Talk:Regions of Croatia

Croatian regions

Proposed basic organization, by traditional/historic regional division:
  Croatia (i.e. Croatia proper)
  Dalmatia
  Slavonia
  Istria

Hoping to start a discussion regarding our current presentation of Croatian regions. Welcoming input and (especially) sources.

There are numerous, numerous ways in which the country can be divided up into "regions". Just type in "regije Hrvatske" into Google and review the myriad divisions sported by various websites. There's things like "Adriatic Croatia", "Northern Croatia", "Northwestern Croatia".. you'll find the term "Croatian Littoral" is usually interchangeable with "Littoral Croatia", and can mean anything from half the country, with Istria and Dalmatia and Lika, down to just a thin strip of coastline near Senj and Rijeka.

What we currently have here is not much better, I think. The problem on Wiki relates specifically to the relationship between the articles Central Croatia, and the articles of Mountainous Croatia, Littoral Croatia, and Northern Croatian Littoral. The latter two in particular boggle the mind.

What I would propose is the following. I would organize the subject primarily into the four main historical regions, which would in turn provide a list of "sub regions" within them. It would go something like this:

Croatia proper

• Lika
• Gorski Kotar
• Croatian Littoral
• Zagorje
• Prigorje
• Medimurje

etc.

Dalmatia

• Zagora
• Ravni Kotari
• Croatian islands
• Kninska Krajina

etc.

Slavonia

• Baranja
• Požega Valley

etc.

In short I have a general concept of how I might bring order to the confusion. An emphasis would be made on explaining any overlap in regions. Above all, I think we must do away with the terms "macroregion", "mesoregion", and "microregion" that we currently sorta have in places. So far as I am aware (and correct me if I'm wrong), but there are no official "macroregions" or "mesoregions" in Croatia, nor is there a general consensus in scholarship on such a subject. I don't even know if there's discussion on the topic, all I can find are scattered websites that give vague and wildly different definitions. And even if there were a unified scholarly view on this, I think it would be difficult to show that the "macroregions" are more notable and prominent in sources than the three big ("historical") regions.

This would entail the following major organizational changes: splitting up the content of 'Northern Croatian Littoral', mostly into the Croatian Littoral and Istria (and/or Istria County) articles; splitting up the content of 'Mountainous Croatia' into Lika and Gorski Kotar; and renaming Central Croatia into Croatia proper. Mountainous Croatia would remain a brief article explaining the term itself, and that it refers to Lika and GK (because we have overlap and a fork as things are now).

Other changes might be necessary, but I think this covers the basics. Any feedback would be more than welcome. -- Director (talk) 17:21, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

"Croatia proper" is a meaningless term and WP:OR. There's quite a reliable source in this department - University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science, Geography Deprtment issued 7-volume book on Geography of Croatia in mid-1970s, and it defined its macro-regions as 1) Central Croatia, 2) Eastern Croatia, 3) Mountainous Croatia, 5) Northern Croatian Littoral and 6) Southern Croatian Littoral. Granted Dalmatia is virtually synonymous for the SCL and Slavonia is nearly synonymous with ECro and the more commonly referred to terms would make a more natural choice. (source [1]). A source does not get much more reliable than this one I just offered.--Tomobe03 (talk) 18:24, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

In my short version, according to the UniZg Geography Dept, macro-regions of Croatia are:

• Central Croatia
• Eastern Croatia (entirely corresponding to Slavonia, except for Baranja)
• Mountainous Croatia (Lika, Gorski Kotar, Ogulin-Plaški valley)
• Northern Croatian Littoral (Istria, Croatian Littoral, Kvarner)
• Southern Croatian Littoral (entirely corresponding to Dalmatia)

Cheers--Tomobe03 (talk) 18:28, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for arriving, Tomboe.

"Croatia proper" is a term that refers to the historical region of "Croatia", and the term is used by quite a few sources. About the same number as "Central Croatia". And practically none of the latter sources capitalize "Central", as to indicate the term refers to a formal division according to some system. The former is, in fact, more common.

As I've pointed out, there are no official Croatian "macroregions" (as in Romania, or the EU, or China, or Brazil, etc). In order for our entire organization on Wikipedia to follow any such division, it must be shown to represent some kind of relevant, prevalent, modern-day scholarly consensus, or majority view at least. I've seen no indication that the division there is superior in some way to any of the other myriad divisions in various publications and websites, or that it represents any sort of scholarly consensus. Indeed, that's just a single 50-year-old publication from the Communist era.

