Talk:Old towns Voyage Tips and guide

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Hi, everyone. What's the minimum size of towns that we should list? Is Vezelay big enough? If not, what about Cortona, Pienza, Monteriggioni - there are loads of small towns in Italy, France, and other countries that are in toto (within the walls or on the top of a hill) old towns. But if we're going to list those, we need to establish standards of either minimum population, minimum area, or/and notability/fame. Which brings me to San Gimignano - certainly a very notable old town, but if we list it, we should probably also list Volterra and decide which of the numerous picturesque old Tuscan towns not to list.

By the way, I deleted Ipoh and Petaling Jaya from the list and substituted Malacca. Ipoh has several pretty old buildings, but "old" in that context means mostly late 19th and early 20th century, which just isn't that old (the old mosque is an exception, as I seem to remember it was from the 18th century). Petaling Jaya is a teeming suburb of Kuala Lumpur, I don't think there are any really old buildings there, and there's lots of recent highrise construction (memory from 2003 - there must be much more now).

There have to be more old towns in Japan than just Kyoto and Kamakura. Nara comes to mind - I have yet to visit, but doesn't it qualify? Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:52, 17 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

There are hundreds of old towns in a country like Italy, so it's a good idea to draw the line somewhere. Sometimes it might be hard to decide whether an old town is "notable" or not. One good indicator is how much has been written about the old town in the destination's article. ϒpsilon (talk) 14:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think Wikipedia's page on old towns can be a good source to evaluate places which should be included in our article as old town and even though, if there're hundreds of old towns in Italy, WP mention about only one. Furthermore, I don't think we need sections (Get around, Get in, See, Do, Buy, Eat, Sleep, Stay safe) here. This is not an article about a destination anyway. --Saqib (talk) 14:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Actually, in southern Europe there are many towns and cities that are nothing but one big "old town". WP's list seems to need some major expansion, not even Rome is mentioned! ϒpsilon (talk) 14:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

If the list is to be limited, it should not be for population size, but for level of interest for a traveller and/or quality of the city's Wikivoyage article. The Vatican City should be on the list though having less than 1,000 inhabitants. /Yvwv (talk) 16:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure how much is written about the "old town" as such in the destination guide really tells us much. Perhaps the term "Centro Storico" might not be used in some articles about old towns, but as you said, there are a lot of places that are purely "old towns," at least within the walls or/and on top of a hill. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:04, 17 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

[Unindent] I think we should reopen this discussion. Should this language be edited?

[quoted from lede:] An Old Town, or a historical district, is a preserved urban neighborhood

[quoted from "Famous Old Towns":] This incomplete list includes inhabited urban districts of decent size and population

As a matter of fact, the list includes small towns like San Gimignano that are not historical districts in big cities and, though probably considered walled cities in the Middle Ages (let alone Etruscan times), have a real small-town atmosphere, not an urban ambiance like Rome, Florence or even Siena. So should we edit these quoted passages accordingly, or should we exclude the types of old small towns discussed above? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:28, 9 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I don't see any reason why an "old town" should be confined to city districts. That is a very narrow-minded (Eurocentric?) definition that I think actually excludes a lot of the best old towns. If you are really looking for an old town, preserved districts or entire towns are much more atmospheric than a single street swallowed by a sprawling metropolis. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 12:37, 10 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I am also noticing that the descriptions of old towns appear to be overall very Eurocentric. They don't describe East Asian old towns at all, and I suspect not a lot of others, either. Cobblestones? Impossible to enter by automobile? Horse and carriage rides? No, very often not true, and no. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 12:56, 10 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

The horse-drawn calèche is an expensive novelty to amuse tourists; basically a $50-100 tour of the city. Like hay wagon rides, heritage steam trains and other ephemera of yesteryear these are intended as entertainment, not practical transport. The "impossible to enter by motorcar" bit is a bit much; it is possible to drive in Quebec City if one has no objection to awkward, narrow streets which run vertically (the old town was built on a cliff for military/defence reasons). K7L (talk) 16:48, 10 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

It may at some time be prudent to separate this article or rather its content by geographic area and/or era. e.g. Old towns in China or American colonial towns. Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:14, 10 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I know that some places have horse-drawn carriages, but the general description of what old towns are and what they are like cannot be all about Quebec City or any specific place. It has to be a sum of what a traveler can expect to experience in an old town in Canada, as well as in Romania, Ethiopia, China, etc. and the current descriptions don't represent the global nature of the topic. At some time it will probably be necessary to separate by country. Even in such cases though, this general page will still need to have a global perspective. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:47, 11 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Please edit at will. If people disagree on the margins, they can always edit further. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:54, 11 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I have been thinking of ways to edit to make it inclusive of Japanese old towns, but I suppose I need verification that we are including old towns that are not part of cities as was brought up here initially. There do not appear to be any objections to including places that are not located within cities but I'd like to make sure that we are indeed changing the definition that is currently on the page? ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:18, 11 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

