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Talk:War zone safety

Original discussion
Discussion moved from Travellers' pub:

Anyone think a "War zone safety" article could be useful? I imagine it could be geared toward people who have to travel to Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, or in an area around the cocaine plantations in Columbia. I could see it as covering the following topics: evasive driving, routine planning, planning for the trip, "in the field" precautions, and what to do if captured by an enemy (I could give the Pentagon a call and see what they recommend to armed services members and private contractors). - (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 04:22, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

 * (I didn't realize Missouri was a drug-producing state... or did you mean Colombia? {smile}) I suppose an article of this sort could be useful, outlining some general advice, but because the specifics of each "war zone" can be very different, and the stakes involved (personal safety, international incidents), this is one area where I'd rather we do refer people to other guides, specifically to the folks who are in this business (i.e. one's local department/ministry of state).

 * Snort. Governmental travel advisories are useless exercises in covering ass, for anything approaching an actual war zone (eg. Somalia) they'll just tell you not to go there, and they'll try to do the same even for places that are orders of magnitude less dangerous (eg. Indonesia, where eg. North Sulawesi warrants "extreme caution" because a long-gone independence movement blew up something back in the 1960s).

 * Anyway, while I think this is a useful idea, hardcore travellers of this type are a pretty rare species. User:(WT-en) Davidbstanley is probably the closest we get to a Wikivoyage's Dangerous Places kinda guy around here... (WT-en) Jpatokal 09:31, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

 * While they may do too much ass-covering, they at least know something about what they're talking about, which cannot be safely assumed about any given person editing a wiki... and I don't think we have the level of peer review here qualified on this subject to overcome that and create a credible article. (Heck, I could write a pretty credible-sounding article on this subject, but the closest I've been to a war zone is East Berlin in the 1980s or an AIDS demo at the White House in 1992.)  It's one thing to take a tip from an unknown source about where to sleep or drink, but another to get advice from him on how to evade machine-gun fire or persuade your captors not to behead you.  If the government isn't a good authoritative source to refer people to, then who is?  (Not a rhetorical question.) - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 10:34, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

 * People who've been there and done that, like the aforementioned User:(WT-en) Davidbstanley. I don't see this being all that much different from whether you can trust a (WT-en) Wikivoyage restaurant recommendation for Geneva or (WT-en) Wikivoyage's advice on which taxis are less likely to get you killed in Jakarta, and I doubt very many visitors would blindly heed Wikivoyage advice to wear an orange windsock on your head and yell "BANG! BANG!" a lot when walking down city streets in a war zone.

 * The focus of travel advisories is telling people whether to go or not, they offer little if anything in the way of practical advice. (Maintain vigilant personal security precautions and remain aware of the continued potential for attacks? Gee, thanks, that helps!)  While I agree that a detailed primer on personal safety in, say, Baghdad is beyond Wikivoyage scope, I can see a need for a "travel in dodgy places" article that fuses and goes beyond Staying safe, Tips for travel in developing countries and Arriving in a new city, dealing with more mundane problems: shakedowns for bribes, finding transport that won't rob you, securing your hotel room against intruders, etc. (WT-en) Jpatokal 12:42, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

 * I was in Iran during their revolution when live ammunition was in use. Not an experience I'd recommend. I think anyone going to such areas voluntarily would have support — a gov't, NGO or company behind them, more experienced reporters to get tips from, local guides, etc. We probably cannot and should not try to compete.

 * I have been kicking myself ever since 1979 for not buying any of the (badly printed, overpriced) T-shirts that were around at the time. "Stay and die for BHI" (Bell Helicopter were a major employer), "I ran from Iran" with a yellow stripe down the back and my favorite, the State Dep't advice "Keep a low profile" printed on wall with bullet holes and someone peeking over the top. (WT-en) Pashley 11:53, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

 * I also still remember calling the Canadian embassy for advice at one point and hearing them ask "Isphahan, is that on the gulf?" That said, the same people did some good work a few months later helping get Americans out during the hostage crisis. (WT-en) Pashley 11:58, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

 * This is only an idea so if it isn't implemented, oh well. I came up with the idea after watching some documentary on tv about some business men going to combat preparation school. Also, while I was in Warsaw I met an American, who told me about life in Baghdad's green zone and constantly scanning everything around you. He also told me being required to take at least a hand gun with you everytime you left the green zone although many more contractors decided AK-47s were the way to go.
 * Back to the documentary. The subjects of this documentary were in their 40s, 50s, and 60s and a few of them (the ones in their 60s) were ready to expire after the first activity, which, was evasive driving. Also, at the school they taught people how to shoot, ditch a car and go on the run, and how to survive in a jungle, or desert for upto a week. I'm not proposing that the proposed article become the field guide, but rather more of a prepatory guide with a short list of where a company could send its employees to get the type of training I saw in the documentary. As Jpatokal notes above I doubt anyone will take everything Wikivoyage to heart without some consideration, first. I could also see this as being exteremely helpful to traveller's should a normally peaceful region suddenly explode into civil war like what some "experts" had anticipated Ukraine to do during the Orange Revolution. - Sapphire

I thought I should say something since my name has been mentioned a couple of times. My own experience from visiting some of these 'dangerous' playes, is that there are tourists that will visit them, despite advice to the contrary. I was in Kabul last year when an internet cafe was blown up a short distance from me. The real targets were probably the Swiss tourists who luckily had left a few hours earlier. People to take risks and many enjoy it. It would probably be helpful to have an article on war zone safety. It might be worth seeking out an expert on the subject (which I cannot claim to be). There are speciallist companies that provide 'hostile environment' training. I had a course a few years back and am due another. One very important aspect of these courses is fist aid training. That could be an area worthy of an article by itself. I would also like to agree with the point made about government travel advice. It is usually over cautious. (WT-en) David Stanley 13 June 2006
 * OK here is the beginning of a War zone safety article! Let's see where it goes.  (WT-en) David Stanley 18 June 2006

 * Looks good so far. Bravo! (WT-en) Pashley 05:20, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

RYP comment
I have a problem with this idea, mostly because the information is not from people in the actual region. Government advisories are fine for the timid but don't help actual conflict workers, journos etc, who must operate there. Even though I write the book. I still leave it to actual people who are in the actual zones to provide useful advice (www.comebackalive.com) Providing obscure, out of date or anecdotal warnings are not that helpful and potentially liable.

There is a wiki called Dangerpedia at my site and plenty of hard won experience from folks that still has to pass muster before it becomes "advice":)

best

RYP

Awesome. Thank you so much!
I would just like to say that this article is fantastic. When complete this one is a barn star winner for sure. Thanks so much for doing this work, as it may well save lives or in one way or the other. -- (WT-en) Mark 15:29, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

I must say that I think that this article is both useful and good. I'm a bit mystified by the suggestion that "while I think this is a useful idea, hardcore travellers of this type are a pretty rare species. User:Davidbstanley is probably the closest we get to a Wikivoyage's Dangerous Places kinda guy around here". I've been travelling in dangerous places for forty year as part of my job (I make documentary films). Although I personally don't like going to war zones unless i'm working - I feel that war tourists just make things worse for people who are trying to live there - I did appreciate, in the 70s, a lot of foreigners coming to my home town of Belfast to find out for themselves just what was going on there. I'm just back in London from Kabul, and Afghanistan is full of young people who want to find out what's going on, and to help. Hundreds of them, many doing really useful stuff. They need advice like this. Keep up the good work.(WT-en) Cooke 16:55, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

 * It's all relative, but any way you look at it, there are a lot less visitors of any stripe to Kabul than to, say, Paris or Orlando. But nobody's proposing that this page be deleted, on Wikivoyage there's space for any niche of travellers... (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:37, 28 June 2007 (EDT)

Bulletproof vests and weapons
I added sections on these. See discussion at Talk:Afghanistan. (WT-en) Pashley 21:27, 17 October 2006 (EDT)

 * Lookin good... (WT-en) Cacahuate 04:28, 22 October 2006 (EDT)

Bullet proof vest info deletion and revert
A fact such as "No vest will stop a 50 calibre round" doesn't really belong.. It's extremely arbitrary. I'd be willing to guess that the average person interested in various safety measures to consider if one were to travel into a warzone isn't going to find the fact that no vest stops .50 calibre rounds. If someone wants to know what body armour can and can't stop, they'll visit the wikipedia page on body armour.