Hence, I believe we really have no choice but to fall back to the historical regions, which we at least know to be commonly referred to. In other words, if there is no "Eastern Croatia" on our project, there can be no "Northern Croatian Littoral" either. If we have Slavonia and Dalmatia because we have to, then we also have to use that division elsewhere. We simply can not have the confusing situation of two parallel systems, one from that 1970s publication, and one based on historical tradition. Not only is it confusing for the reader, but it also creates total WP:OVERLAP. We must do away with "Mountainous Croatia" (i.e. Lika and Gorski Kotar) and the "Northern Croatian Littoral" (i.e. Istria and the Croatian Littoral), as they are orphans, alone written according to the one system, and thus overlapping in scope with other articles. -- Director (talk) 23:43, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Direktor, this stance where you ignore mainstream Croatian geography standards by pretending Gorska Hrvatska and Sjeverno hrvatsko primorje somehow do not exist because they don't fit some scheme you think is the ultimate one - has been discussed already a while ago. If you don't have anything new to say about it, please cease these unreasonable tirades about it, because they accomplish nothing other than annoy other editors. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:36, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

There's no call for that kind of language. I only stopped talking about this because I didn't have time to tackle this big issue anyway. Now I do.

• If its "mainstream Croatian geography" - then can you prove that?
• "Mountainous Croatia" (Gorska Hrvatska) is indeed a term used at times, but so is "Adriatic Croatia" or "Northwest Croatia", etc. All these terms "exist" in some degree or another, but we can't use them all to describe the same areas over and over again. The question is - should their division be the one we use on Wikipedia? "Mountainous Croatia" is in complete WP:OVERLAP with Lika and Gorski Kotar. The same is true of "Northern Croatian Littoral", which is in complete OVERLAP with Istria and Croatian Littoral.

I do not consider any division the "ultimate one", I'm just pointing out we do have to use "one". Its a similar situation as with period and country articles. If you have to have one system - then go with that one, you can't do both as that is confusing, and against guidelines. Here we have two systems of regional division. One we must use, and one introduced by Tomboe practically by himself on the basis of one source. As I said before, I am not criticizing the quality of your work, @Tomboe, but I think you did not consider overlap with historical regions (that we must have on Wiki) when you decided to introduce this division. Some thought should have been given to organization on the level of the whole topic.

It is from this state of affairs that you get the ridiculous situation of having both the "Croatian Littoral" and "Northern Croatian Littoral (which is larger than the Croatian Littoral)" articles. -- Director (talk) 12:55, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Director, your argument is being disruptive per WP:LISTEN because you have just requested a source to confirm that the Mountainous Cro, Central Cro, Norhtern Cro Littroal etc are accepted by mainstream geography sources when you have been already provided one in this very thread: Zagreb University, Faculty of Science, Department of Geography issued 7-volume "Geography of SR Croatia" (linked above). That is mainstream geography by all standards, so please stop this, well yes, tirade.

Furthermore, your argument "In other words, if there is no "Eastern Croatia" on our project, there can be no "Northern Croatian Littoral" either" does not really stick. It simply is not so - see WP:ALLORNOTHING for that one. Furthermore there already is Eastern Croatia, redirecting to Slavonia, where the E Cro term is explained.--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:46, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd rather say its you who are not WP:LISTENING. What I requested is evidence that the views expressed in a single 50-year-old source from the Communist era - represent the consensus view of modern-day geography. How can you possibly claim anything of the sort when listing one single, old source?

Furthermore, and more importantly - I questioned whether a purely geographic division warrants separate articles, and pointed out the complete WP:OVERLAP we have in several places. I would say that purely geographic divisions, even if they were sourced as representing a consensus (which they are not), warrant nothing more than a section each in the Geography of Croatia article. I.e. that we must solve our OVERLAP by removing those articles which are not essential and have the least relevance in sources. We should of course move teh content and create useful articles, not the mess we have now.

