This template is within the scope ofWikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofAfrica on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica
ATTENTION This continent-topic template is transcluded onmultiple navigational templates. If there is a technical problem with aspecific transclusion (e.g., {{Topic of Africa}}), it cannot be corrected here. See the template'sdocumentation for help with fixing a specific transclusion.
How are these two the same? I'm sure you're aware that Western Sahara is claimed and divided by two states, the SADR included. But to synonymise it with SADR alone would be to ignore Morocco's perspective. In any case, it is classified as a "disputed territory" by the United Nations, and many articles will link to "... of Western Sahara".Nightw12:26, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Western Sahara is exactly the same as the Territory claimed by theSahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. However, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic does only control part of the territory it claims. The rest of Western Sahara is controlled by Morocco. I therefore agree withNight w that these are not the same because a territory is not the same as an entity that claims this territory. --79.238.172.45 (talk)05:07, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell, Western Sahara is the same as the territory claimed by the Sahrawi Arab DEmocratic Republic. BUT: (Anybody, please correct me if I'm wrong) Afair, the Sawrabi Democratic Republic does not control all of the territory it claims. Part of Western Sahara is controlled by Morocco. In addition to that, Western Sahara is a territory while SADR is a (non-recognized) country which is not the same. Of course, I don't see a fundamental problem with combing a country and its territory into one article, however in case of disputed territories, there may be cases where this doesn't make sense. By the way, you wouldn't consider West Germany (as it existed in the cold war, before it recognized the East) the same as Germany because it claimed all of Germany, would you? --Dynam1te3 (talk)04:33, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I personally would have preferred it to stay as the original, as that is the political unit. I'm surprised that most articles refer to it separately, could you show evidence? Another solution would be to cover any nonexistent pages with a disambiguation to each of the island's pages.Chipmunkdavis (talk)13:54, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, I dislike that situation, but c'est la vie. In that case it seems more pragmatic to have the islands as you have done, perhaps with redirects in the opposite direction. I can't think of a way to have both the islands and the unit though, so picking one I suppose we have to use islands.Chipmunkdavis (talk)14:09, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One could use the same formula as used for the United Kingdom and its constsituent parts in the Europe topic template, but I personally believe that that would be over-kill having regards to the relative size of this territory.Davshul (talk)14:48, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I just noticed that it is possible to make this template show different content depending on a parameter. We could call the parameter SAT; SAT=ST would create one link for Saint Helena and Tristan da Cunha and a second one for Ascension island; SAT=SAT would result in one link for the 3 islands as a whole, SAT=seperate would cause 3 seperate links etc. --79.238.172.45 (talk)05:13, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have changed the hack that I made. The template will now no longer use the parameter; It will show different links depending on the prefix or suffix used. This means that we have to hard-code which articles are seperate and which ones are combined inside the template. To me, this seems much better than duplicating this information in all TOPIC in COUNTRY articles. --Dynam1te3 (talk)04:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
When will Southern Sudan be added to the template? It is clear it will win independence and should now at least be in the same category as dependencies, I think.—Precedingunsigned comment added by137.61.234.225 (talk)17:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but it could be considered an "other territory" just like Western Sahara, which is also not a dependency but according to Marocco is a part of Marocco. People will probably want to search information about Southern Sudan through this template before its acctual independence.—Precedingunsigned comment added by137.61.234.225 (talk)16:32, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The redirect is in place atCapital of Libya which is not semi-protected. However, our article on the TNC states that they are moving to Tripoli, regarding that as the national capital, so the redirect is still valid.Warofdreamstalk12:06, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is a minor point but I can't change it myself because of the template protection- on the Economy of Africa template under Dependencies and other territories there is a link toEconomy of Ascension Island. Information on the economy can already be seen on the Ascension Island page, and given the relatively small population I would suggest that this link be changed to a section link:Ascension Island. I noticed this from the most wanted articles page, and there are also red links to climate and demographics which i am sure could be resolved in much the same way. Thanks, --Cutiekatie (talk)16:16, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is solved by creating redirects, which I've now done for Economy, Climate, and Demographics. The template can not be edited to tailor to each individual