 * I disagree with you because I got the idea for this topic because I was reflecting on Ukraine's 2004 Presidential election, which apocalyptic analysts, at the time, suggested could have erupted into a civil war. Living several hundred miles away I was somewhat concerned and having no prior experience with bullet proof vests or military tactics I would have find this useful if the worst came true. -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 00:45, 5 December 2006 (EST)
 * Post scriptum: When we were discussing the idea of this article I noted: I could also see this as being exteremely helpful to traveller's should a normally peaceful region suddenly explode into civil war like what some "experts" had anticipated Ukraine to do during the Orange Revolution. so we shouldn't assume everyone who reads this is preparing to go to a war zone when circumstances could very well change instanteously and a normally peaceful place has mortar shells raining down. -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 00:57, 5 December 2006 (EST)

Mines in Cambodia
I advise removing the picture of land mines in Cambodia, because to tourists, land mines in that country present no threat whatsoever. You would have to drive through the jungle for an hour in any direction from any touristed area to encounter any mines. The threat is to locals in extremely rural areas relying on subsistence agriculture for their livelihoods. No tourists have ever stepped on or near any mines. Cambodia is not an accurate example of a war zone, since that country's civil war ended in 1993, the Khmer Rouge disbanded in 1998, and the country is completely safe and stable. Mines, as I said, are no issue to tourists of any kind, independent or otherwise. Mentioning Cambodia anywhere on this page in any way is just misleading at best. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 24.85.171.109 (talk • contribs)

 * It's a picture of a landmine warning. IT'S NOTHING TO DO WITH CAMBODIA. IT'S A PICTURE OF A LANDMINE WARNING. REMOVE THE CAMBODIA CONTEXT AND IT'S VERY RELAVENT

 * I don't see a convincing argument for removing the image. The purpose is to give people an idea of  what signs one may see near or in a mine field.  Also, in no way is Wikivoyage solely for tourists.  We also hope our guides will be of some use to business travelers, school children doing reports, or volunteers (i.e.  NGO volunteers who need to be dispatched to places where no outsider has visited before). -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 00:42, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

 * Also note that the picture was taken at Preah Vihear, very much a tourist destination, and also very much in the middle of a live minefield. (WT-en) Jpatokal 01:35, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

 * Preah Vihear, while definitely a tourist attraction, is too far off the beaten track for most tourists. The vast majority of the small number of tourists that do visit the place do so from the Thai side of the border, where day visits are possible due to improving Thai-Cambodian relations following the 2003 riots. As for the NGO workers argument, my statement applies equally to them. Most NGO workers do not work in mine infested areas, and those that do certainly possess far better information than this guide ever will, and would never rely on this site anyways. A better statement by me would have been that no foreigner has ever fallen victim to a land mine and the risk to any foreigner in the country for any purpose is practically nil. In practical terms, only tourists (and I'd hazard a guess that in the case of this site that means backpackers) use this site anyways. Portraying land mines as a threat is a blatant misrepresentation of reality. By all means note that truly off the beaten track "destinations" in certain parts of the country present an issue with regards to land mines, but nothing more than that. There's no need to be politically correct here.

 * Even if you disagree with everything I've said, this is a page about war zone safety, and Cambodia is not a war zone.

 * Let's continue this discussion on Talk:Cambodia. (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:40, 26 March 2007 (EDT)
 * I dont see that the article suggests that Cambodia is a war zone, any more than Croatia which also has a photo of a mine. (WT-en) Davidbstanley 03:04, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

 * Keep the image. Perhaps add some text about how former war zones may still be dangerous decades later because of mines and UXO. (WT-en) Pashley 00:49, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

 * I added some text. Comment? Edits? (WT-en) Pashley 01:00, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Camouflage passports
The article currently suggests " ... it may be wise to look into ... a camouflage passport, which is a faux passport "issued" by a non-existent country. Camouflage passports are used to throw off terrorists and abductors, ...". Is this realistic? Are attackers likely to be fooled? Will you be much better off if they are? Will you be worse off if they aren't fooled? Could it cause more problems than it solves? (WT-en) Pashley 07:58, 10 September 2007 (EDT)

 * My answers would be yes, yes, in rare cases, yes, yes. 99.9% of the time they're unlikely to be useful... but if I was an Israeli citizen in, say, Afghanistan or Iraq and found myself at a hostile roadblock, I'd much prefer to hand over a "Dutch Guiana" or "Rhodesia" passport instead of my Israeli one. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:14, 10 September 2007 (EDT)

 * All sounds good except for the non-existing country part... I would think safer to hand over a fake passport to a real country... less chance of being caught or raising red flags. Though in some countries I've been in (Bangladesh notably) the immigration officer couldn't recognize the visa to his own country - even though that's pretty much his entire job - and I had to point it out to him. Which is up there with the time that the Zambian border guard was out of ink in his stamp pad. It's amazing that even when your job is incredibly simple, it's still just too hard for some. Sorry, storytime took over for a sec – (WT-en) cacahuate  talk 19:35, 10 September 2007 (EDT)

Camouflage Passport
It's easy enough. I'm not sure about anyone else, but Transport SA was sure my passport for "Belgiem" was real until I pointed out  A. Belgium is spelt with a "U"  B. Why the hell would Belgian with a 2007 passport be renewing a 20-year-old SA licence?

Anyhow, I personally wouldn't (use a cam. passport or go to a warzone) but residents of the US, Israel, and countries fighting against the warzone would find it handy.

 * Actually, Belgium is spelled "Belgie" or "Belgique" or some such. That document isn't going to be unilingual-English from a Dutch or French-speaking country. A "Dominion of Newfoundland" passport, on the other hand... K7L (talk) 22:06, 28 October 2012 (CET)

Upload an image
I have created a detailed image of war zones and areas of conflict. How do I upload it?

Scrap the map?
Interesting idea, but not one that I consider workable.

First, the practical problems. It strikes me as unmaintainable. These things change; it would be too difficult to keep it updated. Also, you cannot see the legend to know what the colours mean unless you click on the map. Finally, a place can have only one colour, so Egypt is not shown as problematic for Israelis, or Russia as corrupt government.

It is just wrong in places. For example, Egypt, India & Russia are shown as "land mine risk", but Laos is not.

Too many debatable political judgments. How do we decide if a country has a "corrupt government"? Only one in South America and two in Africa? I do not believe it. Some would say the US is hopelessly corrupt. We do not want to even try to draw that line; it would lead to endless pointless debates. Even if we could do that, "corrupt government" still does not belong n a map of "wars". Some highly corrupt governments rule for decades, more-or-less peacefully.

Finally, there's "unsafe for travelers of Israeli descent". The wording is wrong; it should be either "unsafe for Jews" or "unsafe for Israelis". There might be a good "travel topic" article in that, describing where Israelis encounter problems and how those problems can be managed. Or Americans, who are also hated in some quarters. Or Moslems, who encounter various predjudices in Western countries. But none of those belong in an article on "war zone safety", or in a map titled "wars".

So I'd say scrap the map. Other opinions? (WT-en) Pashley 22:23, 26 November 2008 (EST)

 * Your reasoning seems sound, and your arguments convincing. --(WT-en) Inas 22:31, 26 November 2008 (EST)

 * Thinking a bit more, if we cut it to only current conflicts and areas with mine/UXO risk from earlier wars, it might be fairly useful. We'd need a clear label giving the date of last update, though. (WT-en) Pashley 22:35, 26 November 2008 (EST)

 * Like most of these things, it is best maintained at the country or region level. Identify the risks in the more local article, and people can refer to this article if they still decide to go, and need advice.  --(WT-en) Inas 22:39, 26 November 2008 (EST)

 * Actually, I thought of adding a vfd tag to this map, since it seems both oversimplified and inaccurate (I didn't realize it's actually being used in an article). Coloring all of Russia green for land mine risk is absurd, since the conflict there is localized to an area about the size of New Jersey. If we were to make a map, it should be basic—highlighting only current war-level conflicts. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 22:54, 26 November 2008 (EST)

 * I agree with the "scrap the map" camp. This might be of some use if it was (say) generated automatically based on state.gov travel warnings, but in its present state it's pretty much useless. (WT-en) Jpatokal 07:14, 8 December 2008 (EST)