There is nothing in the way of policy that can justify the current state of affairs. And here I speak as an accomplished Wikilawyer :) -- Director (talk) 19:45, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

The "Northern Croatian Littoral" renders a grand total of five English-language sources, giving us some idea as to how relevant the designation is for an English encyclopedia ([2] only five are capitalized, the rest refer to the "northern" part of the Croatian Littoral).
One of these sources [3] states that the "Croatian Littoral represents one integral whole", and then subdivides it into "Northern", "Central"(!), and "Southern"; i.e. it adds another subdivision, and refers to the entire Croatian coastline as the "Croatian Littoral". And another refers to it as separate from Istria [4]. The remaining three constitute just offhand remarks. I'm posting this to illustrate the confusing variety of geographic divisions and mutually-exclusive regions that exist on this subject. But even if we had a strong consensus to point to, we would still be faced with the issue of #1 relevance and #2 overlap.

To sum up. As a first point, I turn our attention to the lack of evidence for a scholarly consensus on this current division. Secondly, I question the bare relevance of the purely geographic division and the necessity of having separate articles based solely on it (especially on an English-language Wikipedia). Thirdly, and most importantly, I point to the complete WP:OVERLAP created by having these arguably-non-notable articles.

To be clear: I do not propose deleting a single word of anything you wrote, Tomboe. Merely the reorganization of the content into a smaller number of larger, more useful articles. If anything, it stands to make your work more likely to be read. -- Director (talk) 22:17, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I think Director makes quite a lot of sense. At present, this seems to be a question WP:UNDUE weight ("Northern Croatian Littoral" being one example) and poor organisation. RGloucester — ☎ 20:23, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

The need for a Mountainous Croatia and Northern Croatian Littoral articles would be resolved at a stroke by expanding the scope of the Central Croatia article to Croatia proper dimensions, to include most of their content. Whereas text referring to Istria from the Northern Croatian Littoral article would go to - the Istria article (specifically under a "Croatian Istria" heading). At a stroke, we would remove the three geographic divisions and rid ourselves of the overlap.

To be clear, in spite of the File:Croatia proper.svg map currently in its infobox, the Central Croatia article is still curtailed in scope, and does not include Mountainous Croatia and Northern Croatian Littoral. Expanding the scope there, and renaming appropriately to "Croatia proper", would be the first step.

Further subsequent steps would include possibly expanding Lika and Gorski Kotar articles with content from Mountainous Croatia, and the creation of a "Macroregions" section on the Geography of Croatia article, where "Northern Croatian Littoral" and "Mountainous Croatia" would redirect, to their own respective subsections. There we can also have the rest of the "macroregions" by their proper names ("Eastern Croatia", "Southern Croatian Littoral", etc). This wouldn't resolve the problem with the apparent lack of scholarly consensus for this division, but at least we would transfer it into a more fluid format, susceptible to possible future review and discussion by users.

Is there opposition, then, to a scope expansion at Central Croatia? I wouldn't want to invest hours of work into this and then be reverted wholesale. -- Director (talk) 04:06, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

It appears that way until you read all the discussion over at Talk:Central Croatia#September 2012 and before. The idea to merge Mountainous Croatia into Central Croatia needs sources; when I looked for them, I found nothing to support that position. As you can see from the dates over there, I told Direktor that two years ago, and he still hasn't responded with better sources, only with more walls of text. For the umpteenth time, the encyclopedia describes, it does not prescribe. If something exists in sources out there, document it. If it doesn't drop it. Stop wasting everyone's time with these repetitive talk page discussions that lead to more of the same. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:02, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

And regarding the littoral overlaps, there's literally no complaint about any of this over at Talk:Northern Croatian Littoral or Talk:Croatian Littoral. It would be great if that discussion was held in those appropriate places, rather than be conflated into one big amorphous mass over here. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:08, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Here, as I see it, is the problem with that perspective. There are probably a dozen or more various designations for various divisions of Croatia, just like "Mountainous Croatia" (25 hits on GB). We manifestly can not use them all to describe the same area of ground over and over again. We can not regard these as individual cases and introduce an overlapping and confusing state of affairs. We have to choose one basic division - and go with it, basically per policy and guidelines, but also I think per common sense.

The term "Mountainous Croatia" is used by (about a dozen) English-language sources, and I would bring it down to something like the Adriatic Croatia article. Or, if there's consensus, I'd redirect it to its own subsection in the Geography of Croatia article.