No-one's expressed opposition so far, so unless someone does before you start editing, I think you should go ahead. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:31, 11 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

What do you mean by old towns "not within a city"? Do you mean a place that basically only consists of "old town"? Because we already have these, e.g. Rothenburg ob der Tauber, where the non old town part of the city is negligible, but it still is a normal town where people live (as opposed to a ghost town) Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:59, 11 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Yes, and San Gimignano. But the lede and "Famous Old Towns" have to be edited to reflect this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:36, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

(indent) I attempted to rewrite the lede to reflect what I feel constitutes as an Old Town. Feel free to adjust it or discuss further here if you think it could be said differently (or neglects something). ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:42, 14 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Kamakura is not an "Old Town" by Japanese standards. It's a town with historic sites, but using that definition, we would need to list practically every city/town in Japan. Japan's designated Old Town historic districts are places like Kurashiki, Kawagoe, Hagi, Shirakawa-go etc. Kyoto itself is not an "Old Town", but it contains some "Old Towns", such as Gion. Shouldn't we use the local definition? ChubbyWimbus (talk) 05:18, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Probably - where there is a local definition. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:42, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

The Japanese equivalent of "Old Town" is machinami (街並み/町並み). I will add this to the list of foreign-language definitions. There are many of these, some rather small and others quite large. They designate specific districts rather than entire cities (hence why Kyoto's Gion area is one of them but Kyoto as a city is not). There are many lists of these (depending on how thorough/knowledgable the list-maker is), but for our purposes I think it would likely be most helpful to use this list of those chosen to also be preservation sites [1]. At least for the Japanese sites, using this will prevent the list from becoming too long should someone take interest. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 09:43, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

By analogy, what would you suggest we do with articles about cities in France and Italy, where the vieux ville/centro storico is usually only part of a city, vs. villages that are all medieval (et al.) in character? For example, by any standard that makes sense, Florence belongs in this kind of list, but not all of the city consists of the centro storico. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:53, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I am not familiar with how historic districts are dealt with in France or Italy. In cases where references to the city are definitely or very likely to be references to the historic area, I think just writing the city name is fine. That is what I did with Hagi. Hagi technically has 4 listings on my reference, but it is most likely that those planning a trip to Hagi are planning to visit the designated 'Horiuchi area'. Although they probably won't visit all 4, the historic areas are large and the predominant draw of the city, so I left it at 'Hagi'. With cities/towns where the historic districts are not necessarily the main draw and those in which many visitors can plan trips there without visiting the historic districts, such as Kyoto, I would probably list it with what the specific districts are called, so that would be something like: Kyoto (Gion, Kamigamo, Sanneizaka, Saga-Toriimoto)

If someone wanted to do the same with Hagi, I would write it: Hagi (Horiuchi, Hiyako, Hamasaki, Sasanamiichi)

With this said, though, I am not familiar with how France or Italy deal with this subject, so if they deal with it in a specific way, the list for those countries should reflect that if it makes sense. If the lists are "Wikivoyage originals" with no rules regarding what does/doesn't belong then it will probably need to be discussed for any countries that have more than what is reasonable for the article or whose lists are brought to question. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 16:19, 27 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'm still really unsure what criteria we should use for listings of "Famous Old Towns" (as mentioned above, hundreds could be listed in Italy and France, for example), but an area of the world that has very old civilizations like the Indian Subcontinent needs to have more old towns listed. Any suggestions? Perhaps some of the cities in Rajasthan, for example? And perhaps Madurai? Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:12, 11 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

• first impression is: Varanasi, Sarnath, Bodh Gaya, Khajuraho, Patna and Jaipur deserve this honor more than Mumbai; you, Ikan, are currently immersed on the Indian Expedition and have authority to judge this issue. 200.252.135.74 19:05, 11 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I'm not an expert, though I've been to 3 of those places (Varanasi, Sarnath and Khajuraho, though in Khajuraho, I stayed near the largest temple complex and don't remember seeing any old city, just old, great temples). I started the Wikivoyage:India Expedition because I was interested, not out of any great expertise, so I appreciate input from you and anyone else who knows the country better than I do. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:09, 11 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

• Never been there :) just read a lot about it :) and take Khajuraho and Jaipur back, having reckoned a little better the article's scope; further suggesting Ujjain, Rajgir, Nalanda, and Peshawar in Pakistan. 200.252.135.74 19:18, 11 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks a lot. Any other input, everyone? Also, I think there have to be more old towns in Iran than just Shiraz. I haven't been to Iran (changing planes in Teheran Airport in 1977 doesn't count), but I'm guessing that likely places for old cities could include Qom, Isfahan and Mashhad, but I don't really know. Anyone know? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:27, 11 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Old Delhi is the first Indian place that leaps to my mind. Also Lahore across the border.