 * An anon just added a section: War_zone_safety. I think it should go for much the same reasons as the map. Other opinions? Pashley (talk) 18:23, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree completely. Nick-D (talk) 23:16, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It has already been deleted. Pashley (talk) 23:52, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Colombia
Hi, Colombia should be added to the "war zone" list. Trust me, I am from Colombia, and the situation has improved somewhat over the past few years, but large swaths of the country, namely Nariño up to Cali, Cali to Tolima and Caqueta, southern Meta down to Amazonas, northern Antioquia up to Chocó and into Panamá, plus the entire border to Venezuela, are considered war zones, and every single embassy in the world advises against non-essential travel in those areas due to the heavy fighting between paramilitaries, apolitical drug-runners, guerrillas and state forces. // Sofía. (WT-en) Palenque! 19:58, 20 November 2010 (EST)

 * Given the very small number of guerrillas still active, I think this is a stretch. The vast majority of the advice in this article is inapplicable to the vast majority of the country (and most of it is inapplicable to even the most dangerous parts of the country). If others want to keep it, it certainly should be heavily qualified, and the notion previously written on the page that Colombia's remote Amazonas territory is a War Zone is patently false. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 20:10, 20 November 2010 (EST)
 * Hello Peter, I do not agree. According to the United nations Colombia has the highest number of discplaced people in the world in 2010, and also one of the highest amounts of landmines. In 2010 an average of 500 people per day are being forced from their homes due to the new paramilitary groups (numbering some 15,000) the guerrillas (numbering 15,000, 5000 in the ELN and 9,000-11,000 in FARC-EP fighting turf wars in much of the country. The Colombian government claims that FARC only has 7,000 fighters, but state propaganda is unreliable and should be seen sceptically. Decides there are many human rights reports about right-wing death squads re-emerging stronger in 2010 and creating a humanitarian disaster in much of the country.[ http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2010/09/20109864414388536.html]. All in all, any country with 500 new displaced people per day due to armed conflict, must of whom are not displaced by guerrillas, is to be considered a war zone. On a more personal note, I am from Neiva, Huila, and anyone who tries to say that place isn't a war zone has probably never been there. // Sofía (WT-en) Palenque! 20:32, 20 November 2010 (EST)

 * The war against FARC is on the news here almost daily, and as the president now has increased attacks on FARC, I'd say the area is more dangerous than ever. Obviously, western parts and the cities are safe, but the large swathe of jungle I think definitely should be considered a warzone. It's true that the Deep Southern part of Amazonas is relatively safe, but all other parts east of the mountains are very dangerous. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 09:40, 23 November 2010 (EST)

 * Globetrotter, exactly. Urban centerrs are at times targeted by explosions, but I'd say that much of the countryside and the entire southern and eastern part of the country is as bad as ever. In September of this year around 55 Colombian soldiers were killed by guerrillas, and guerrilla activity has def. been on the rise since Jan Manuel Santos took over as president. // Sofía. (WT-en) Palenque! 06:26, 24 November 2010 (EST)

Mexico and South Korea?
Maybe Mexico should be considered here, but only for Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. Trust me, I have relatives in Monterrey and they say everything is peaceful and the Drug War has been over-loaded and propagated by the US Media. But considering that there still is a Drug War, I would still add it, but only for Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. Not Monterrey, as Monterrey is mostly unaffected. I would also consider South Korea, as the attack on Yeonpyeong Island which has resulted in 2 civilian deaths should place a small warning for both North and South Korea in case of more attacks. 99.60.229.159 13:40, 24 November 2010 (EST)

 * I think it can be worth to put an alert to Travel news if inter-Korean attacks continue, but it's a bit too early to declare either country a "war zone" yet.
 * As for the northern Mexican towns, most of the articles about them already have warningboxes on the safety situation, but I don't know if they could be considered outright "war zones". – (WT-en) Vidimian 14:25, 24 November 2010 (EST)

 * As with the discussion above, I think the "list of warzones" might be in danger of getting a little silly and I would venture a little political. This article is about places of active military conflict that are not tourist destinations in any way shape or form (Keep in mind that it is very unusual for non-combatants to be wandering around war zones). The article gives advice on security training, hiring bodyguards, armor, etc., that is only relevant for people who are going to work in an active war zone, not for people shopping in Seoul or driving to Acapulco. That drive may be dangerous and shouldn't be done at night, but we have stay safe sections in the country, region, and locality articles that can better handle the local nuances. It might be time to ax the list altogether. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 11:39, 25 November 2010 (EST)

 * South Korea obviously is ridiculous, it's perfectly safe to visit (even now). The problem with this list is that many countries are safe for the most part, but have some regions which could be considered war zones. Wikipedia has a good list of ongoing military conflicts. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 11:47, 25 November 2010 (EST)

 * Maybe we could allow a link to that WP article, get rid of our list, and thereby tactfully allow WT to avoid the political minefield of declaring countries/regions "war zones?" --(WT-en) Peter Talk 13:25, 25 November 2010 (EST)

 * Yes,the list should go. Politically loaded, unmaintainable, ... (WT-en) Pashley 17:16, 25 November 2010 (EST)

 * I have to agree with SK being a ridiculous addition. I'm currently living there, and the blip the NK attack caused was hardly noticeable. Thought I would add in my two cents since the war zone list is still up, but I'm too new to have the balls to delete the entire section.  --(WT-en) kirakira 00:29, 5 December 2010 (EST)

'Gas' Attacks
In light of events in Syria, does this page need updating with advice on how to spot chemical attacks? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 20:28, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

 * How would that be of practical use to potentially endangered travelers? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:53, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

 * Fair point, I was thinking more along the lines of "If you see X, leave quickly.." kind of advice.. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:16, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

 * If you can see poison gas, it's probably too late, don't you think? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:24, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

 * Point taken.Sfan00 IMG (talk) 13:28, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Status
Is this article a Guide? If not, what work is needed to make it one? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:57, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

 * There is something extraordinarily counter-intuitive about having an article about this subject inside wikivoyage, in my estimation.

 * Just a suggestion - the title and contents should be more about - you are a law abiding tourist and you find yourself in a dangerous situation.... it can happen outside of war status states.

 * I think there should be a separate article - Getting out of dangerous situations about a place that suddenly becomes a target - much more about how to get out- out of situations - and what to look out for to get out. Paris was a war zone a week ago - there should be a lot more about how to avoid/be mindful of how to respond to danger and violence JarrahTree (talk) 07:36, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

 * I don't find anything counter-intuitive about an article about war zone safety for people who have to travel to a war zone, but I think your suggestions are really helpful. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:03, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

 * My bad, I didnt think the article evolved from people who have to travel to a war zone - I must have misread the article or its import (highly likely on my part).

 * From personal experience, in close proximity in airports to law enforcement to uniformed carriers of things that look liked kalashnikovs, and in a range of on the ground tourist places where all range of firearms are readily flashed about by uniformed and un-uniformed, I think some of the information in this article could be readily transposed into a what to do in emergency - training links are one thing, and probably the best to do it - there is no need to create detailed scenarios here in voyage. Like any good ex vietnam vet would do here in australia as recently as 20 years ago, a car backfires and in milliseconds they are flat on the ground and crawling for cover.  Not that a regular tourist needs to practice that, but from anecdotal information about people caught in line of fire in Paris, and other places, there are three or four things worth knowing about... and there are elements of that in this current article.  I think war zone ie declared known risk as one article,  another what happens when all hell breaks loose, that is places that suddenly become very dangerous.  JarrahTree (talk) 13:32, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Importing the list of countries from WikiTravel
Hello, I would like to import the list of war zone/not so war zone countries from WikiTravel. Any approvals or disapprovals? -User:MacftraxMC (talk) February 25th, 2016 5:30PM EST (estimated)
 * If you do so just be sure that the edit comment includes a link to the Wikivoyage article & revision that content was copied from per Copyleft. You should probably also read WV:Wikivoyage and Wikitravel for some background on why we're generally very hesitant about bringing content from WT to this site. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:26, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

 * Is there any reason you could not create this material yourself in your own words? We'd much prefer to help you do that than copy material across. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:29, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

 * I would also advise against copying stuff from WT... Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:50, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed with above commenters. It's definitely not a good idea to directly copy anything from Wikitravel. Write in your own words. And Wikipedia is probably a more up-to-date place to get information from. ϒpsilon (talk) 12:20, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

 * Ok thank you. I will create a list of my own countries that should be mentioned. I have also read about the tensions between WV and WT. MacftraxMC (talk) 17:32, 1 March 2016 (EST)

 * Actually, maybe I should make a separate travel topic called 'Dangerous countries'. Anyone think that's good?