What exactly would you like sourced? I don't follow. You don't need sources not to merge an article - you need sources to keep it. But what is it that you request sources for? -- Director (talk) 20:02, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

• What I believe Director is saying is that there is a difference between describing the concept of a theoretical region (term) described in technical sources, and describing the details of the so-called region itself. In other words, it doesn't make sense to have information on "economy", "geography" and so on at the Mountainous Croatia article, because that article should deal with the concept of the region itself as proposed by scholarly sources, not with details better covered at an article on the more common "Croatia proper", presently misleadingly titled Central Croatia. At present, this overlap exists for no real purpose, and gives undue weight to the concept of "Mountainous Croatia". RGloucester — ☎ 20:11, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Joy, please give this a moment's thought. The country is presented here through a purely geographic, topographic division (and one among many). Terms that were never intended to go beyond being a useful system of climatological and geomorphological division are being used on par with designations like Slavonia and Dalmatia. Or rather - its worse: half the country is covered in said geomorphological division, whereas the rest is in historical/cultural regions. You ask for sources? But this system is entirely unsourced: there is not a single source Google can find that uses the terms "Mountainous Croatia", "Slavonia", "Dalmatia", "Northern Croatian Littoral", and "Central Croatia" in a single system [5] - except Wikipedia, that is [6].

As a side note: Tomboe says "Dalmatia" corresponds with the "Southern Croatian Littoral" in his own system that he has implemented, but so far as I can see - that's usually not true. Most sources that I've encountered that use the designation "Northern Croatian Littoral" (and actually describe some sort of division) use "Central"! in addition to "Southern Croatian Littoral". And these are often sub-regions of a huge "Croatian Littoral" region, that encompasses the entirety of the Croatian coast. One realizes this all the more when noticing that our "Northern Croatian Littoral" takes up about a third of the Croatian coastline. -- Director (talk) 20:23, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

@RGloucester, yes that is precisely what I mean. There are all these myriad overlapping terms, or same terms with different meanings, etc. They're most of them mentioned in a couple sources here and there, and should probably be covered on the project in one way or another. But to actually cover the country in all its aspects, region by region, we can only logically use one basic division. In other words: [7]. Because we can not rename or modify the scope of Slavonia and Dalmatia, we pretty much have no choice but to fall on the basic historical and cultural division ("Croatia consists of Croatia proper, Slavonia, Istria, and Dalmatia" [8]) — Director (talk) 20:42, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

So, essentially, the purpose of this proposal is to provide a unified and coherent scheme to cover Croatia by commonly used regions. The most obvious choice is to use historical regions for this purpose, similar to the way articles on the Czech Republic exist. There are articles for Moravia, Bohemia, and Czech Silesia, even though these are not administrative entities. They are historical regions with continuing cultural significance, and in the same manner, it makes sense to use these historical regions as the basis for our regional coverage of Croatia. Terms that exist for an academic purpose, like "Mountainous Croatia", should be covered as such, but they should not be mistaken for the commonly used historical regions of the country. In the same way, we do not use the regions of England as the basis for our coverage, as they are not commonly used, and mainly exist for statistical purposes. That article focuses on the history of the "terms", not the history of the contrived regions. RGloucester — ☎ 21:07, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

The bit you seem to be missing is that the term "Croatia proper" went out of use in Croatia and literally doesn't exist at all in modern Croatian usage, and I'm not at all convinced in its commonness in English usage today. Naming the article that explains modern-day aspects of that region using that historical name would be a blatant exercise in WP:UNDUE. I'd say the reason geographers in Croatia use the "Mountainous Croatia" moniker is exactly because the geography and economy of both Lika and Gorski Kotar is similar for the reason explained in that title. Second-guessing them and ignoring their scheme is not encyclopedic at all, and certainly I can't see how it can help English readers to focus on old foreign terms as opposed to much more obvious modern terms. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:23, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

But it does make sense from a historical perspective, whereby the region previously known as "Croatia" was a coherent cultural unit. It isn't more obvious because ignores that very history, and then mixes modern terms with historical terms like "Dalmatia" or "Slavonia". RGloucester — ☎ 22:09, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Historical perspective is primarily served by the primarily historical articles, which we have. The regional articles need to primarily follow the modern-day regional delineations, because that's what the readers will encounter and will want explained.

Actually, now that you mention it, that line of reasoning that "Dalmatia" is primarily a historical region, and that this aspect needs to be that which is described at "Dalmatia" as opposed to what "Dalmatia" primarily means today, is exactly an annoying, anachronistic talking point that we've seen used in flamewars at Talk:Dalmatia just the other day, and over and over again.