Does it have to be a distinct old town area for mention here? Almost any city with a long history will naturally have some districts with many old buildings but I am not sure that merits a place here. Pashley (talk) 00:12, 12 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I think the point of this article would be to list discrete old quarters of cities, plus towns that are all old or made to look all old (e.g., Carcasonne, San Gimignano), so those are the guidelines to keep in mind. I don't know even the names of some of the Indian cities User:200.252.135.74 mentioned. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:40, 12 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

• for their merits, Ayodhya and Allahabad should be on the list (they also deserve the honor much more than Mumbai) but their articles need A LOT of copyediting. 200.252.135.74 11:31, 12 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

A lot of articles on places in India need copy editing, which is why I started the India Expedition. I'll add Old Delhi (why is that a red link? I guess it has to redirect to Delhi for now?), Ayodhya, Allahabad and Varanasi and also Peshawar and Lahore, but I don't know some of the other places you mentioned. I remember Sarnath being a small town (this was back in 1977), with ancient Buddhist temples and the "original Bo tree," but I think it also had a little modern centre - is there really an old city or just old temples? Same question for Bodh Gaya, which I haven't been to, though it seems to me from the article that it really is primarily an old town, so I'll provisionally list it. I'm unfamiliar with Ujjain, Rajgir and Nalanda. Do they have living old cities or are those parts of town just archeological sites or old temples, with people living in non-ancient-looking dwellings in the area or elsewhere in town? I think we need to exclude places like Pompeii from this article, because they have a modern city and a big archeological zone where people don't live. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:00, 12 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

• The original Bodhi tree is supposed to be the one at Bodh Gaya, or more exactly, the currently living one is an offshoot of the older tree, that lived at this same site in Sidarta's time.

It would be really nice to have objective conclusive evidence whether Nalanda/Sarnath/Sanchi/Ujjain/Rajgir qualify as "old town", "ghost town" or "archaeological". Let's also consider Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Hampi, Mathura and Calicut, whose current name escapes me. 200.252.135.74 19:08, 12 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

• It may or may not be helpful, but looking it up in Japanese, some of the most commonly listed "Old Towns" of India were Jodhpur (Blue City), Jaisalmer, Udaipur, Jaipur, and Delhi Old Town. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 14:04, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thank you very much, User:200.252.135.74 and ChubbyWimbus. From the places discussed above, I think we should exclude Fatehpur. Sikri is a modern town, though when I visited in 1977, it was also made of the red sandstone of the upper city, Fatehpur, we were told by government regulation, but the interest for tourist was all due to Fatepur - which, however, was not inhabited for hundreds of years and stood as a very well-preserved Royal ghost town. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:46, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Oh, on Calicut - it's Kozhikode, and its article is pretty terrible right now, but that's not a consideration on whether to link it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:58, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I did web searches and I'm finding references to the Old City of Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Mathura, Rajgir, Sanchi, Udaipur and Ujjain but not Calicut/Kozhikode, for whatever reason, and I think Hampi has an archeological zone rather than an old city, but I haven't been there and would stand to be corrected. For Nalanda, I get the result "is an old city," but that's not conclusive for the purposes of this article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:20, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I've been to Bodhgaya and do not think of it as an old town. Some old stuff including as someone said above a descendant of the original Bo tree supposedly on the original site, but mostly just an Indian town. Many temples or monastries — Japanese, Sri Lankan, Tibetan, ... — but those are all relatively new. I am not sure about the nearby larger town of Gaya which we only passed through; it might have more of an old city area.Pashley (talk) 06:41, 14 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

IMHO we should make this article more than "just" a list of old towns and at least mention some local features much like the "cities" listings in region articles do. e.g. Rome the historic center of the Roman empire, the Catholic Church as well as the capital of Italy this city's historic center offers sights from two and a half millenia. Or : Dresden While much of the original old town was destroyed in the second world war it has been rebuilt very much in the old style and most of the landmarks are where they once were again. Or: Rothenburg ob der Tauber: almost untouched by the thirty years war and not majorly affected by any war since this is one of the few European cities with a totally intact city wall as well as a major draw for Japanese and American tour groups.

Opinions? Suggestions? Reasons why we shouldn't? Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I agree. At least including 1-liner listings for every listed town is important. By all means, plunge forward and let's get started on the task. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:25, 15 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I deleted Ipoh from this list some time ago, but it's back. Its "old town" has some late 19th- and early 20th-century buildings, and not exclusively at that. I don't consider that remotely old enough, if we're being consistent. I think that consistency with the definitions of old towns in other parts of the world would dictate that to be on this list, a city has to have an area where a majority of buildings date back from the late 18th century, at the latest.

Our alternative would be to adopt the local definitions of "old" in all cases, but the result will be bizarre inconsistencies, in that large areas of Paris that are not considered "old town" at all have a majority of housing stock from the 19th (and perhaps early 20th) century. My feeling is that in Malaysia, the only real "old town" by the standards of old towns in countries like India or Italy, where that means a Renaissance or Medieval (or earlier) character, is Malacca, whose earliest buildings date to the Renaissance. I'd be willing to accept Georgetown (Malaysia), whose "old town" is really no older than Ipoh's but is bigger and in fact famous in Malaysia, but I think that we should at least include some explanatory notes.

