Talk:George Town, Penang/Archive 1

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Georgetown or George Town?

The following is a closed 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.

The result of the proposal was no concensus Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:08, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

For "George Town"

  • is it Georgetown or George Town? - __earth 07:14, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Looks like a case of popularity (Georgetown) versus formality (George Town) - Kriskhaira 05:42, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
We don't even know which is the formal name. __earth (Talk) 03:03, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
There is no question that it has always been George Town. There are many Georgetowns and George Towns around the former British Empire and we were always taught that our city was the two-word version. You can still see manhole covers marked CCGT (City Council of George Town) all over the city. Andrew Yong 12:02, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Yup, I saw a road signboard today - "George Town". - Kriskhaira 20:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I have come across several pre-Internet-age sources stating that the formal name is George Town. For instance in "Penang - Past and Present, 1786-1963 - A historical account of the City of George Town since 1786" published in 1966. The preface is written by Mayor C. Y. Choy and he uses "George Town". This is also the spelling used throughout the book. I recall that in an article in the Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) newsletter some 10-15 years ago exactly this question was raised - and the author stated that the formal name is "George Town" (I think it had to do with Queen Elizabeth II elevating the Municipality to the status of a City on Jan 1, 1957, but I'm not sure). It is possible that the City Council and other government bodies use "Georgetown" nowadays but IMHO this might be due to the fact that the spelling "Georgetown" is more popular or intuitive than "George Town" (especially in search engines). But "more popular" does not always mean "more correct"... Lcm121 (talk) 12:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
  • It appears that the question has been raised again, and for understandable reasons – Google searches yield numerous hits for both forms. However, this may be a case of unchecked common usage of the form which appears to have propagated through the internet. A sampling of non-internet sources, and possibly internet sources that have pre-internet origins appears to provide reliable evidence of the "George Town" form.
  • In the Rand McNally Illustrated Atlas of the World (1985 edition) shows the city as "George Town", both on the southeast Asia map and in the index. The index shows twelve cities and towns worldwide names "Georgetown", and two named "George Town", so it is understandable that common usage would confuse the two in favor of the more common name in casual writing.
  • I have a globe (Reploge World Nation Series, circa late 1990's) that also shows the city as George Town.
  • The the CIA World Factbook (as referenced above) shows the city as George Town. (The CIA map has also been uploaded here.) Although this is an internet source, this is very likely based on material compiled by the CIA over many years prior to its publication on the internet.
  • Users Andrew Yong and Kriskhaira above offer additional testimony that the city's name as "George Town".
As for the internet, I suspect that we can produce as many seemingly authoritative sites using "Georgetown" and we an for "George Town".
Seems inconclusive. Given the mix of present day references, I think we should stick with the historic name, "George Town". That also appears to have been the long term usage within this article. The prior discussion, although not formally declared, seems to have resulted in no consensus. -- Tcncv (talk) 03:46, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I agree with the usage of "George Town" from now onwards, but I will try to get some more information from the Penang state government itself about it. Arteyu ? Blame it on me ! 11:16, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

For "Georgetown"