When any Wikipedia reader comes to this country today, or indeed in the last 50+ years, they will have seen the usage of a myriad of regional terms that variously overlap (which is normal, not an "error" to be corrected, esp. not in a general encyclopedia...), and they will have seen the usage of a handful of vaguely logical terms used by mainstream geographers. The encyclopedia should document it all, and give the appropriate amount of weight to various reliably-sourced items. The ordering is an editorial decision, but one where it's logical to be guided by the same standard we require of the reliable sources themselves - context, age, ... as opposed to arbitrary scheming by editors, which is more like trying to fit a square into a circle... --Joy [shallot] (talk) 05:25, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

You're entirely missing the point, and/or are ignoring crucial points laid out above.

• We do not "have" the historical regions, as we're missing Croatia.
• It has been demonstrated that not a single published reference in the English language uses that division which you call the "modern-day regional delineation".
• For our purposes, it doesn't matter at all whether Dalmatia and Slavonia are "historical regions", or not. What matters is they are not geomorphological "macroregions", and that they have been intermingled, without any sources, with a geomorphological division.
• It is ok to document terms used in various systems of regional division, even, if required, in separate articles. It is not ok to cover the same information over and over again in articles for every one of those terms, simply because they exist. That is against guidelines.

Even though you're referring to me as the "schemer", I'm sure, I will point out that this whole division we have now, is an arbitrary scheme put together by one user, "when no one was looking". Where he decided that "Dalmatia sort of looks like the Southern Croatian Littoral, so that's ok I guess.. and Slavonia will be my 'Eastern Croatia'; oh look there's some 'Central Littoral' here, never mind that.." I'll also once more suggest it is absurd to invoke sources in defense of an unsourced position, however vaguely.

Joy, I don't like you and you don't like me, you want to get me banned or whatever, but this state of affairs - its a joke. I'm not trying to push anything. I saw a problem, and tried to put together a way to solve it according to sources and policy. I have no agenda beyond a personal preference for order over chaos. -- Director (talk) 06:24, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Love these point-by-points. Just love 'em. 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Croatia_proper&action=history shows that we've had this redirect for 4 years with 0 changes. Apparently nobody else thinks it's horribly inappropriate to describe that at the other place. 2) Croatian mainstream geographic sources are hardly irrelevant when we're dealing with intricate matters of Croatian geography. Pretending otherwise is foolish at best. 3) The two are coterminous with Southern Croatia and Eastern Croatia for all practical intents and purposes. 3) See 2) - it's WP:BLUE. 4) If geography/economy information is being duplicated, deduplicate it. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:37, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

• What does it matter if there's a redirect? - the article doesn't have the scope of Croatia proper. In fact here I am proposing the necessary scope expansion. And if it has the same scope, why isn't it moved to "Croatia proper", which is quite unambiguously the COMMONNAME in English?
• You have one source, so please don't use plural. One old source, which we have no idea whether it represents the modern-day view. One old source that still does not, in fact, list "Slavonia" or "Dalmatia" as "macroregions" alongside the "Northern Croatian Littoral" and whatever. Your position is entirely unsourced. And even if it were directly supported by that one source (which its not), I've already listed several, far more recent publications - that use a different one. There are these levels of "wrong" here..

Even in Croatian, the terms give no results [9], and even if we grant the supposed equivalence with Dalmatia and Slavonia [10]. Before posting this thread I performed an extensive search, in all cases, trying different terms, and could not find one single source on GB that actually divides Croatia up like that.

• No, what's "foolish", and very much so, is making all sorts of claims without any sources. Most sources that I find using the term "Southern Croatian Littoral" also use a "Central", in addition to a "Northern" littoral. And even if they did not, the assertion would still require sourcing (again the levels). Did you not notice Silvio1973's vehement disagreement with that position? Slavonia too is considerably larger than Tomboe's "Eastern Croatia" is apparently construed as (see the striped out area in the map above).
• You don't have sources so its "BLUE"? I call it OR. "Dalmatia/Slavonia is coterminous with the Southern Croatian Littoral/Eastern Croatia"? - source that please.
• Not without the the apples and oranges system you've got (Central Croatia + Dalmatia + Northern Croatian Littoral + Slavonia + Mountainous Croatia) being at least directly sourced.