I guess part of the issue with this article is that it's a long list, effectively an internal link farm, but without many descriptions, and if we add descriptions, I think it will get too long and need to be divided into separate articles by continent - which may be the real solution.

What do you all think? Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:20, 31 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Yeah given what I wrote just above about a year ago, it should be clear that a mere "laundry list" of old towns is not the solution. Splitting up by continent (or even sub-continental section) is a good idea and including "local" definitions in those continent articles should also be done. Also, we should include one liner listings about the listed cities at the very least. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:03, 31 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Look at the current list for Malaysia: Georgetown, Ipoh, Kuching, Malacca. If we decide that any town that has a neighborhood with some buildings built between the 1880s and the 1940s is an "old town", wouldn't almost every small town in large parts of Upstate New York and New England qualify? Does it make any sense to have a definition of "old town" that embraces both Ipoh and San Gimignano? Should we, then, list Troy (New York)? (I don't think so.) Anyone from a country that has genuinely old cities will not recognize any such thing in any Malaysian city but Malacca. So don't we risk making this article nonsensical by continuing to allow not-very-old cities to crop up on this list? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:56, 21 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I think at the very least the adoption of the automobile should be a definitive cutoff point. Probably even the industrial revolution. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:14, 21 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Mid or late 19th century. ϒpsilon (talk) 17:05, 21 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

In that case, we should list almost every small town in New England and parts of Upstate New York, and certainly Troy. I don't agree. 19th-century buildings are no big deal in European countries. Is Paris an "old town"? I say no. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:23, 22 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

See this edit. However, my above points stand. Also, note this edit. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:38, 23 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I would assume that the age that makes a city old is its age in comparison to the country it belongs to (not the actual country, but the time that it has been inhabited for). If we take the Netherlands for example: The country was united and formally founded as the Burgundian Netherlands in 1384. If we use this as a reference and set the norm to 50% of the country's age, then we get the following:

The Netherlands is 2016 - 1384 = 632 years old, which would make a norm based on founding of the country 316 years (so the settlement must have been founded in 2016 - 316 = 1700 or earlier).

Let's use the table found on nl.wikipedia.org as reference.
Stad = City; (Huidige) provincie = Current province; Jaar = Year

If we sort by year, then we get an immense list of cities that got their city rights before 1700

If however, we'd use the time that the region was permanently inhabited, then the norm would be:

Netherlands below the Rhine: ~200 (Roman times), which makes the norm ~1100 or later.
Netherlands above the Rhine: ~750, which makes the norm ~1250 or later.

This cleans out the list, but it would remove Amsterdam, which got city rights in 1306. Amsterdam is quite an iconic old city, but it wouldn't be old enough. Instead you'd be left with some bigger cities and loads of towns, but not with Amsterdam and The Hague (1806), and make the status of old town disputable for almost all current listings, which got city rights in the late 13th century. I have no clue on what the best way of tackling this is though, this is just my best guess.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 08:17, 23 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I am not entirely convinced by your formula, to say the least. Also an old town is not merely a city that has a lot of history, but buildings that date to several centuries ago. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:40, 23 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I am more than aware that the historical content that the destination has to offer matters most. The calculation or whatever it can be considered to be above is about the definition of old, and no much more.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 18:04, 23 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

[This is the edit I was making this morning before I had to hurriedly close my computer:] I'd point out that we can't have the date of independence as an overall guideline for what's old. What would we do, in that case, with most of Africa, the Caribbean, and a lot of Asian countries? Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:15, 24 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I get the problem you're posing here, Ikan. I can't answer your question, since I am not that educated about non-western cities. I can however, pose a simple solution. We could check List of (x)'s oldest cities Wikipedia articles to indicate what we should see as old. If the top 50 is founded around the same time, then we can assume that the country/region doesn't have old cities. If there are 5 - ~20 cities or towns that can be considered historical, then we can list them. I may just be underestimating this though - I am not sure.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 19:14, 25 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I am not entirely sure we are on the same page. To me this clearly about parts of cities mostly or wholly composed of old/historic buildings, no matter the overall age of the city. Not cities that happen to be old. Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:24, 25 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

It's partly the feel of the city or neighborhood. Not every building in Siena inside the walls is actually Gothic, but those that are not are neo-Gothic or otherwise in harmony with the Gothic buildings. I agree that the fact that a city is old is immaterial if the old buildings were all or virtually all destroyed and not rebuilt to old specifications. But how old do you expect the historic buildings to be? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:50, 26 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

It's kind of like the Supreme Court definition of obscenity; "I know it when I see it". But to give a rough ballpark figure, in Germany it would certainly exclude Gründerzeit (~1870-1900) even though those buildings are pretty in their own right and legally classified as "Altbauten". In Central America, I'd say style and substance have to be pre-Independece, so everything after 1821 is out. Hobbitschuster (talk) 03:38, 26 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

