Talk:Uttarakhand

(One trip report)

Name change

Frankly, I don't feel strongly about this name change -- I wasn't particularly familiar with Uttaranchal, so the change to Uttarakhand doesn't bother me. Any other opinions? --(WT-en) Evan 13:13, 26 January 2007 (EST)

Somebody has obviously forgotten to tell the folks at Uttaranchal ("...simply heaven!") Tourism, who are still running their TV ads under the old name, but as even Uttaranchal only dates back to 2000, we might as well change it. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:17, 26 January 2007 (EST)

Uttaranchal is an aberration that was introduced in 1998 when the government was taking its first tentative steps to form the state. The BJP made several arguments at the time for the name change, including that Uttarakhand sounded too separatist, and that Uttaranchal was a fusion of the first half of Uttarakhand and the second half of Kurmanchal. They argued that Uttarakhand referred only to the Garhwal region, while Kumaon, also named Kurmanchal, was left out. However, Uttarakhand was the name under which the separate state movement from all corners of the state had convened, so most people did not buy those constructed arguments. The entire region has also been known as Uttarakhand since ancient times and appears in literature until the late 1990s. Stranger still, is that Uttarakhand has a deep religious lineage, appearing in the Puranas. For the BJP to make the arguments that it did at the time seemed to contradict their self-proscribed role as the defenders of Indian heritage. Anyways, the debate is finally over. 64.231.143.136 01:08, 18 February 2007 (EST)

Thanks for the information. I learned a lot about the history of Uttarakhand. Wikivoyage, however, decides which title to adopt for its destination articles based on the place's most common English name. That is the only criteria. Anyway, thanks again for the info, and for your future reference, you might like to familiarize yourself with this information: Project:Article naming conventions. Cheers. (WT-en) WindHorse 01:24, 18 February 2007 (EST)

Regions are needed now!

I think we need some regionalisation and ration-alisation here folks. From the article, so far we have:

• Two main regions of Uttarakhand are Garhwal and Kumaon.
• Bedni Bugyal - in Chamoli District.
• Gwaldam - in Chamoli District too.
• Chamba - provides a great view of Chamba Valley
• Chopta - in Rudraprayag, and appears to be part of Garhwal.
• Dayara Bugyal - in Uttarkashi District, also called the Valley of Saints?
• Lansdowne - appears to be in Garhwal.
• Nainital - is The Lake District ?
• Panwali Bugyal - in Tehri District.
  • A bugyal appears to be an alpine meadow, which suggests that these places more likely to be regional attractions rather than articles.

By my count that makes two distinct major regions and 6 separate sub-regions that this state can be split into. Possibly more as there are views of Doon Valley and Central Himalayas also mentioned, though it is not clear that they are regions as such. -- (WT-en) Huttite 06:54, 21 November 2009 (EST)

I am not sure I like this idea of splitting into regions and then a separate layer of sub-regions, unless it is really necessary. This is the way the state govt does it, but that should not be our concern. The district map of Uttarakhand is here. There are 13 districts and we should be able to come with a four or five region structure from that. It would seem better to me to go state -> regions -> cities/destinations, rather than to stick another layer of sub-regions in there. If nothing else this avoids one layer of regional articles - the single most unloved things at WikiTravel I think.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 07:46, 21 November 2009 (EST)

Cities

The list of cities is far too long here, but I have no knowledge of the area, so feel uncomfortable plunging forward. Is there either someone who does have the knowledge to feel comfortable doing this, or can we reach some sort of consensus on which 9 to keep? (WT-en) Nrms 09:56, 27 February 2010 (EST)

I have reduced the number of cities to nine and also moved all cities to the relevant regions, Garhwal or Kumaon. Now we have way too many cities in Garhwal, which needs to be subdivided in two or three subregions, any ideas how to do that?, --(WT-en) ClausHansen 18:01, 27 February 2010 (EST)

Garhwal has 12 cities. That's fine for a bottom-level region article and does not require further subdivision. However, there are cities (hill towns, villages, etc.) in its "Other destinations" list, just as there are in Uttarakhand#Other destinations, and that's a problem. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:26, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Other destinations

Most of these seem to be cities (including hill stations, which fall under the WV definition of a "city"). That logically means most of these should be removed, or if any are more important to travellers than any of the cities in the "Cities" list, moved there, with cities currently there removed from that list. We might be able to finesse this in some cases, though, such as by listing "Temple of Vishnu in Badrinath" in "Other destinations," based on the idea that the temple is more of a destination than the town itself.

This will take a lot of work, but if you know Uttarakhand well, or have even visited at all, you may be much better able to help than most of us. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:01, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

We really should resolve this issue. If no-one has any idea of how to resolve it, I will go through the "Other destinations" list within the next few days and simply remove every listing for a place that's considered a "city" under WV definitions. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:24, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

And now, there are 12 of them. Which should be removed, in order to get (back?) to the required limit of 9? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:36, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Chamba (Uttarakhand)

Chamba is 3rd on the list of "Cities", but it's actually a small town. Chamba (Himachal Pradesh), to which the link led until a few minutes ago, is a much more important town, and Commons has a Category:Chamba that links to the town in HP. It's hard to find much information about Chamba, Uttarakhand: There are no photos of the town in Commons, but plenty for its HP namesake. w:Chamba Uttarakhand is not extremely content-laden, either.

So the upshot is, should we substitute some other city in place of Chamba (Uttarakhand) in the "Cities" list, and if so, which city would you suggest? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:03, 25 March 2015 (UTC)