around here, and Wikivoyage philosophy seems to be to create a skeleton that people can put meat on later. Whichever way people think, I'll be happy to get the pages properly organized. -- (WT-en) Jonboy 12:13, 28 December 2006 (EST)

Based on Maryland#Regions it seems like each region is comprised of a tiny handful of counties, so I think it makes sense to simply redirect the county name to the appropriate region. Talk:U.S. counties (disambiguation) has a discussion about how to handle counties, and the consensus seemed to be that counties are arbitrary government units, and should only be used in Wikivoyage when they are useful to a traveler. In this case I think redirecting the county name to the appropriate region makes the most sense. -- (WT-en) Ryan 12:36, 28 December 2006 (EST)

Sub-regions

Based on Wikivoyage_talk:Geographical_hierarchy#Should_every_city_be_listed_in_.2Asome.2A_region.3F, it seems like we might want to at some point divide the Maryland regions into sub-regions. Here are the current city counts:

So we're not there yet, but it seems like there's the potential for many more than 9 in each of those regions. I'll keep a count. It's likely we'll want to divide these into county-based subregions. -- (WT-en) Jonboy 21:02, 18 January 2007 (EST)

The creation of Glen Echo has pushed me to create Montgomery_County_(Maryland). --(WT-en) Jonboy 22:24, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Which nine cities?

According to [1], the top 10 cities in Maryland by population are Baltimore, Frederick, Gaithersburg, Rockville, Bowie, Hagerstown, Annapolis, Salisbury, College Park, and Greenbelt. Not necessarily the top 10 for visitors, but it's a starting point. Taking the 6 we have articles on gives me Baltimore, Frederick, Gaithersburg, Hagerstown, Annapolis and College Park. Making sure all regions gets represented causes me to add St. Marys City and Ocean City (also tourist destinations). Bethesda is a pretty big restaurant destination, etc., so that's number 9. I'm now going to get rid of St. Michaels from this page (it's still on the region page). Opposing points of view welcome. -- (WT-en) Jonboy 21:54, 22 January 2007 (EST)

I think we should add Silver Spring to the list. I propose that we remove Gaithersburg as it's not really a city for tourists. Hagerstown and Annapolis both should stay for obvious reasons. College Park should stay for the University of Maryland. I'm going to go ahead and change it. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) Big Wang (talk • contribs) 13 Feb 2007

Cumberland definately should be added. The Queen City is coming up as one of the main tourism destinations in the state due to the Allegheny Highlands Trail, the C&O Canal, the downtown historic district, as well as others. The list of cities definately should not just be population centers, but it has to include the main regional cities as well. If the list can't be amended to ten cities, then probably College Park, Bethesda or Silver Spring should be deleted. They are all DC suburbs and too close together anyway. - (WT-en) macmurchaidh 17:46, 24 March 07

I agree with your basic points. For future reference, however, you should make them here, achieve consensus, and then switch to nine cities. I'm going to whack Silver Spring, as much as I like it. --(WT-en) Jonboy 19:03, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Nine "other destinations"

I revamped the other destinations list, and removed a bunch of minor state parks. I'm pretty confident in the new list as MD's top "other destinations." Probably the weak link is Smith Island; it is a huge attraction from my standpoint, but then again, I'm an amateur phonologist and they speak with a 17th century English accent over there. Anyway, changes to the list should first be discussed here. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 14:32, 8 March 2008 (EST)

On second thought, St. Mary's City is more of an "other destination" than a city—an unincorporated community with no restaurants, it's really just the historic city-museum and the college campus. Maybe it would be best to swap it into the 9 destinations, replacing Smith Island or Patapsco Valley State Park? And then add a different article to the cities list? I've been thinking that Salisbury might warrant a slot in that list. Or maybe another worthwhile destination in Southern Maryland? --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 19:26, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

I'd be amenable to that, but I'd like to stay with a Southern Maryland destination. Solomons might be a nice choice. It has restaurants, a few museums, shops... --(WT-en) Jonboy 19:46, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

That sounds like a good final list to me. I'll make the swaps and we can call this a consensus if no one objects over the next couple weeks. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 20:49, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

Lead image

Wow, I just realized that the Maryland article has no photos! That's got to change, and I've found a bunch of good ones, but first lets pick a lead image. For me, the most beautiful site in MD is a sunset over the egret-filled bay marshes from Assateague, but I didn't find any such images that met my expectations. So here are a few suggestions:

commons:Image:ChesapeakeTidalWetlands.jpg — best Chesapeake wetlands shot I could find
[2] — definitely not an illustrative shot, but this shot struck me with such a strong dose of Maryland that I had to put up a link
[3] — maritime & the bay bridge
[4] — a nice Bay sunset shot that could use a little brightening

Those were the best "representative" shots I could find tonight—thoughts? other suggestions? --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 04:03, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Of these, I'd take #3. (The link for #1 didn't work for me, BTW.) #2 and #4 could have been other states as far as I was concerned. I would also find reasonable shots of the Inner Harbor, the State House or the Naval Academy. Or crabs. Definitely crabs. --(WT-en) Jonboy 08:04, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Here are more, of which we can use elsewhere if not for the lead img. I've got crab pics, but I'm saving those for the eat section, I think. I'd love to get a picture of the State House from the harbor, or a picture of one of the Annapolis-area crab houses from the deck of a boat, but no luck so far. And I tend to think the Baltimore Harbor shots just represent Baltimore, not Maryland so much (since that's the only real city there). Although it's hard to find anything that really represents the state, since its geographically so varied.

[5] jousting
[6] great falls
[7] Cumberland train
[8] Assateague dunes
[9] Assateague path
[10] Cumberland Heritage Fest
[11] Western Maryland train passing Cumberland
[12] An, err, unorthodox choice

--(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 19:14, 26 August 2008 (EDT)

I've also been looking for a good one of boats in the Annapolis Harbor, with the Capitol Building in the background, and finally I've found one: [13]. It's not as sharp as I'd like, but that sunset is really pretty. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 18:42, 9 September 2008 (EDT)

Talk section

I believe I got carried away with this one, and the info really isn't that travel-relevant. I'll archive it here in case someone wants to use it for some purpose:

Marylanders, mainly concentrated in and around Baltimore, have a peculiar accent, with which most United States residents are not familiar, and would not be able to identify. Known as the Merlin Dialect, for how "Merlindirs" pronounce the name of their state, consonants seem to lazily disappear and vowels get reduced without warning. Listen for water becoming wooder, and orange as awrange, and you'll realize there really is an accent here. And don't say Maryland like Mary land—you'll sound funny. Nonetheless, the Maryland accent comes from the region that spawned the General American Pronunciation, so despite the regional accent, most Amercuhns don't actively notice the difference.

A more extreme version of the Maryland accent is found around Baltimore and Baltimore County. That is, Bawlmer and Baldimor County. Known as Bawlmorese, it's considered one of the least attractive accents in the U.S., but it sure is interesting. See the Baltimore article for more details.

The Eastern Shore, because of its proximity to Virginia and historic isolation from the Western Shore, maintains a Southern accent akin to the nearby Tidewater region of Virginia.

In addition, are interesting dialects to be found in the isolated island communities of the Chesapeake Bay, where Victoria-era British accents have been near-perfectly preserved! It sounds interesting, but it sure is hard to understand.

--(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 14:37, 13 September 2009 (EDT)

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