instance, but the redirect mean readers end up at appropriate places, and also mean that if a main article is later created for the subject readers will automatically be sent there. If you see any more of these situations, just make the redirect. Regards,CMD (talk)17:11, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This template is used for a wide variety of topics, from politics to literature to public holidays. Placing a specific category on it will result in all uses appearing under that category.CMD (talk)01:34, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I can see that the Spanish and Portuguese dependencies (Canaries and Madeira etc) were removed without any discussion, I thought geographically they were still part of the African continent. I could try to put them back, but don't want to break the template...Jokulhlaup (talk)16:04, 23 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I wish to comment that Spanish and Portuguese dependencies and autonomous regions should not be part of the Africa template for several reasons; most notably, none of the relevant 'dependencies' and autonomous regions share any part of culture with Africa - instead sharing culture with their mainland Europe counterparts. From a cultural perspective, the Canaries, Madeira and Azores do not form part of the African continent. In addition, most of these 'dependencies' are part of the European Union, for they are integral archipelagos of the European continent not the African. From a solely geographically perspective, they do not form part of the African continent; they are seen instead as mid-Atlantic islands. It is with this information in hand thatI propose the immediate removal of Portuguese and Spanish dependencies that do not recognise themselves as part of Africa (specifically the Canary Islands, and the autonomous regions of Madeira and the Azores.)ns_2 (talk)18:07, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Madeira, along with the Canaries and the plazas de soberania, was removed repeatedly by the same editor, startinghere. Considering the opposition to these edits in the previous section, I've restored them again.SiBr4 (talk)22:41, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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Can the wikilinks for "eSwatini" → "Eswatini" within this template please. This will allow for the standardising on the chosen spelling of "Eswatini" over "eSwatini", as per the move discussion on talk page ofEswatini article. Thanks. -Wiz9999 (talk)06:20, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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The ungrammatically titled articleBenin art (should be either Beninese art or Art of Benin), which is supposedly that of a sovereign state, is actually the art of the Kingdom of Benin, which lies within Nigeria.
I don't know where you are seeing a link toBenin art. In{{Africa topic|Art of}}, I seeArt of Benin, a redirect that I have changed to point toBeninese art, a red link, to be consistent with the template's use of links to modern countries.
{{African topic|| art}} also points toBeninese art, a red link.
If I have not answered this request, please explain further. It would help to link to an actual article where you are seeing a link that does not make sense to you. –Jonesey95 (talk)13:00, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Template-protected edit request on 21 September 2019
Wikipedia articles are not named following legal terms, nor is the content defined by legal terms. Alternative names exist for many countries, and this name change occurred only two years ago.CMD (talk)04:08, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I forgot that Wikipedia is neither professional nor an encyclopedia in the sense of the word like theEncyclopædia Britannica. It is rather something like a forum or a playground of a social network, where individual users enforce their personal preferences with the help of their extended rights, instead of giving the readers official laws, official rules and current facts. And two years is nothing, of course. Probably as much as two weeks. Probably it would be better to move the lemmaEswatini back toSwaziland and leave it there for another 20 years to comply with the rule"Wikipedia articles are not named following legal terms, nor is the content defined by legal terms". If you do, then do it right.--Bestoernesto (talk)05:05, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, this is a general wrapper template that is flexibly used for a variety of topics. It is limited to just the higher-level topics, primarily countries.CMD (talk)10:46, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Zanzibar isn't on the list because it is part of an already listed country. Including various subdivisions of all these countries would be unwieldy and redundant.CMD (talk)10:35, 5 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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Please change the link for Seychelles from "2020 in Seychelles" to "2020 in the Seychelles." The other island country in year pages have it like this and this is the grammatically correct title. Thanks in advance.DantheAnimator01:09, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I see my mistake. Very sorry for making the request. Should I move the 2020 in the Seychelles article I made back to 2020 in Seychelles than? Also, I recently moved 2020 in Solomon islands to 2020 in the Solomon islands. Should I undo this move? Thank youJonesey95 for your help.DantheAnimator16:14, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
