English Place Name Categories

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: England
Surnames/tags: England Categories

This page is part of the England Project.

English place names have changed over time. Not only that, there have been numerous boundary changes as well. In order to keep things as simple as possible we use the thirty-nine historic counties of England when categorising English place names. This covers a significant proportion of recorded history in England from 927 and so includes the majority of the profiles on which we are working. The only additions are the square mile of the City of London itself and the City and County of Bristol. All individual place name categories must be on both Wikipedia and A Vision of Britain. Only the Category Information Boxes should be on the category pages themselves. Any other information can be put on a free-space page and linked via the CIB. Country houses and castles should be sub-categories under the nearest settlement with the people born there under that sub-category.

We categorise with place (hamlet, village, town, city), county as follows:

• [[Category: England]]
  • [[Category: Hertfordshire]]
    • [[Category: Shenley, Hertfordshire]]

We do not use hyphens in place names, and where the name includes the word Saint we abbreviate this with St and no punctuation.

We do not use intermediate levels such as parishes or districts between "Place" and "County" in the categorisation structure.

Profiles should be categorised at the narrowest possible level. (See How to Categorise a Profile.) Within large cities, this means the locality or district within the city, rather than the city itself, wherever possible, if the locality meets the criteria set out above for being considered a "place".

Further guidance on how to deal with boundary changes is given on this page.

If you have any questions about this category structure, or if you wish to combine it with a global topic please contact Stephen Heathcote.