[unindent] What about New York City as an "Old town", as it's currently listed? I disagree. Much of it is not old at all. The older (mostly early 19th-early 20th-century buildings, though sometimes 18th-century ones) parts of town are scattered, but include parts of the Financial District, Greenwich Village, Harlem, the East Village, Chinatown and Soho in Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope and maybe Bed-Stuy and Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, but boy oh boy will people be disappointed if we direct them to the entire city as an old town. Paris qualifies much more and yet most of it is not in any way considered an "Old town" in France. So what do we do? In my view, probably not include New York, but if we must, "parts of New York City including much of the West Village, Financial District, Brooklyn Heights and parts of [list neighborhoods]", and then specify the era of most of the "old" buildings. And if we're listing New York, shouldn't Troy and the centers of most towns in Upstate New York and New England be listed? I'm asking this question yet again. I really don't like the arbitrariness of what's included in this article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:32, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

• This is a relevant point indeed. I reckon the listing of Saint Petersburg as equally polemic, as the city was founded from scratch no sooner than 1704, and therefore is very new for Russian or European standards. As the historic center's pristine preservation, for Russian or European standards again, is a valid argument for its inclusion, the city stays on the list, but if we were to overhaul this article, I would vote to delete, and keep Vladimir and Suzdal and Novgorod the Great and Pskov and so on; these are very old indeed. As for NYC, how does it compare to Baltimore or Alexandria or Santa Fe? I cannot comment as I've never been to these places and have no idea about how these feel from the traveller's perspective as I can about St Pete. Ibaman (talk) 11:17, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

The idea of the article is TCF; that travellers should be able to find urban environments which stand out from the large-scale planning and cosmopolitan architecture which arose in the 19th century, and became ubiquitous during the 20th century. The exact construction year is less important; to be listed, a town or a district should have some degree of authenticity and unique character. /Yvwv (talk) 11:51, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

What is "TCF"? Anyway, the classic era of New York skyscrapers doesn't start until 1907, so no, New York is not an "old town". Santa Fe has a 17th-century core, if I remember correctly, so it qualifies. I don't know about Baltimore or Alexandria, VA. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:17, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

I think it’s probably an odd way of saying, or a misspelling of, ttcf. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 04:46, 15 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Is there something I can do to focus and resolve this discussion? I want the U.S. cities and neighborhoods listed to clearly feature pre-Civil War buildings, and even then, I think that might encompass most small towns in parts of Upstate New York and New England. I suppose Cohoes should be mentioned? Really, we have to figure out what we're talking about. New York City as a whole doesn't belong, and I'll bet some of the other listed cities don't belong. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Indeed, TCF is short for Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first. Sorry for being too lazy to spell it out. /Yvwv (talk) 13:51, 21 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

No, it's ttcf. But do you have any other comments about my points? Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:42, 21 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Judging by the debate above on what really qualifies as "old", maybe it would make more sense to have for example an article on Old towns in Europe one on Old towns in East Asia and so on. Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:48, 23 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I totally agree, though I want to add that the current list for just Europe is long - very long. Perhaps it may be better if we split it up into Old towns in the Benelux, Old towns in the Northern Mediterranean, Old towns in central Europe, et cetera.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 15:54, 23 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hmm, isn't there a risk that we instead of one long list (this article) would only end up with several equally long lists? ϒpsilon (talk) 16:10, 23 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

That risk exists, but the more fine grained we are the more non obvious stuff can be said about old towns in a certain region. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:39, 23 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

The risk exists for sure, but what if we'd list most of the history of the country, as well as the history of the destination. I don't know if we have at least one user speaking every European language, but the history of obscure cities not many tourists would visit such as Doetinchem is well-documented on the Dutch WP. I'd assume the same goes for other countries.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 18:08, 23 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I think the most important things are: (1) to get away from lists and provide some clear information about why a visitor would want to visit x, y or z old town and what nice old things they'd most want to see there; (2) to have some kind of consistency in the definition of "old town". Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:19, 24 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

We could work out a sandbox article on Old towns in the Netherlands. If so, I'd encourage anyone to contribute to that, just so we can find out what the better choices are when forming such an article.

Currently I'm thinking of listing the following:

1. General history of the country.
2. A section for every old settlement explaining their history into more detail than their own articles, as well as why this settlement should be visited.
3. Anything that the traveller should know when going to these places (For example: Assume that Giethoorn is a historical city - A problem it has is that tourists enter people's gardens assuming that the whole town is one big open air museum and that they are free to go wherever they please. In this section we'd dis-encourage the tourist to enter gardens and private property in general).
4. Perhaps list of countries X with other old towns that the traveller that would visit country Y might want to visit?
   -- Wauteurz (talk) 19:23, 25 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