 * 'Dangerous countries' might be hard to pull off. Basically EVERY country is dangerous in some way (Guns, spiders, drunk moose, etc) :) At least in this list we are addressing countries specifically experiencing war or war-like conditions. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

 * By dangerous countries, I don't mean minor dangers such as tons of crime in tiny parts or some other things. By dangerous countries, I am referring to countries that are dangerous in huge parts, not tiny parts. Some countries are dangerous in some way other than war. Take Japan for example, where the Fukushima Power Plant area is considered a huge threat to your health. Nepal is another good example of this. Earthquakes are always happening in Nepal. There is some insurgency, but not significant enough. -MacftraxMC (talk) 17:45, March 3rd, 2016

(indent reset) I think it is better to cover the dangers in the individual country region and city articles instead of having one catch all list. Especially if the term danger is so ill defined. Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:54, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

 * I fully agree. Take the threat of earthquakes in Nepal as one example. One could equally well list Japan or Alaska on that basis. Not at all similar to the danger of war in Syria or Somalia. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:12, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

 * So, should I make a list of war affected/slightly dangerous countries only or make a seperate travel topic? MacftraxMC (talk) 16:03, March 4th, 2016 (EST)

 * If I should make a list of the former, is it ok to set it up like this? [ Egypt - Dangerous areas: Northern Sinai ]

 * (edit conflict) Well, this article is about war zone safety, so a list here should be about countries affected by war (or war-like conflicts). For other kinds of risks we have other travel topics. And yes, I think the list should be set up like that. ϒpsilon (talk) 21:11, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

 * Ok thank you. MacftraxMC (talk) 18:00 March 4th, 2016 (EST)

 * Is Sinai really a war zone, rather than a tense area with a high level of terrorism? How many people are killed in armed conflict there every week? Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:27, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Having seen the list "in action" I say let's not
With this list now in what might be called a beta phase, I think it is safe to assume that this has a potential to draw flame wars with people from the mentioned countries (Mexico a war zone? In the same category as Somalia? That's sure to make some people angry) or the respective tourism agency. On the individual country pages we can link to travel advisories and we can discuss the concrete issues in detail. This list would end up just being a yes no up down decision about highly complex and controversial subjects that are also to some extent subjective and political. Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

 * Yup, if you look further up in the other discussion on this page, someone said "Trust me, I have relatives in Monterrey and they say everything is peaceful and the Drug War has been over-loaded " . You will always have people who think they know better than everyone else based on anecdotal evidence, so it is a slippery slope indeed. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:44, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

 * So should we axe this list right now or "see where it goes"? Hobbitschuster (talk) 02:50, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

 * I don't really know if we should axe the list or not. I'm the writer of the list, and I really can't decide if we should or not. Let's try to see where it goes first before we remove it. MacftraxMC (talk) 13:41 3 March 2016 (EST)
 * The list is a really bad idea. People should be checking the reliable government websites listed in the "Safety advice" section, and not social media - someone could come along and remove risky countries at any time, or add ones which are fine. Given there's no support from other contributors for the list, I've just removed it. Nick-D (talk) 23:14, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

 * I agree with you. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:05, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Support comments here, and Nick's removal. JarrahTree (talk) 01:43, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Should I make a separate travel topic for dangerous countries and list government pages in the same travel topic? (P.S.: I think it would be a good idea to make the travel topic restricted to members only) MacftraxMC (talk) 8:23, March 13th, 2016 (EDT)

 * Restricted how? Are you suggesting a preemptive edit protection of an article? We don't do that on this website. Anyway, based on what we've seen here, I don't think such a topic should be created. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:57, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * There's also no ability to hide pages from non-registered viewers (as may have been what MacftraxMC is suggesting). There are tags which are placed on risky country pages, such as that at Syria, and there isn't a need for a central page. Nick-D (talk) 04:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Sources for War zone safety
Some contents are copied (with edit) from the following sources: Both are in US federal government public domain. Feel free to trim down if needed. Regards.廣九直通車 (talk) 05:14, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * CHEMICAL ATTACK WARFARE AGENTS, INDUSTRIAL CHEMICALS, AND TOXINS, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
 * Dirty Bomb Fact Sheet, Federal Emergency Management Agency

 * Thanks for the citations, but is dealing with a dirty bomb really a travel topic? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:42, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Referring to Dirty bomb. My thought is that we have plenty of terrorists in war zones, and dirty bombs are way too easy for them to produce (just get some radiation source combined with explosives). When combined with reported dirty bomb conspiracies, my thought is that related information should be included as a possible risk.廣九直通車 (talk) 06:00, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks for the reply. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:21, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Sources for War zone safety
I also used the following sources for War zone safety: FYI.廣九直通車 (talk) 11:31, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Explosions, Ready.gov (Federal Emergency Management Agency): an US federal source that I copied from.
 * Minjanjinnotameno Senjyokodomanual: Mosimosensounimakikomaretara Kouyatteikinobiru, by Taku Kawaguchi (a Japanese book translated into Chinese that I consider may be useful in expanding the content).

Section on negotiations?
War_zone_safety has:
 * Both the garments and the bags are expensive – ranging from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per item – but if your life is at risk and you can get the funds, it is obviously worth it. If an employer wants to send you to a war zone, tell them they should pay for this.

There are other things one might expect an employer to provide -- life & health insurance, a guide & translator, secure housing & vehicles, evacuation plan, etc. Do we need a section on what to expect, to ask for or to insist on? Pashley (talk) 16:38, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

At Teaching_English we have:
 * There are also some highly paid jobs training oil workers; usually these involve an on/off cycle — 42 days on-site working long hours, then 21 days away or some such — with the employer paying for a flight out every cycle and providing both housing and food when you are on-site.

Do similar conditions apply for jobs in war zones?

What about "highly paid"? Should you ask far more for work in a high-risk location than you might expect back home? See Hazard pay. I'd say obviously yes, but how much? Top-of-my-head guesses for what to ask at start of negotiation: Three times the salary? At least $100,000 even for unskilled work? Pashley (talk) 16:52, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Personally, my minimum to consider a job somewhere that live ammo was in use would be bullet-resistant garments, health insurance including evacuation costs if needed, & several $thousand a month in hazard pay. Pashley (talk) 17:20, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

 * I don't know how many readers have experience working in war zones, so I'd just say plunge forward and add whatever you think best. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:09, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

 * My experience is extremely limited. I was working in Iran during their revolution, but that was in 1979. In the last decade I've visited parts of Mindanao that various governments advise against, but I'm not sure that counts. I'm hoping someone with more or more recent experience will answer these questions. Pashley (talk) 23:51, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I have no experience, but I think "reasonable" hazard pay depends too much on circumstances for us to give any sums or percentages. In most war zones, there are a lot of people. Do the bus drivers get triple pay or $100,000? Our discussion is of course of people who did not live there when the conflict began, but still. I doubt journalists from here get $100,000 when doing work in Ukraine. There is of course also a difference in risks between those going to Kiev and those doing journalism by active fronts. –LPfi (talk) 04:38, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the more important part is that your employer should do everything they can to make your work as safe as possible, and you shouldn't need to pay any such expenses out of your own pocket. –LPfi (talk) 04:40, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think there are any predefined rules for what an employer should provide. The obvious one is adequate insurance and that can be a problem.  For hazardous locations (and that is often defined arbitrarily) specialist insurance is an absolute must have.  Getting insurance that covers all risks is not easy, particularly covering possessions.  You may want cover for kidnapping, certainly evacuation and all medical risks.  Insurance becomes more of a problem and more expensive each year.  As for bullet proof clothing or flak jackets they are heavy and unwieldy and likely to be the first thing abandoned when a rapid exit is needed.  I have had to carry a set once and I hope not to again.  They are best left for journalists to pose in front of cameras with.  If you feel the need for this sort of thing you should reconsider your travel destination.
 * Something that is worthwhile is training. Sometimes called hostile environment training or HEFAT training (Hostile Environment and First Aid Training).  The courses cover first aid for major trauma injuries such as gun shot wounds, what to do in dangerous/threatening situations and so on.  You will also be put through exercises which will give a good idea if you will be able to cope if things go bad.  Courses are typically 3-5 days and will not be cheap.  Many employers insist on this training before you can go to any risky place.  Refresher courses are usually required. Davidbstanley (talk) 10:45, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:War zone safety


text:
Talk:Wasaga Beach

Hey how many Tim Hortons are there?
 * 2,961 in the U.S. and Canada. -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 09:56, 6 December 2006 (EST)

Water park
I removed the listing for the water park as per it is closed (and the website listed was dead). If this is incorrect please add back the current info. -- Phoebe (talk) 20:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Wasaga Beach


text:
Talk:Wasatch Range

Logan is not usually considered part of the Wasatch Front in Utah. Correct? (WT-en) Jules 02:16, 14 August 2011 (EDT)

 * The following is in the preamble to the article: The region stretches from Brigham City to Santaquin and includes the counties of Wasatch, Salt Lake, Utah, Morgan, Cache, Davis, Weber, Rich, and the western half of Summit County. Not everyone agrees on the strict limits of the Wasatch Front, however; some people argue that Logan and Cache Valley are part of the Wasatch Front or that the region goes as far south as Nephi.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 02:53, 14 August 2011 (EDT)

Misuse of the term "Ogden Valley"
I understand the grouping of cities north to south, but "Ogden Valley" is just wrong. The Ogden Valley is an area up Ogden Canyon to the east of Ogden, including Pineview Reservoir, Huntsville, Eden, Liberty, and a couple of ski resorts. I don't know of a good term that covers the region from Brigham City to Bountiful; maybe "Northern Wasatch Front"? Ntsimp (talk) 21:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Rename/Split?