HiDan, that sort of decision is usually up to the local editors. As long as a redirect is in place either way, this template will function.CMD (talk)13:21, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That is normal. SeeComoros and its talk page, where the country is referred to as "the Comoros" repeatedly. I don't see a talk page discussion, but there may be one somewhere. The page that you created should probably have "the" in it, to match the apparent consensus. –Jonesey95 (talk)14:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Template-protected edit request on 6 September 2021
Individual redirects cannot be replaced. I believe there is a general consensus that Gambia articles should be at "the Gambia".CMD (talk)02:39, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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I have recently created the article"List of wars involving Equatorial Guinea". However, the link still appears red in this template, and when hovered over with the cursor, it states that the page has not been created (the link still works when clicked on). Please change the link to "List of wars involving Equatorial Guinea" to a valid link.296cherry (talk)19:35, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This appears to be a case of the need for patience, since the servers can only work so fast. A red link is not seen for example on theList of wars involving Eritrea page. The link is blue as it should be. On theList of wars involving Equatorial Guinea page you created, the template shows "Equatorial Guinea" in boldface type, just as it should be. If you still see this red-linked somewhere, you should try purging the page by holding down the Shift key as you click on "reload". If that doesn't work, then try a null edit by opening the edit page and clicking on "Publish changes" – don't make an edit and don't leave an edit summary, just click on "Publish changes". That is called a "null edit" and should completely purge the page, which should turn the red link to blue. If you need more help, please feel free to ask.P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there20:31, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Paine Ellsworth: Whether a link is red or blue is determined server-side, and holding down the Shift key as you click on "reload" isn't aWP:PURGE, it's aWP:BYPASS - a client-side action, not affecting the servers. There's no need to go for aWP:NULLEDIT: a purge (which is a server-side action) will always fix it - but only for the page being viewed at the time: each page will need to be purged individually. When a navbox has several thousand transclusions, as with this one, this is tedious, and is why we have theWP:Job queue. In short: just wait. It might take up to a day, but all the incorrect redlinks will turn blue if left to get on with it themselves. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk)06:02, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To editorRedrose64: learned some new things today; thank you for that, thank you very much! Rarely use bypasses and purges, just test-cases pages mostly. Use the clock in the upper right for that. Sometimes use a null edit to check to see if an edit is working, then let the servers handle the rest. Thanks again and stay healthy!P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there18:49, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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An application of this protected template is used for "Law enforcement in Africa". In the last group "Dependencies and other territories" there is a link to the disambiguation pageLaw enforcement in Western Sahara. PerWP:MOSDAB could this be formatted [[Law enforcement in Western Sahara (disambiguation)|Law enforcement in Western Sahara]] please.—Rodtalk11:06, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not done: won't make any difference, will it? The piped link you suggest will still be (redirected) to the disambiguation page, and will appear the same in this template. Also, can you point to exactly where in MOSDAB this piped link is required? Lastly, this is a special navbar that is used to depict a wide range of Africa topics. Edits to individual entries in topic-specific navbars cannot be made in this template. Thank you for your edits!P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there15:10, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:INTDAB explains that the link will still take the reader to the dab page however "the community has adopted the standard of routing all intentional disambiguation links in mainspace through "Foo (disambiguation)" redirects. This makes it clear that such links are intended to point to the disambiguation page.". This means that the bots etc which identify innapropriate links to dab pages do not get included (egDisambiguation pages with links showing 54 links toLaw enforcement in Western Sahara.—Rodtalk15:20, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and the link is supposed to appear to the reader with the "(disambiguation)"visible so the reader knows it's a dab pagebefore they click the link. So the only thing your suggestion will change is that those 54 links will go to the redirect instead of directly to the dab page – also usually considered a no-no. In the case of the few navbars that link to dab pages, this can only be helped if the navbar directly links to the dab page. In the Africa topic navbar due to the way it has been designed to apply to a wide range of Africa topics, the links are not direct links and, to my knowledge cannot be fixed by editing this template.P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there16:04, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To the best of my knowledge there is no requirement for the "(disambiguation") part of the link to be shown to the reader. As this has been done with lots of other templates/navboxes I will ask for advice atWikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links and reference this discussion. Others more knowledgeable than me may have comments and your contribution would be welcome.—Rodtalk16:15, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, INTDAB says it's okay to actually make the qualifier visible, especially in hatnotes, and I think that if a reader does not want to go to a dab page, it is better to show the qualifier, "(disambiguation)", so that those readers who don't want to go to a dab page will know it's a dab page and not click on it. In my opinion anything that saves readers unnecessary steps is an improvement. I've subscribed to[your inquiry] and we'll see what others say about your suggestion and possible fixes.P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there16:40, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