General history of the country seems to me to be for Countryname:Understand/History. I'd omit that section, although a few specific remarks relating to old towns in Countryname in particular could be helpful. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:27, 26 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I'll explain my thinking here, may it not be obvious. I'm assuming that an Old towns article would be an Old towns in [x]-article. If we have a general region such as Southeast Asia, then yes, history on all of the countries is unnecessary. Instead we could also list a general history of the region, mostly listing what they have in common. If we have an article such as Old towns in the Netherlands, then we can afford to list the country's history, whether that is a history that only touches the surface or one that dives into the depth of the country is something I'm not too sure of. The thing is: The history of the country may explain why something happened in town Y. If we can't list that, then, well, the article may become vague or incomprehensible.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 07:03, 26 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

The point would be to give sufficient summary descriptions for each town to indicate to the reader what's interesting, beautiful or important about it. How to do that most effectively is worth discussing anytime. I'm not so sure the point that the main "history of Country X" section has to be in the "Country X" article is really open to serious debate, though as on any question, I stand to be corrected, and anyone can and should offer any opinion they hold and would like to debate. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:50, 27 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Is it referring to "old towns" as a generic term (as in, medium sized settlements that have a long history) or referring to the old part of a larger city? I think the article should be renamed "Historic districts" for clarity. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 03:27, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Please read through the discussion above. The towns listed, such as some of the Italian ones (San Gimignano and Pienza among them) are in some cases solely old towns. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:21, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I see. Sorry about that. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 18:45, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Moreover, now that I moved Cyprus destinations to the section on Europe, which is where we place Cyprus on this site, everything remaining is on the Asian continent. Is there a good reason why, uniquely among the world's regions, the Middle East should be treated like a continent in the list of old cities? Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:08, 13 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

The heading just says "Famous old towns" so there doesn't appear to be any requirement that the subheadings be continents ("Europe & the Caucuses"and "Americas" aren't continents either). The region is unique among the other world regions with a rather distinct culture including architecture, so it may serve the traveler to keep it separate. I could see someone with an interest in the Middle East who wants to know which country might have the "best" or "most interesting/beautiful/authentic/etc" old towns finding this separation convenient. It is much less likely that someone will be wantonly interested in both the Middle East and East Asia/Southeast Asia (for example). At that point, there probably isn't any difference in separating the Middle East from Europe, North America, or anywhere else aside from geography. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 03:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, I pretty much agree with Chubby. Plus there is a certain amount of commonality among medinas across the Arab and Persian world (including in Spain and North Africa to be fair, so "Middle East" is not a perfect subdivision), from the use of Islamic geometric architecture to the presence of gardens and water features, which doesn't hold in either Europe or, to my knowledge, further east into Asia.

Furthermore, since the Europe list is already that much longer than all the others, it would make good sense to split it further by region.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 07:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

I'm OK with splitting further by region; it's just odd to single out only one region. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:50, 14 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

What does this article need to achieve guide level? /Yvwv (talk) 14:45, 31 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Could we make a marker map for this article, or are the old towns too many? Could they be categorized in any way? Categorization by continent (such as grand old hotels) does not really add much context to the reader. /Yvwv (talk) 12:42, 20 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Maybe they could be categorized by era – when the town was founded, or when the bulk of the historic buildings date from. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:03, 3 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

I know it's been discussed above, but I propose to either:

• remove the markers entirely.
• split this list into different articles.

The current load is far too much for the servers to handle, so changing the color won't get rid of the "The time allocated for running scripts has expired" warnings, which this article is plagued with after Whitby. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 21:13, 4 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

As an initial solution, we could try using Template:Marker instead of Template:Listing, and specifying the latitude and longitude directly instead of the Wikidata ID. —Granger (talk · contribs) 21:26, 4 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

I've replaced the templates as I suggested, which seems to have resolved the error for now, and also makes the text more readable in my opinion. If the error comes back when we add more markers, we can try specifying latitude and longitude locally. —Granger (talk · contribs) 21:32, 4 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

To start with, it could be split by continent. Or just deleted. It's a pretty useless article. Ground Zero (talk) 15:51, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

We could restrict markers to 5 or 10 per country. On a world map there is little value in having two markers 100km apart. AlasdairW (talk) 22:36, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Choosing 5-10 per country still leaves us with more than a hundred or two listings. Who would use a list like this to plan an itinerary? That doesn't seem credible to me. Few of the listings have a brief summary that would help readers choose articles to read. This is as bad as an article that lists "cities with museums" or "cities with historic churches". Ground Zero (talk) 23:59, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm also seeing several hundred green markers all labeled "99", which completely defeats the point of markers.

More broadly, I'm not convinced this article makes sense as a travel topic, there are no criteria for inclusion so "Old towns" span the gamut from town that are unutterably ancient but you'd be hard pressed to tell (Beirut) to well-preserved medieval castle towns in Europe (Tallinn) to random country villages in Australia that look like any other country village in Australia but apparently qualify as "old" (looking at you Hahndorf, est. 1838).

