Talk:Subdivisions of England
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| A summary of this article appears in Local government in England. |
 | This page was proposed for deletion by Roger 8 Roger (talk · contribs) on 28 March 2017 with the comment: Article says nothing constructive and repeats detail in many other articles. Refer Talk Page 14 It was contested by Redrose64 (talk · contribs) on 29 March 2017 with the comment: if there is overlap, there are ways of addressing that issue particularly since this article has stood for fourteen years |
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Bold reorganisation on 29 Dec 2025
[edit]I have made a substantial edit to reorganise the article to try and sort out some of the structural problems with it, As noted in the edit summary, I said I'd leave a more detailed comment in the talk page to explain my reasoning. Given the level of activity in the article edit history, I felt it appropriate to be bold and make the change; however, if any editor disagrees I'm very happy to revert and have a fuller discussion.
The first issue I see is that the article really doesn't currently offer a distinct purpose apart to make it individually notable. It overlaps significantly with Local government of England and other counties about individual subdivisions. I would say that this article should be about the subdivisions of England regardless of whether they are actively used for local government purposes, and the existing structure privileges subdivisions that are currently used by the core, general local government regime over those that are used for statistical or identity purposes. The article body can make it clear in each section what each subdivision is used for, or the period for which it was used. My change, I think, makes where this article sits in relation to the other articles on the same topic clearer.
The second issue is a general lack of focus on the topic. I think this is largely down to the division into 'administrative' and 'non-administrative' areas. I would argue that this article is best suited to providing a high-level overview of England’s various subdivisions, existing and historic, general and area-specific, e.g. covering counties in their historic, ceremonial and administrative forms, or covering different subdivisions such as combined authorities, police areas and fire areas, and the reorganisation into the geographic scale of each subdivision is the best way to allow that to be done.
Finally, I think that the restructured order makes it easier to keep the suite of English geography articles Wikipedia has up to date, because the structure does not rely on large changes every time local government geography changes, now or in the future.
I hope this clarifies the rationale behind the reorganisation. Please do reply (and ping me if possible) if you disagree with the approach or have alternative suggestions. Jèrriais janne (talk) 14:19, 29 December 2025 (UTC)