MOSDAB is ambivalent about how the link is displayed -- it is a matter of preference as to whether to display the "(disambiguation)" as part the link. However, the REASON to use a link with "(disambiguation)" has nothing whatsoever to do with how the link is displayed. When a template links to the page without "(disambiguation)" -- that results in "What links here" being useless for distinguishing which articles contain an intentional link to the disambiguation page and which are errors that need to be corrected.older ≠wiser16:34, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Rodw and Bkonrad: this needs to be fixed perWP:INTDAB. Either link via the redirect, or just suppress the entry as done for the "Flag of" prefix, as Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic are already linked in previous sections.Certes (talk)17:00, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All I was asking for was for it to appear in the template that "an article already exists" and you replied here without actually doing as asked... At least "Eswatini" is no-longer appearing as ared link!GeographicAccountant (talk)23:11, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Koavf, if you go on theList of national parks of Zambia article, for example, there is a template at the bottom of that article named "List of national parks of Africa". That template contains variousred links for certain countries (such as Lesotho, Mali & Mauritania) such that itappears like there is no already-existing article on Wikipedia that talks about that nation'sprotected areas.
So, as I have said above, "Eswatini" was ALSO appearing as ared link & I wanted that changed to ablue link because "an article already exists" about protected areas in that nation. TheList of national parks of Swaziland redirect already existed but if you check, this is NOT the exact page that is being linked to & that is why it was ared link!
So, I decided to just go to that template andclick on the red link myself and that is how I created theList of national parks of Eswatini redirect. So, this new page now redirects to "Protected areas of Eswatini".
I hope you now understand that I made a mistake requesting for something on this talk page only to see somebody sayDone when nothing has happened & that is how I had to create the appropriate redirect myself. Do not confuseList of national parks of Swaziland withList of national parks of Eswatini. You can go to the template and see which exactly of these two redirects is being linked to.
I have no idea why you posted here, but it seems like you solved the problem by making a simple redirect. That doesn’t require prior approval or special permissions, so I am confused as to why this thread exists. If it’s resolved, then great work. Thanks.
Attention: The “section resolved” template needs a valid date. The section will not be archived otherwise. Please use{{Section resolved|1=~~~~}} instead.
Not done: editorRatherous, this template is not edited for changes like this. That's because changes like this are governed by the|1= or|prefix= parameter, which must be edited for each usage as I have done at[the moved article]. (Please notice that the "1=" is not needed when the argument is placed in the position after the 1st pipe that follows the template name.) So this edit must be made to each template in each article where it is used. Thank you very much for your improvements!P.I. Ellsworth , ed.put'er there23:16, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Template-protected edit request on 20 February 2025
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I fail to understand why this article is locked in the first place. So it happens that I moved a list of lists, since it started with "List of" and intending to edit the code, but I was redirected to the message saying that I could not edit the code. If possible, could a privileged user edit the source code such that one could edit the wikilink of the article. I do not have knowledge of editing templates anyway.ToadetteEdit (talk)16:38, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following is a closed discussion of arequested move.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider amove reviewafter discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The discussion above is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
ATTENTION
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format.Jackmcbarn (talk)03:02, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not done:Gazamp, that's not how this template works. It would affect every other DRC topic that uses the template -Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Africa topic.
DoneBenin art is a redirect. They are sometimes ungrammatical. It currently links toArt of the Kingdom of Benin, which makes sense, given that an article forBeninese art does not exist yet.
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Not done: editorRatherous, this template is not edited for changes like this. That's because changes like this are governed by the