Whether you believe it or not, my position here is in good faith, and I did do my research. What I am forced to conclude is that the current system is a concoction by Tomboe personally, without direct support from anywhere, and even if OR is waved, at best with the support of one aged source - against many others using different systems. — Director (talk) 16:01, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

• Unambiguously common name? Did you even attempt to google "central Croatia"? I get ~2.6k books results for that, and ~2.7k books results for "Croatia proper". That's the first page approximation. When I click through, I get 192 vs. 214 results. That's hardly unambiguous - both terms are apparently used roughly equally, likely depending on context.

• I don't have one source, I simply remember my geography classes. IOW, ~45k children in Croatia yearly are in that elementary school grade where their geography teacher teaches them this scheme. Yes, it's hard to look this up online because Google probably didn't scan those books. That doesn't make those books non-existent, it only makes references to them somewhat harder to verify. In any event, judging by the pattern in http://stats.grok.se/en/latest90/List%20of%20regions%20of%20Croatia let's say ~15k readers of English Wikipedia yearly see this list - so it's fair to say that we can't just drop the mainstream Croatian scheme altogether because it's entirely possible that a fair few people will notice and complain. Indeed, it's perfectly legitimate for this article to present various schemes - if the reality isn't coherent, neither should the article be.

• That's because you used the wrong term. It's not "planinska Hrvatska", it's "gorska Hrvatska", and as soon as you change that, a hit from a Croatian geography journal does come up. It's true that you don't get a gazillion hits for that - which is probably an indicator that we're wasting quite a bit more effort on this than its notability actually merits.

• I don't think I ever said that any of those "... Littoral" term is coterminous with Dalmatia, I just said "southern Croatia" == "Dalmatia". That is what is WP:BLUE. Just like you complain about all sorts of claims without any sources, that is the same sentiment I have about dumping all of the "Mountainous" and "proper" and "Littoral" minutia in here, because several of these topics are orthogonal to one another.

• Yes, "Slavonia" being largely coterminous with "eastern Croatia" is also like "sky is blue", if anything, in the preponderance of mainstream Croatian casual sources like the newspapers and television. A Croatian user had added that redirect https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eastern_Croatia&action=history two years ago, and there were again no complaints. I myself tagged it for possibilities because I recognize it could be described slightly differently, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize the practical reality of this being practically irrelevant.

The real question is why are you typing all of this rather than spending at least a portion of this time on adding more relevant sources to the article and changing it to better match reality? That is what would be helpful to the encyclopedia. Ultimately, if your edits have merit, they will not be reverted - where does the aforementioned fear of being reverted wholesale really come from? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 18:30, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Please don't insert your replies into my posts, it just creates confusion imo.

• If you read my posts, you would probably have noticed that I did actually do the SET, and pointed out that the vast majority of sources using the phrase "central Croatia" do not use it as a proper noun, i.e. the actual name of some region. Even though it seems you will likely go against reason and deny that, those are clearly false hits. And before you jump on that, the "proper" in "Croatia proper" is naturally not capitalized, as it isn't supposed to be, because the region's name is "Croatia", not actually "Croatia Proper", and the phrase (which is always spelled in that manner) merely denotes that. Though, as I said, I would not mind "Croatia (region)" as an alternative title. "Croatia proper" hits should really be perceived as being in support of that title.

But the point here was your claim that we already have an article for the historical region. Do you still maintain that?

• Well there you go. Its taught in Croatian elementary schools - proof positive of its being pure political hogwash, not shared by anyone outside the (very narrow) borders of our tiny country. But, you don't seem to get my point. My point is that nobody anywhere listed Slavonia and Dalmatia alongside these geomorphological regions. Croatian schools included. If we do not have the claim of a fantasy separate Croatian language (which is an entire subject in all Croatian primary and secondary schools), I think we can cope with something that someone maybe heard once or twice in his 8th grade geography lesson.

"But mind you(!), I am not proposing to delete all mention of the term or something, merely demote it down to a Geography of Croatia section.

• As I said, checked different terms. There is NO source I can find, even in Croatian, that lists "planinska" or "gorska" alongside "sjeverno hrvatsko primorje" - and Slavonia and Dalmatia.

• Right, you said "Southern Croatia"? That's new.. See, now you too are introducing different terms that do not correspond with Tomboe's particular system. The point however is that this encyclopedia should not be written according to what you personally consider to be "largely" coterminous. You should stop claiming Dalmatia or Slavonia correspond in any way to any of these vague designations without clear support in sources.