Based on the regions represented in this map, I've added Cache and Heber valleys. Based on the map, this region should probably be called "Wasatch Range" or Cache Valley, Snyderville Basin and Heber Valley should be split into their own region. —The preceding comment was added by Jay mitchell (talk • contribs)

 * I'm not sure if I understood correctly. Are you suggesting that we split this region into further sub-regions, or that we split this region so that we have 7 instead of 6 regions for Utah as a whole, or that we just rename this article Wasatch Range and the problem's solved? --Peter Talk 09:11, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

 * Cache Valley, Snyderville Basin, and Heber Valley are definitely not part of the Wasatch Front; they're east of the Wasatch Mountains. Ntsimp (talk) 00:04, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

 * Ahem, you've got a helpful mapmaker here—let me know what would make sense to do. Should we then split said valleys and basins into a separate article, leaving us with 7 in stead of 6 regions for Utah at the top level of the division? --Peter Talk 03:39, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

 * I would support the rename to "Wasatch Range". It doesn't make sense to me to split off another region; those areas aren't sufficiently different. Ntsimp (talk) 14:59, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

 * That makes sense, and is easy. I'll do it now. --Peter Talk 20:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

 * Map is done, and all links should be updated. --Peter Talk 23:05, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The page was renamed from Wasatch Front to Wasatch Range in 2013, but the article still needs editing to bring it in line with the title 'Wasatch Range'. Nurg (talk) 04:13, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have now had a go at this. Further refining welcome. Nurg (talk) 04:35, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Wasatch Range


text:
Talk:Washington (Morris County, New Jersey)

Warning
Why is the warning being removed? This is not spam. Long Valley in particular has been the center of significant crime and gang related violence for at least ten years. I am from the area (do not live there any more, but do visit). Please cite reasons for removal. NOT SPAM. —The preceding comment was added by 38.105.210.98 (talk • contribs)


text:
Talk:Washington (state)

I moved this to disambiguate it according to the article naming conventions. -- (WT-en) Evan 11:38, 4 Nov 2003 (PST)

 * So, does anyone know this state well enough to make better region listings? Are "East of the Cascades", "West of the Cascades", and "The Cascades" as good as it gets? --(WT-en) Evan 15:25, 2 Jun 2004 (EDT)

 * West of the Cascades should have Vancouver, WA and surrounding areas broken out into a Southwest Washington region. My picks for regions would be SW Washington, Puget Sound (the NW part of the state), and Eastern Washington (which is now East of the Cascades).  I'd do it myself, but I'm absolutely clueless as to how to go about it.--(WT-en) Ookla 19:30, 24 Mar 2005 (EST)

Geographical hierarchy
We really need to break up the huge number of counties into a more reasonable group of regions.

Experience Washington (the official tourism site) has a nice Washington region map. Dmoz has fewer, only 5 Washington regions. There's a nice County map of Washington state on Wikipedia. Based on these, I'd like to suggest the following hierarchy (list format used for presentation only):

 * Washington (state) -- region
 * Puget Sound Islands -- region
 * San Juan Islands -- region, equal to San Juan County
 * Lopez Island -- region
 * Lopez -- village
 * Orcas Island -- region
 * Whidbey Island
 * Camano Island
 * Fidalgo Island
 * Olympic Peninsula -- region
 * Clallam County
 * Jefferson County
 * Mason County
 * Grays Harbor County
 * Kitsap Peninsula -- region
 * Kitsap County -- region
 * Southwest Washington -- region
 * Lewis County
 * Cowitz County
 * Clark County
 * Skamania County
 * Thurston County
 * Pierce County
 * Pacific County
 * Wahkiakum County
 * Southern Washington -- region
 * Yakima County
 * Klickitat County
 * Benton County
 * Franklin County (Washington)
 * Walla Walla County
 * King County
 * Seattle -- city
 * North Cascades -- region
 * Whatcom County
 * Skagit County
 * Snohomish County
 * Okanogan County
 * Chelan County
 * Kittitas County
 * Columbia River Plateau -- region
 * Douglas County
 * Grant County (Washington)
 * Lincoln County
 * Adams County
 * Rocky Mountains (Washington) -- region
 * Ferry County
 * Stevens County
 * Pend Oreille County
 * Palouse (Washington) -- region
 * Spokane County
 * Whitman County
 * Columbia County (Washington)
 * Garfield County (Washington)
 * Asotin County
 * Asotin County

I think this is a rough layout, so please feel free to amend liberally. I'm not married to the idea of using counties for third-level regions, but it does make things pretty easy. Let's work on this a bit and then roll it into the article. --(WT-en) Evan 14:19, 7 Dec 2005 (EST)

 * I'm not from Washington, but a half hour of searching around makes your list look good, but I'd like to see the Puget Sound region consolidated to include King County and Kitsap Peninsula. It might also be good to consolidate a bit of eastern Washington, perhaps combining Southern Washington, Palouse (Washington) and Columbia River Plateau.  That would leave:

 * Puget Sound
 * Kitsap County
 * King County
 * Whatcom County
 * Skagit County
 * Snohomish County
 * San Juan County
 * Island County
 * Olympic Peninsula
 * Clallam County
 * Jefferson County
 * Mason County
 * Grays Harbor County
 * Southwest Washington
 * Lewis County
 * Cowitz County
 * Clark County
 * Skamania County
 * Thurston County
 * Pierce County
 * Pacific County
 * Wahkiakum County
 * North Cascades
 * Whatcom County
 * Skagit County
 * Snohomish County
 * Okanogan County
 * Chelan County
 * Kittitas County
 * Columbia River Plateau
 * Douglas County
 * Grant County
 * Lincoln County
 * Adams County
 * Yakima County
 * Klickitat County
 * Benton County
 * Franklin County (Washington)
 * Walla Walla County
 * Spokane County
 * Whitman County
 * Columbia County
 * Garfield County (Washington)
 * Asotin County
 * Rocky Mountains (Washington)
 * Ferry County
 * Stevens County
 * Pend Oreille County

 * Does this sound reasonable? -- (WT-en) Ryan 19:42, 14 Dec 2005 (EST)

As a Washingtoninan, I'd have to say no, that doesn't sound reasonable. :-) The point here is to guide travelers. If they need to know which county is which, they can look it up from a more encyclopedic source. Dividing Washington into regions isn't hard, but Washington is geographically complex. You can encounter everything from temperate rainforest to coastline to alpine meadow to pine forest to desert steppe, all in a (long) day's drive. And there are so many subcategories... For instance, the northern Columbia plateau is famous for apples, while the southern Columbia plateau is famous for its burgeoning wine industry. Which story do you want to tell travelers?

I'd chop up Washington this way, with an eye to places people might want to visit: Olympic peninsula, San Juan islands, Puget Sound (including other islands), Southwestern Washington (between the peninsula and the Columbia), Cascades (north and south, I-90 as boundary), Columbia plateau, Rockies along the northeast, palouse along the southeast, and the Blue mountains in the very tippy tip southeast corner.