As a first step, can we split by continent and let each continent work out their own rules for inclusion? Jpatokal (talk) 00:49, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

That would give us a list of maybe 200 European cities with old towns. What would be the point of that article? Ground Zero (talk) 01:02, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I assume the list makes some sense on country or continental section level: if I am going to Germany and want to include some old towns in my itinerary, what towns might make sense? For Central Europe, it is of course hard to avoid cities with decent old towns, so one could tell that and list a few of the most remarkable by country, if that. One might also be interested in what towns in the destination country looked like in, say, the 19th century. For this, descriptions are key. I agree that the current list makes little sense. –LPfi (talk) 07:45, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

This article is experimental, just like many other travel topics. The markers were a recent addition, and if they break the article, they are not that important to keep. Finding a way to present the markers otherwise, would however be nice. /Yvwv (talk) 12:42, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Using listings instead of markers works fine in some cases, e.g. Volcanoes with three colours.

When it fails, as in the current version of Grand old hotels (which I will fix), it just gives multiple listings labelled "99" rather than the ugly error message that too many markers gives.

I think all markers here should be changed to listings. Use a wikidata link & a one-line description, but keep most detail in destination articles. Pashley (talk) 13:32, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

The Volcanoes map has way too many markers on it, too. It really isn't a readable map. Ground Zero (talk) 14:06, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

It isn't readable as such, but you see enough to be able to drag any area to the middle and zoom in on it. Isn't that much more useful than having en enormous map or having so few markers that all are clearly visible? –LPfi (talk) 20:05, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think that a readable map is more useful, but then I don't think that long lists of cities with no context or explanation are useful to travellers. I can't see who would use this article for trip-planning purposes. Ground Zero (talk) 21:55, 1 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Not in its current state. Does somebody have a vision? –LPfi (talk) 18:25, 2 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Longer term, I think we should restrict the list to cities that:

1. There is a short description here of what is in the city
2. We have an article for the city, which clearly describes an old town, historic district etc where the cityscape is substantially unchanged in the last 100 years (post-war rebuilds etc allowed). The actual age of the city is not important - a complete unchanged 1870s district is of more interest than a city dating from 1100 with only 3 pre-1950 buildings.
3. We could have a limit on the number of towns in a country which are mentioned, but it is hard to apply the same limit to China as Belgium.

I suggest that we allow 6 months for this to be addressed, and then remove the cities that don't meet this criteria. AlasdairW (talk) 21:25, 2 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000, Mx. Granger, Ground Zero, Jpatokal, Yvwv, LPfi, Pashley: I support @AlasdairW:'s proposal. Although we haven't templated the listings under "Asia", some of the entries should be removed. In particular, Ayodhya, Prayagraj, Rajgir, Sanchi, and Ujjain are "old cities" by age only. They don't have any historical quarters that have remained unchanged in the last 100 years. In contrast, Jaipur is missing in the India listing, which indeed has a historical quarter that has remained unchanged in the last 100 years. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 14:49, 10 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Also, the two old districts of the same city should share the same marker/listing template for the sake of maintenance. Not only that, each continent should have their own colors and mapframes. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 14:55, 10 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Also, Delhi/New Delhi should come under the list under the new criteria, as the area has retained most of the buildings since 1912. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 15:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000, Mx. Granger, Sbb1413, Jpatokal, Yvwv, LPfi, Pashley: To restart this discussion, I think it is worth trying AlasdairW's proposal as it is the only one that seems to have any traction. I also think that Sbb1413 should go ahead and make the changes they propose, which make sense to me. Ground Zero (talk) 01:28, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yeah I'm all for it. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 01:32, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I agree somewhat, except that I'd have to know more about New Delhi to evaluate it as a potential "old town": Sbb1413, are most of the buildings there only 110 years old or so? I wouldn't have thought of _New_ Delhi as an old part of the city at all, and I feel like considering places with primarily 20th-century architecture "old" will make this topic absurd. And in terms of places with 19th-century housing stock, aren't we talking about the Historic Zones of hundreds of towns in New England and Upstate New York, among other places? I think we will need to have age guidelines that are much older than the 1870s district AlasdairW refers to. I further refer you all to #How old is "old"?. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:57, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't think we should try to define "old". As the discussion above shows, that will vary by country. AlasdairW's proposal is a good start on clearing up this list. Let's do that, and then take a look to see what more needs to be done. If we can't get agreement on now to proceed, then deletion might be the best option. Ground Zero (talk) 10:26, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

OK, let's say it varies by country. In what world is an area with early 20th-century buildings an "old town" in India? Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:46, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Back then I thought that an area with colonial and pre-colonial buildings would be considered an old town in India. However, people usually don't consider New Delhi as an "old town", despite the area being dominated by colonial buildings. So I now think the oldest area of a city with oldest extant buildings and communities is generally considered an "old town", regardless of country. So New Delhi does not qualify as an "old town", but Old Delhi is. Same for North Kolkata, the City of London, etc. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 17:19, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Ikan , I really think we should implement AlasdairW's proposal first, then take it from there. Adding in more criteria now risks bogging the discussion down again in debate, and then nothing happens. The one-year anniversary of this discussion is coming up. And right now, the article is a disaster. Let's do something about it. Ground Zero (talk) 18:10, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I plan to make a start by removing the markers from places that don't have a description. I hope that the article becomes more readable once that is done, and then we can look at further trimming. AlasdairW (talk) 19:15, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Done. We are now down to 94 markers (+ the grey ones for the Balkans). I left a few markers that didn't have descriptions, trying to retain one in each country and a few places that I think should be there, but this is my choice and others are welcome to change provided they don't just add markers. The article now displays without errors.

