Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics)
 | This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
Articles which deal with an aspect of a country or region generally take the form "Foo of Country (noun)", such as Culture of India though some articles may be named "Country (adjective) foo" such as Indian literature and Indian Armed Forces, where the article is dealing with the language or people from the country rather than the country itself.
Guideline[edit]
In general, country-specific articles should be named using the form: "(item) of (country)".
- This will usually hold true in other geography-specific topics, such as for cities, continents, provinces, states, etc.
- "In", "from", or another preposition may be substituted for "of" as appropriate.
For country-specific categories, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)
Examples[edit]
- History of Portugal (vs "Portuguese history")
- Category:Wars involving Great Britain (vs "Great British Wars")
National varieties of English[edit]
When using the "(item) (preposition) (country)" form, "(item)" should be in the national variety of English used in "(country)".
Compare:
- Driver's licences in Canada with Driving licence in the United Kingdom
- Category:Footballers in the United Kingdom with Category:Soccer players in the United States
Ethnicity and language[edit]
It is important to be able to differentiate when a topic is actually country-specific. Often what may look like a country adjective is really describing a set of people or a language. Notice that "Polish" may mean "From or related to Poland" or "referring to the Polish people or language." For example Polish language, Polish people, even Polish literature (since these articles most often deal with the literature of the set of people, not the country necessarily). By contrast, Culture of Poland, Politics of Poland and Economy of Poland are all describing the country itself.