The distinction between the San Juans and the Puget Sound islands is that, first of all, the San Juans aren't in the sound. :-) But the San Juans are more typically destinations unto themselves, whereas islands in the sound are more like stepping stones across the water. Also, some sound islands house military bases, which alters the flavor of a visit. —The preceding comment was added by 24.18.190.175 (talk • contribs) 23:35, 2007 February 11

 * As a British Columbia resident who visits family in Washington often, I agree with 24.18.190.175 that the county division doesn't seem all that helpful to travellers. I also agree that the nine regions they give make sense as top-level divisions (or at least more sense than the current set of regions). Many of those regions would probably need subregion division eventually.  But I wouldn't mind replacing every single county article by a city or region article with boundaries set by travel logic, not Washington state administration. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:59, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

 * I have to agree with the above two notes, one from JimDeLaHunt and the other from 24.18.190.175, for the reasons they offered - use regions with no political distinctions, if they need more, thats what Wikipedia is for and anyways, we link back and forth on destinations. (WT-en) Celticevergreen 03:23, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

Proposal to make San Juan Islands a top-level region
I propose to make San Juan Islands a top-level region under Washington (state). My reasons: 1) these islands are in the top three widely-known travel destinations for Washington and thus shouldn't be buried; 2) they are likely to have some of the more detailed coverage of the state and thus should be top-level to avoid too deep a hierarchy; and 3) are located outside Puget Sound, per Wikipedia.

The proposed San Juan Islands region will consist of just that area north of the strait of San Juan de Fuca, east of Vancouver Island and its Canadian waters, south of the 49th parallel, and west of the mainland (which includes Fidalgo Island). Whidbey Island, Kitsap Peninsula, etc. remain in the Puget Sound region. San Juan County is the only county in the proposed region.

Implementing this is simple; all we have to do is change the IsIn links for San Juan Islands, and San Juan County (Washington). There are presently only three destination articles in the region: Orcas, Friday Harbor, and Roche Harbor. They have IsIn links to San Juan Islands. If we keep counties as an organising level between regions and destinations, the IsIn links for the destination article should instead point to San Juan County — but see the other proposal, to eliminate counties from the hierarchy.

I propose to let discussion roll out for 7-10 days. If there's a consensus at that point, I'll implement the change. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 15:40, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

 * From an outsider's point of view it seems fine - you've set out some well-defined borders, so that makes it clear where the new region begins and ends. Now all we need is for someone who knows the state well to put together a map!-- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 15:57, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

No objections registered, so I'm going ahead with implementation. It should be done today. For the record, I also posted a notice Project:Travellers' pub to be sure word got out. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 14:57, 9 June 2007 (EDT)
 * And it is now completed. Was completed on the 9th, actually. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 16:55, 11 June 2007 (EDT)

I don't mind having the San Juans as their own separate listing and I understand the argument that they might not technically be in the Puget Sound but there is an extensive argument about what exactly is the Puget Sound and what is its boundaries. Most locals would consider the San Juans to be within the Puget Sound and its going to get pretty arbitrary if everyone starts drawing their own boundaries, I'm proposing we use the NOAA boundaries (they are sort of an authority on such things) which would include the San Juans as part of north Puget Sound. This is after all for tourism purposes and getting arbitrary on water boundaries is not going to help clarification. Lumpytrout (talk) 17:33, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

 * From a tourism standpoint, the San Juans are their own destination, distinct from Puget Sound. This distinction is both geographic (getting around within the San Juans is easy, getting around in the Sound in general is easy; the only connection between the two is the Anacortes ferry) and organizational (if you're looking for tourist information on one, you're unlikely to find information on the other). --Carnildo (talk) 22:52, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Whither Snohomish County?
Having stared at the Puget Sound and North Cascades regions for a while, I'm now beginning to think that we should move Snohomish County from North Cascades to Puget Sound (subregion North Sound). The towns in Snohomish County (Everett, Lynnden) seem like part of the Seattle/King County urban area. They are about as far north as the rest of North Sound, e.g. Whidbey and Camano Islands. I'm busy with scrubbing away the county articles now, but I expect I'll come back to this. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:46, 14 June 2007 (EDT)
 * I now think it is best to put Snohomish County content into the Puget Sound region, and I intend to do this in the next few days as part of removing the county articles. That is, when I clean up the Snohomish County article I'll put its content into the Puget Sound instead of the North Cascades region. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 13:44, 17 June 2007 (EDT)
 * It is now moved. Now was good time to do it, as part of deleting the Snohomish County article. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 23:33, 17 June 2007 (EDT)

Proposal to eliminate counties from hierarchy
This project was proposed on May 28, 2007, started on June 9, 2007, and completed on September 17, 2007. The discussion in this section is kept here as an archive. Originally part of the discussion was under, and part was in Project:Travellers' pub. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:38, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

Talk Page discussion
I propose to eliminate counties from the geography hierarchy in Washington (state), and move content in current county articles either up into the containing region article or down into traveller-oriented subregion articles. My reasons: 1) as others have noted above, we are writing a travel guide, and county boundaries don't matter all that much to travellers; 2) where travel-oriented subregions do exist, the county level forces them deeper into the hierarchy without adding value; and 3) there is so little content in most county articles that it won't be that difficult a change.

Here's a summary of the existing region and county articles, and what's in them:

Note: every county article is at "outline" quality; none are better.

To implement the change, I propose doing the following, region by region:
 * 1) For each region, go through its counties.
 * 2) Add a sentence to the region's "Understand" section that says, "For our purposes, the XX region consists of A, B, and C counties." This is a sentence rather than bullet list, to reduce the temptation to turn the county names into links.
 * 3) For any subregion mentioned in a county article, add link to the subregion in the region article above, and set IsIn of the subregion to the region instead of county. (There is only one of these: King County in Puget Sound region. The Spokane Valley is suggested as a destination but not linked, so this becomes a comment in the Palouse article.)
 * 4) For any destination mentioned in a county article (whether red link or blue link), add the link to one of three locations:
 * 5) to an appropriate subregion article, if one exists;
 * 6) to the article for the region above, where that doesn't lead to too many destination links in the region article; or
 * 7)  to the "Get out" section of the article for the dominant city in the county (perhaps the county capital, perhaps not). (Create an outline article for the dominant city if needed.) e.g. For Kitsap county, Bremerton rather than capital Port Orchard is dominant.
 * 8) For any destination mentioned in a county article which has an existing article (a blue link), set IsIn of the destination article to the region or subregion article, as appropriate. (May need to do some cache purging at the end to make all the IsIn hierarchy show up correctly.)
 * 9) If there's any other travel content in a county article, find an appropriate destination article to receive it.  e.g. the "things to do in Wenatchee" and "around Wenatchee" content in Chelan county, moves to the Wenatchee article. Some counties have an external link to the county government page; move this to the destination article of the county capital.
 * 10) Check the "What links here" tool to see which articles link to the county article. Change those linking articles to unlink the county name, or redirect the link to a region. Links from this Talk article are OK to leave. N.B. many destination articles have a formulaic statement in their introduction which says the destination is in so-and-so county, so be sure to fix that.
 * 11) Once all counties in a region have been cleaned out, change the county article to be a redirect to the region or subregion article, as appropriate. Thus, there will be no more county articles and no more content in county articles.

N.B. it's frequently convenient to open each destination article once and do steps 5, 6, 7, and (as needed) 4 in one edit. This works especially well if your browser lets you open many tabs, and edit several articles in several different tabs. I propose letting the discussion percolate for 7-10 days after I gather the data from the table above. If there's consensus, I'll start implementing. I'll start with the Puget Sound region, and I'd love to have help doing it. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 16:42, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

 * I've made no secret of the fact that I dislike the use of U.S. counties as part of our geographical hierarchy. They make sense in places like the UK and Ireland where they reflect long-standing historic identities and are therefore well known. There are also places in the U.S. where counties provide some meaningful buckets to put places, such as in the colonies where they were defined to reflect existing regions, and around large cities where certain counties serve as handy metro regions (e.g. Dade County, Orange County).  But in most places, they're just grids on a map, about as meaningful to the traveler as the coordinates on a Rand McNally Atlas page. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 21:50, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

 * I agree that counties are generally poor as region articles, but they sometimes work nicely in defining the borders of parent regions (eg. region A is made up of counties X, Y and Z). We used counties to determine some of the borders of regions in Ohio and California.  Whether they're useful to help define regions in other states is probably TBD on a case-by-case basis. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 02:17, 29 May 2007 (EDT)

 * I say go for it - use the existing regions, as listed above and with the various counties currently defining each region, with an explanation under an ==Understand about the different counties reflected in each region and links to each county page in Wikipedia if they want to know more about the county aspect of the region. A map showing the regional areas of the state and, if we are lucky, a map within each region and we are all set to be a true travel resource for people interested in visiting Washington. (WT-en) Celticevergreen 02:34, 29 May 2007 (EDT)