-- Director (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

This is the fundamental problem. The conflation of the two systems in the "apples and oranges" manner that Director explained above is entirely inappropriate, and a product of original research. Either there need to be separate articles (or perhaps one article explaining the geographical scheme) on "Croatia proper" and "Central Croatia", "Dalmatia" and "Southern Croatian Littoral (or whatever), "Slavonia" and "Eastern Croatia", or else the whole thing doesn't make any sense. RGloucester — ☎ 16:53, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

For the record, the term "Croatia proper" is more prevalent in English-language sources than "Central Croatia" and "Mountainous Croatia" combined. As for it not being used in Croatia, two points: #1 as I'm sure you know, one can't translate the expression "Croatia proper", not really. #2 Secondly, the actual name of the region is "Croatia", and as such the name is indeed sometimes used in the Croatian language. The term "Croatian Littoral", in its most common meaning (the one expressed used our article) refers to the littoral part of the region of Croatia - not the entire, much larger littoral of the country of Croatia. Whenever someone said "Hrvatsko Primorje" (Croatian Littoral), they were referring to the region. There are other examples along those lines, but not to ramble, the bottom line is that this isn't the Croatian Wikipedia (and lemme just say - thank goodness for that). In order to prevent overlap and the confusing employment of several systems of regional division, we pretty much have to have a Croatia proper article (or Croatia (region) article, if you will), if we're using Dalmatia and Slavonia. And its also a more common term in English sources than the alternatives, even if we were to ignore all the other problems.

How about Croatia (region) as an alternative?-- Director (talk) 00:39, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

The only solution that I can see everyone supporting is the creation of a separate Croatia (historical region) (historical is useful disambiguation in this instance) article. In other words, it appears we need to have a full set of articles on the geographical contemporary regions (such as Mountainous Croatia), and a set of articles on the historical regions (such as Dalmatia or Istria). Each system will work independently. This is how the issue is dealt with in regard to aforementioned regions of England. In fact, I believe Tomboe suggested the creation of a Croatia (historical region) article in the prior discussion at Talk:Central Croatia. RGloucester — ☎ 00:46, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I thought about that, and while it would solve one aspect of the problem, we once again go back to Dalmatia and Slavonia - they cover their own geography (as they should). We would have a situation where only Croatia proper would be covered with separate geographical regions, and we would still be using two systems that blur together. Then there's the issue of which division to use, Tomboe's or some other - and whether these divisions are prominent enough to warrant their own separate articles. My ideal solution would be to have the regions redirect to a section at Geography of Croatia, at most brief articles focused on explaining the usage of the term itself, rather than the region its supposed to denote (à la Adriatic Croatia). The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a single system of geographic regions that we can claim enjoys the majority support of scholarship (I'd welcome input if I'm wrong in that particular respect, that's part of why I posted this thread). -- Director (talk) 04:06, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I re-read that now, and I can't help but find it quite bizarre that Direktor actually got what he wanted in that aspect of that discussion, but then completely dropped the ball on that. What is stopping any of us from creating a stub in place of the redirect at Croatia proper, one that will explain what this term means today and how it came about, and explain that there's also a term Central Croatia these days and explain the difference in use and context? Croatia (historical region) can be a WP:INTDAB redirect pointing to Croatia proper, one that we can use in pipe links if and when we encounter such ambiguous uses of "Croatia" in historical articles. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 18:40, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I say again: its an improvement, but in that state of affairs, we would have Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, as historical regions; and the historical region of Croatia would have three articles about its geography. Northern Croatian Littoral and Mountainous Croatia do not need separate articles, especially at this point, and especially on the English Wikipedia. Their geography should be covered - as with Dalmatia and Slavonia - in the Croatia proper article. We can explain the elementary school division, "Mountainous Croatia" and all, in the Geography of Croatia article - at least until we make heads or tails of it (e.g. you too are talking about some "Southern Croatia" thing now?). The stuff needs to be demoted down to a more flexible format, given the confusing variety found in sources.