If we want to define old, we probably need different numbers for each continent, eg. before 1650 in Europe, but before 1900 in Oceania. AlasdairW (talk) 21:42, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

We can do that, but let's not get into a situation in which the 1950s are old for some country, so we call a neighborhood with intact 1950s housing "old." There's a point of absurdity and misinformation that we don't want to get to. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:54, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't have any other argument with your proposal, though.

Some preliminary thoughts if we're going to define "old" by continent: I think that at least for the Americas, we probably don't want to list anything that isn't mainly at least as old as the 18th century. I suppose that in Europe, the standard would probably be 16th century or earlier? We'll have to have a discussion about Asia, as people are treating turn of the 20th century as "old" in Malaysia, but some of the oldest cities in the world are in Southwest Asia, South Asia and, to a lesser degree, East Asia. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:02, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Portland's Old Town features buildings built between 1869 and 1913. See Portland's Old Town on Oregon.com. Victoria BC's old town started in the mid-1800s. It has been designated a national historic site. Limiting North American cities to 18th century would put Wikivoyage offside of common usage. Ground Zero (talk) 22:42, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Then probably hundreds of historical zones in the Northeast should be added... Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:41, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Thanks to AlasdairW for removing all of those markers to eliminate the display errors. It is still a list hundreds of cities. I think we should take the next step and remove the cities that have no descriptions (aside from those that really should be there). Then we can see what it would look like with a shorter list. Ground Zero (talk) 23:28, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

When I look at Old Towns, the message "The time allocated for running scripts has expired." replaces all listings with markers from China on downward. Is it like that for everyone else? ChubbyWimbus (talk) 15:15, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

The problem seems to be that there are way, way, way too many markers for the map to handle. Way too many. It is exceedingly useless. Did I mention that there are way too many markers? Ground Zero (talk) 15:48, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

[edit conflict] Something needs to be done to the article anyway. The markers reach the limit of 99 before halfway down the destination list. Are all these really "famous old towns" by the definition of "inhabited urban districts of decent size and population, open to the public, that have remained largely intact since around 1850 (or 1900 in the New World), or have been faithfully restored to that state"? They might be, but I think Avoid long lists applies. –LPfi (talk) 15:52, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

For Paris, Copenhagen and Stockholm there are even separate markers for two districts. And there are descriptions on, eh, less than two dozen of them. Could some of these listings be left for Medieval and Renaissance Italy, Roman Empire & al? –LPfi (talk) 15:57, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Checking my area, the only famous Old Town is Plovdiv, though you can also make an argument for Veliko Tarnovo (which, ironically, is not in the list). The rest have scattered old buildings and/or European-style fin-de-siecle buildings that are too new for the definition. I'm going to remove the other cities. Not that it will help much... Daggerstab (talk) 23:15, 2 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think that's w:en:Wikipedia:Lua error messages#Lua timeout error. Probably sub-dividing/shortening the page is the only near-term fix. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

If we're getting that error, it's a sign that the article violates Wikivoyage:Avoid long lists. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:39, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

"The 7±2 rule applies to destination articles, but not necessarily to itineraries, phrasebooks and travel topics, where different rules may be more appropriate." This is a travel topic, so the rule does not always apply. AlasdairW (talk) 22:46, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps not, but common sense should still apply, and as Ground Zero has noted, there are "way, way, way too many markers". Mrkstvns (talk) 22:55, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes, that's what I meant. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:58, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Best fix is to remove the markers entirely. There are so many of them (and they are so dense in some areas) that putting them on a map makes no sense. Just list and link them. If a country has more than a few, a separate article with a list and map would be fine. Powers ^(talk) 17:46, 3 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

What's the point of such an overview article, if you can't see where the cities are? I'd say the solution is to split the article into per-continent subarticles, or whatever, and keep the markers... -- andree 05:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

The point is the links to our articles. You can't see where the cities are anyway because there are so many of them. Powers ^(talk) 00:05, 13 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

The map is interactive, with a zoom function. If you are interested in some area, just zoom in on it. If you don't know where in the world the city mentioned in a listing is, just click the marker to get a map centred on that place. –LPfi (talk) 02:54, 13 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

• One thing we could try is putting the coordinates directly in the marker templates instead of fetching them from Wikidata. I imagine that would help, though I don't know if it would be enough to get rid of the errors. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:03, 2 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
• See also Talk:Old_towns#Remove_markers_/_split?. Pashley (talk) 01:25, 4 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Old towns. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:21, 18 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Previous discussion at Talk:Old_towns#Remove_markers_/_split? & following section. Pashley (talk) 14:00, 18 September 2024 (UTC)Reply