Having gone through all the county articles to draw up the table above, I am still persuaded that the couny articles should go. I also have some new observations about the process. There's wide agreement that county names are a good way to define the boundaries of a region, so we should add a sentence to each region article about which counties comprise it. Some county articles have destination information, e.g. "things to do in Wenatchee" and "around Wenatchee" in Chelan county, so we move this content to an appropriate destination article, e.g. Wenatchee. There are up to 43 destination articles referenced by the county articles in some regions, which is too much to go into a single region article; and in most cases there's no subregion article to take up the slack. (A good fraction of these references are to articles that don't yet exist.) So for those regions where there are over 20 destination references and no subregion, I think we should create a destination article outline for the county capital town, and put links to the other county destinations in the "Get out" section. I've updated the list of steps above to reflect these observations. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 20:46, 6 June 2007 (EDT)

 * Like the idea but have a problem - take Kitsap County for example. Port Orchard is the county seat but it is not the dominent community within Kitsap County. Bremerton is and so I propose that instead of a county seat destination article that we use the dominant communities within each county. i.e For Kitsap I would propose Bremerton, Pierce would be Tacoma, King would be special because I think Seattle should be a region all its own while the rest of King County could be Bellevue for north and east King County while maybe Renton for South King County, etc. (WT-en) Celticevergreen 01:25, 7 June 2007 (EDT)
 * Good point. I've revised the implementation step 4.3 to say "dominant city", which might or might not be the county seat. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 15:27, 7 June 2007 (EDT)

 * Rather than trying to guess what city they might want, I would redirect the county articles to the new region each county is included in. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 11:41, 7 June 2007 (EDT)
 * Todd, I think you're making a slightly different point than the thread. Redirecting county articles is already in implementation step #8. The thread here is about what to do with the links in "Cities" section of the county article, if there are too many (>20) to put into the region article. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 15:27, 7 June 2007 (EDT)

I've taken a closer look at the Seattle and King County articles. Seattle has very rich coverage, with separate sub-articles for many neighborhoods. King County also has rich coverage, and a lot to cover. I think it makes most sense to redefine the King County article to be a sub-region article about metro King County excluding Seattle. Both are IsIn Puget Sound. This should keep the hierarchy a little flatter. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 12:52, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

No objections registered, so I'm going ahead with implementation. There were quite a few good suggestions. I've incorporated them in the implementation plan above. I expect the implementation to take 1-2 weeks, because I don't want to do it all in one go. I welcome help, if anyone is interested. I'll modify the table above to provide a record of completion. For the record, I also posted a notice Project:Travellers' pubto be sure word got out. I'll move those comments to this section as an archive. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 15:00, 9 June 2007 (EDT)

 * Wow. Well, I wish I'd objected before. I don't think your argument (that the county articles are mostly empty) makes a lot of sense. Most articles in Wikivoyage are mostly empty; that doesn't mean they don't have a place in this hierarchy.

 * Cities in a region don't go under "Get out" -- they go under "Cities". If there's too many to fit in that section, you need to break it up into sub-regions. If there are regions that need to be split up into sub-regions, using counties seems to be the path of least resistance.

 * I'm open to some changes, but please, don't design this group of guides based on the content that is in the existing pages. We're not done with Wikivoyage yet... really! --(WT-en) Evan 21:36, 11 June 2007 (EDT)

 * The discussion about the Washington regional breakdown has never really been settled (see discussions above) and Jim solicited feedback here and in the Pub over a period of a couple of weeks before making any changes. His argument isn't that counties as regions are bad because they're empty, but that counties as regions in Washington are bad for travel purposes.  The argument that the current county articles are empty was that the lack of content would make re-organization easier - "3) there is so little content in most county articles that it won't be that difficult a change".  The changes he has proposed/implemented all seem reasonable, and there haven't been any specific objections that weren't addressed; without any specific reason NOT to re-organize the consensus at this point seems to be to do so. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 23:16, 11 June 2007 (EDT)

 * So, re-reading I think I understand a little better. It sounds like there's a plan to create some more logical sub-regions under the top-level Washington regions, and if that's the case, I'm definitely behind it. I'll be completely useless in helping to devise those sub-regions, but I'll stand on the sidelines and cheer. --(WT-en) Evan 23:56, 11 June 2007 (EDT)

Status update: work is proceeding, but it's taking longer than the "1-2 weeks" I expected. What's taking the time is the list of destinations under the See section of county articles. There are anywhere from 5-20 entries in each county article, and each is just the name of some destination with no information about location, URL, etc. Thus I'm having to do a little research project for each one, and it takes hours per county. The result is that when the destination gets put into its new article, it has more information: almost always a URL, a see tag, and a location, and often more information besides. If anyone wants to help with this, you could edit a destination listing in the See section of a county article to add that information. The work reinforces my conviction that the county articles don't add very much traveller value. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 01:26, 4 August 2007 (EDT)

Proposals to change Washington (state) geographic hierarchy
(moved here from Travellers' pub)

There are a couple of proposals open to change the geographic hierarchy for the articles about Washington (state), USA. One is a proposal to make San Juan Islands a top-level region. One is a proposal to eliminate counties from [the] hierarchy. Follow the links to the respective sections on Washington's talk page to contribute your opinions. One useful bit of information would be: do any other states or provinces use counties (or other regional political divisions) in their article hierarchy? How well does it work? Answers to the proposals sections please. Thank you! (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 21:02, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

 * I have been involved with some of these decisions in New England (United States of America). My personal bias is to use counties as delineating where region boundaries are but not to use them in the hierarchy per se. That is, a state region can be defined by one or more counties, but the counties themselves are not necessarily articles. It's a convenient way to know what falls into a region that may not be otherwise clearly defined. Like all rules of thumb this doesn't always work well--like when one or more of the counties is not homogenous. (WT-en) OldPine 09:27, 2 June 2007 (EDT)

 * I agree that it is very useful to create new regions by amalgamating administrative districts like counties. Which reminds me, would it make sense for us to list counties under their amalgamation-regions? This might set a bad precedent and editors might go around making articles for the listed districts. But on the other hand, it would be useful in directing editors as to where they can stick content by clearly delineating the regions. --(WT-en) Peterfitzgerald Talk 14:03, 2 June 2007 (EDT)
 * I'd suggest listing the counties at the top of the region article, but as a comma-delimited list (e.g. "The Freedonia River Valley includes Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe Counties."), rather than as a bullet list with a "Counties" header. That makes it clear what the region consists of without enticing people quite so much to "fix" that section by wikilinking the county names. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 15:57, 2 June 2007 (EDT)

Thanks, everyone, for your comments. It's been nine days, there is support for eliminating the counties, and no objections. Discussion has died down. I've incorporated the suggestions above into the implementation plan. Last call for comments, please add them to the proposal to eliminate counties from [the] hierarchy, or proposal to make San Juan Islands a top-level region sections of "Talk" for "Washington (state)". If no objections emerge in the next 2-3 days, I'll start implementing. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 20:52, 6 June 2007 (EDT)
 * No objections registered. I'm going ahead with implementation over the next several days. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 14:50, 9 June 2007 (EDT)

Nine City Rule
I would like to propose removing any suburb of Seattle (i.e. Bellevue) for other significant cities in more geographical scattered areas with a more diverse economy (i.e. Port Angeles). I don't find the need to have Bellevue listed when it is regarded as just greater Seattle by the average person. I'm sure a resident of Bellevue would disagree, but the whole purpose of Wikivoyage is to inform the user and to become a credible destination guide for non-residents. Does this sound reasonable? -- (WT-en) GeorgeWashingtonInn 14:17, 24 Dec 2006 (EST)

 * Sounds reasonable to me, but I don't know Washington that well. The "rule" is actually a guideline that states that lists should be limited to seven items, plus or minus two.  It's usually applied to regions or countries that contain a lot of cities or sub-regions as a way of avoiding lists containing dozens of items.  There are five cities I recognize as notable from this list - Seattle, Olympia, Vancouver, Tacoma and Spokane, so it may even make sense to just limit this list to those five. -- (WT-en) Ryan 15:15, 24 December 2006 (EST)

Resources for travel info
Here are a few good resources I'm finding useful in writing about the state and its top-level regions. Feel free to expand the list:
 * The Geography of Washington by netstate.com. A nice division into regions and description of geography.
 * image of Washington land areas, courtesy of state government
 * http://www.stayinwashington.com/viewguide.php is a web version of a glossy brochure of Washington regions. Very pretty, but difficult to read online. The only reason I list it is that it shows another take on division into counties.
 * http://www.topozone.com/states/Washington.asp?county=Chelan (replace county name as desired) shows topographic maps with the county boundary. Drawbacks: you have to select a large map size, and a scale like 1:500,000 in order to see both county boundaries and enough scale (~40km) to be able to grasp large-scale features like regions and sub-regions.
 * the nice County map of Washington state on Wikipedia.