I've written a lot now, but this is what I hope you'll read: I was taught probably the same primary school geography curriculum you were, Joy. And I am not opposed to laying out the geography of the country through the use of the term "Mountainous Croatia". But I am opposed to its being "upgraded" to the same level of Slavonia and Dalmatia, to be used to convey all aspects of the country, as some kind of cultural and historical region. And I am opposed to using any geographic division to create articles at this point, when we don't really know which division is best and most common in sources. It will probably include "Mountainous Croatia", but really very little beyond that can be asserted. What geographic region(s) are to describe the coastline, for example? -- Director (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Carefully merged Mountainous Croatia and Central Croatia into a Croatia (region) article, which is in accordance with the CC lede for two years now. Edited to include the Croatian Littoral. Northern Croatian Littoral and Croatian Littoral were in near-complete WP:OVERLAP, practically duplicate articles - redirected to Croatian Littoral. I personally can not conceive of any justification why Croatia proper requires three separate article solely about its geography (one of which is a duplicate), but if someone believes otherwise, I hope they will at the very least do the courtesy of laying out the case for such a situation here.

Mountainous Croatia could be a justifiable article about a purely geographic division of Croatia. However, I strongly hold that to avoid confusion and overlap, such an article can only be introduced as part of a series of "geographic regions" that cover the geography of the whole country (as with England), according to some system parallel to that of the historical regions. Pushed as a historical/traditional region, "Mountainous Croatia" is in complete OVERLAP with Lika and Gorski Kotar. -- Director (talk) 12:11, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm willing to give this scheme a shot, but not under this name. Both "Central Croatia" and "Croatia proper" are substantially more common and more natural than the use of "Croatia" to refer to a region of Croatia. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:51, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Ok. As I said, I don't mind either variant. -- Director (talk) 10:06, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I've posted questions about two sources and the Littoral at Talk:Croatia proper. Let's continue with that over there. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:07, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

New table for historical regions

I'd like to propose that we add a table like the one below for the historical regions. However, I have some questions. Firstly, when referencing Istria as a historical region, I'm assuming that one means Istria County, and of course not including Slovene Istria. Secondly, we need a map for Istria. Thirdly, we need appropriate descriptions. Please add comments, and feel free to amend the chart. RGloucester — ☎ 16:32, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Istria is a might tricky.. Its boundaries toward the northeast (inland) are almost entirely arbitrary. The unsourced map you can see on Slovene Istria is imo an exaggeration of its extent in that direction (kind of obvious when viewed in a map in general). There is no question a small part of the region/peninsula is in Slovenia, but exactly how much is determined in great deal by that arbitrary northeastern boundary. There is also a tiny sliver of territory in Italy.

Istria County is also a bit smaller than Istria's traditional extent. A small part of Istria is included in the Littoral-Gorski Kotar County.

I'll see about getting coats of arms of the four regions with the same escutcheon and colour shades. -- Director (talk) 18:47, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Coat of arms	Name	Location	Description
	Republic of Croatia		Consists of:   Croatia proper   Dalmatia   Slavonia   Istria
	Croatia proper		The central part of the Republic of Croatia.
	Slavonia		This region comprises of the majority of inland eastern Croatia.
	Dalmatia		Dalmatia consists of much of the coastline of the Republic of Croatia, and stretches from the island of Rab in the north of the country to the Bay of Kotor in the south. Dubrovnik, one of Croatia's most important tourist cities, is in Dalmatia. The largest city is Split.
	Istria		Istria consists mainly of the Croatian part of the peninsula of Istria. Pula is the largest city in Croatian Istria, and sits at the peninsula's southern tip.

Historican Croatian regions map

I think that the map of Historical Croatian regions should be removed because it's misleading. At the moment the caption says: "Croatian historical regions according to the map of Matthäus Seutter from 1720". But if you check the original (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/6f/c6/50/6fc650e7fa18e4f9a65dc13cc4b0b1ac.jpg), the latin caption is "Nova er acurata tabula regnorum at provinciarum Dalmatiae, Croatiae, Sclavoniae, Bosniae, Serviae, Istriae, ...". So, it is basically just a list of kingdoms and provinces shown in the map. It says nothing about their relashionship and there is absolutely no clue that it represents Croatian regions at the time. 89.172.171.100 (talk) 11:14, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

The point of the map isn't to establish any sort of relationship between the regions. It is to show what they looked like in the early 18th century. The fact that those regions (namely Croatia, Sclavonia, Dalmatia, Istria and Ragusina Respublica - which are clearly listed below the map) are considered historically Croatian is cited from other references on the page.Tmina32 (talk) 19:54, 28 June 2018 (UTC)