  • I found most of the contents from Penang State Government website using "Georgetown" instead of "George Town". Can someone double check the name? --Aniweni 01:39, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Georgetown is already widely used in Malaysia, in posting letter or mail or something, Penangites used "Georgetown" instead of "George Town". Try to buy a Malaysian created book or atlas or somewhat, it used "Georgetown", not "George Town". It is not a matter of "popularity", in Malaysia there is no city named as "George Town", they only knew "Georgetown" and they spelled it like that, even the government bodies. Georgetown is also widely used in the internet, except for in the wikipedia (as of on the date I posted this). Feel free to visit www.google.com.my, try to key in "George Town, Penang", surely this sentence will prompt at the top: Did you mean: Georgetown, Penang. I demand changes. Changes also should be made to wikipedia in other languages, wikipedia de, es, fr, nl, pl, tr & sv. Arteyu Talk to me. 08:44, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Why do people keep changing it again? It should be "Georgetown". If you're still not satisfied with my claim as stated above please feel free to go to the Malaysian tourism ministry official site. You can also view it here [1], also you would like to download the Georgetown map from the Tourism Malaysia Official site (in PDF). [2]. With this, I hope that this matter will not reoccur. Thank you Arteyu ? Blame it on me ! 18:22, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
  • If the Malay government uses "Georgetown", it probably should be listed under "Georgetown". mynameinc 01:22, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
  • But even the Penang government web pages use both forms. (See references above.) -- Tcncv (talk) 03:46, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Where there are disagreements between reliable sources, we summarize those disagreements. We aren't here to determine which side is right or wrong; that's beyond Wikipedia's mandate of verifiability, not truth. We should probably find some way to encapsulate the discrepancy, given the seemingly broad support for both variations. — e. ripley\talk 04:14, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Further discussion

File:PenangSign1.jpg
File:PenangSign2.jpg

This is a very interesting case. A complicating factor is that George Town/Georgetown doesn't really exist any more — it's part of Penang Municipality which covers the whole island (See Municipal Council of Penang Island: City status for some details.) Post is addressed as "Pulau Pinang" or "Penang" plus the postal code. The name George Town/Georgetown just doesn't show up in official settings that much.

Non-internet usage is mixed. The standard Malaysian blue road signs almost always use "George Town" but a few do read "Georgetown." However, English print materials are more mixed with both spellings used. For example, the standard Malaysian Road Atlas from World Express Mapping uses "Georgetown."

I would tend toward keeping the page at "George Town" since that was the name when it was a city and it's still one of two common spellings but hope for more insight from others. — AjaxSmack 05:23, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

But I would like to point out that people that lives in this city themselves is more familiar with the usage of "Georgetown" instead of "George Town". Arteyu ? Blame it on me ! 11:22, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Where there are disagreements between reliable sources, we summarize those disagreements. We aren't here to determine which side is right or wrong; that's beyond Wikipedia's mandate of verifiability, not truth. We should probably find some way to encapsulate the discrepancy, given the seemingly broad support for both variations. (I apologize for repeating myself, but I think it bears repeating.) — e. ripley\talk 14:16, 17 May 2009 (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.


Previously known as George Town, but when George Town obtained City status from the Queen, it became Georgetown City and not George Town City. So, Georgetown City is more proper and correct than George Town City. George Town promoted into Georgetown City. Previous a town known as George Town and now it became a city known as Georgetown City. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joesony (talk • contribs) 09:53, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Second largest?

Shouldn't there be something in the lead section of this article about how George Town is one of the top three largest cities in Malaysia? The lead just seems to violate NPOV, babbling on and not telling us very much about the demographics of this city like other articles on places do... Lady★Galaxy 04:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

As I noted in an unrelated discussion above, George Town/Georgetown doesn't really officially exist any more — it's part of Penang Municipality which covers the whole island. (See Municipal Council of Penang Island: City status for some details.) World Gazzetteer, which is cited as a source for some of the info at List of cities and towns in Malaysia by population, lists "Georgetown" with a "calculated" population of 158,750 in 2009.[3] (Smaller than Gelugor or Bukit Mertajam on the Seberang Perai mainland.) "Pinang" is listed as the third largest metropolitan area though[4] and it is likely actually #2 since the one listed as #2 is "Singapore-Johor Bahru" which has most of its population in Singapore, not Malaysia. — AjaxSmack 01:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Oldest Catholic School in Southeast Asia

The article said that the oldest Catholic School in Southeast Asia is the "St. Xavier's Institution". However, being a Catholic countries, the Philippines have had catholic schools as early as the 1600's. The University of Santo Tomas in Manila already celebrated their 400th year anniversary. So it is not probable that the St. Xavier's Institution is the oldest catholic school in Southeast Asia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.212.52.98 (talk) 15:33, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

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