Regions map
I left off Nez Perce because—isn't it in Idaho? If so, it should be removed from the other destinations list. I also don't know if it would be possible to map out the Lewis & Clark Trail—if it is, please point me to a link that shows where the trail falls throughout the state. I also left off rivers—if they are really important for understanding where you are in Washington (I don't know if they are), tell me, and I'll put the major ones on. And I thought about drawing out all public lands, but that last trace seemed too onerous! Lastly, I'll also fix the regions if I got them wrong, or if they are revised. Please contact me via my talk page. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 15:42, 26 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Great to see a regions map! Thank you for this! The region boundaries look plausible, but they are defined in terms of county boundaries, so the real test is to check this map against county boundaries. Nez Perce National Historical Site is mostly in Idaho, but has some of its 38 sites near Lewiston (Washington). (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:25, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

 * The regions as I've drawn them match the county boundaries—I traced them from an existing counties map. I'll see what I can do with the Nez Perce locations in Washington—I don't think they were marked on my Washington Public Lands map, so I'll look at other sources. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 11:20, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

 * I hate to say this but the regions map could use some serious work especially concerning the cascade mountain range and the following of county boundaries. The major issue is that the summit ridge of the cascade mountains is a county line for at least ten counties; most of which go through a dramatic and radical change half way to their opposite borders. Like much of the western United States; state and county borders are mostly arbitrary and imaginary lines used to demarcate administrative regions (especially so in Washington). Here are some suggestions below:

 * First; Mt. Rainer is part of the cascades and therefore should be included in the cascade region and so too is Mt. St. Helens (it's no wonder there are three Nat'l Parks in the same continuous mountain chain). Perhaps consider having the entire cascade region as one single region with two sub-regions of north and south bisected by Snoqualmie Pass (Interstate 90).

 * Next; currently you have the north cascades including all of Kittitas and Chelan counties which include the cities of Ellensburg and Wenatchee whose people and geography are strikingly different from Bellingham up in Whatcom County. Nearly the entire eastern half of Kittitas county is part of the Columbia Basin which also includes all of the Palouse in the southeast I might add.

 * Finally; Perhaps consider having a "Puget Lowland" encompassing The western halves of Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish and King counties; All of Pierce, Kitsap, Island and San Juan counties; and the very extreme eastern edge of Jefferson County.  That entire region just explained is far more similar in culture and geography than Bellingham and Ellensburg, which has less annual precipitation than Texas, will ever be.  The San Juans are a wonderful vacation spot but are used mainly as a weekend getaway for Seattleites.  It is great place to visit but is no more a unique region than it is part of the "Puget Lowland".  Although I am not opposed to them being considered a top level region because of their status as a vacation destination.

 * I have lived in Western, Central and Eastern Washington for 25 years and make the trip across the state two times a month from Spokane to Seattle. I like to think I'm somewhat authoritative on the regions I regularly visit, and live in, and I think the basic changes I just suggested will be much more valuable to somebody visiting Washington and will lead them in the right direction.

 * —The preceding comment was added by 67.185.71.158 (talk • contribs)

 * Whew, this is great feedback, but I (the map author) know very little about the state, as I've never even been there—I know a lot more about creating maps! Could you perhaps roughly draw in the boundaries you are suggesting, and upload an image so I could get a better idea of what you are suggesting. No expertise is necessary—you could just use MS Paint to draw in rough lines, which we can refine later. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 22:32, 12 January 2011 (EST)

 * I seem to be having trouble uploading a map for you. I uploaded a map to Wikivoyage Shared title "Wa map.jpg" but when I search for it I just get a message saying this page isn't created yet.  The computer side of things is not my specialty apparently.  —The preceding comment was added by 67.185.71.158 (talk • contribs)

 * The map you uploaded worked okay. Image:Wa_map.jpg.  If you want more information on images, you can see Project:How_to_add_an_image.  --(WT-en) inas 00:40, 18 January 2011 (EST)

 * Map looks good, but would it make sense to cut off that corner of Chelan county and include it in the Columbia Watershed region? (WT-en) LtPowers 09:49, 18 January 2011 (EST)

 * I'm all for this change, and would be happy to help with the map update. But the reorganization and rewriting of the region articles themselves will be a fairly large task—before we change the map, is anyone up for the writing job? --(WT-en) Peter Talk 19:02, 30 January 2011 (EST)

Lewis and Clark trail link broken
The Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail link in Other Destinations redirects to Lewis, Scotland which isn't related... I don't know why it redirects there or if there's even an article on that.

 * The Mediawiki software that runs this site doesn't like "&" symbols in article titles. It should be fixed now. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 17:31, 10 March 2010 (EST)

Washington State Subregions
Washington State Subregions (there are 7) Costal Subregion, Western lowlands subregion, Western Cascades subregion, Eastern Cascade subregion, Okanogan Highlands subregion, Columbia Basin subregion, Palouse Hills subregion. —The preceding comment was added by 24.18.49.197 (talk • contribs)
 * Okay, thanks, I guess? (WT-en) LtPowers 09:19, 8 November 2010 (EST)

"Dangers"
Are the dangers of a tsunami or a volcano even worth mentioning? Honestly, what is the real probability that a tsunami will occur or a volcano will explode while someone visits Washington state. Could it happen? Yes. Is it likely enough that it should be included here..... probably not. I can understand the "don't stray of trails", but putting in bold that Washington has five active volcanoes as through all these five could explode at any minute seems misleading. 66.194.72.248 21:16, 21 January 2011 (EST)

Response to user 66.194.72.248:

The Washington coast is in a "Tsunami" zone... The Washington coast was under a "tsunami" watch just last month after the earthquake in Japan... Just because something is unlikely, does not mean it isn't worth mentioning. -- 12 APR 2011

Cities List
I would really like to know why somebody continues to remove Kennewick from the list of cities on Washington's main page. I am willing to be that whoever is doing this does not even live in the state of Washington. I do. And this is becoming a major city within the state. Why do you insist on removing it? Thank you. -- DM, 12 APR 2011

 * See the edit summary that was provided in the revert as well as  above. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 14:43, 12 April 2011 (EDT)

"Most dangerous volcano"
I've removed the comment about Rainier being one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. The danger stems from the fact that, in the unlikely event that it erupts, it's expected to wipe out at least one and probably two major cities: Tacoma and parts of Seattle are built on mudflows from previous eruptions. Visitors aren't at significant risk, because the Cascade volcanoes give plenty of warning before they erupt, and any sensible tourist can get out of the way. The danger is to residents, who are less able or less willing to evacuate. --Carnildo (talk) 12:15, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

What happened to the Kitsap Peninsula?
I've been reading through the various discussions on regions and it looks like the entire Kitsap Peninsula has somehow disappeared from the map? Or somehow been swallowed up by the Olympic Peninsula without any links or acknowledgements that it even exists as a separate entity. Surely we can do better than this? I can understand the desire to break out the relatively geographically minor San Juan Islands into their own major category. But really, what happened to Kitsap? Lumpytrout (talk) 20:03, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Grays Harbor County Washington State
I was trying to find out what information is available here about Grays Harbor County in Washington (State) and after a search here (which produced a result with a search-token, I think?) I found out that there is no article about it, but it is mentioned in quite a few other articles.

I have never written any articles here, and I would like to try doing so. My problem is that as a volunteer, with only 24 hours a day, I am already stretched to the limit. So if you tell me not to bother until I have a substantial amount of information to share I will probably never get around to it.

If OTOH I can start small and build on it with the help of others, I believe WV will have a nice article about Grays Harbor County in a year or two. So what is the verdict?

Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 20:20, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
 * by all means, wv:plunge forward. Grays Harbor County would be a region article, and we already have nine destination articles within the county. It would be great to have an article that provides an overview of the county, but an important thing would be to not duplicate information that is in the destination articles. Region article template can guide you on what to add and what not to ad dTo help you get started, I've created a template in draft space (User:Ottawahitech/Grays Harbor County) that you can work on. When you think it's ready for article space, I can help you move it. Let me know if you need more help. Ground Zero (talk) 12:39, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Washington (state)