Editing Talk:Urban areas in Europe (section)

== Merge ==

I noticed that this page already indicates which countries are in the European Union.  It seems logical that merging [[Urban areas in the European Union]] into this article would make sense. [[User:Logoshimpo|Logoshimpo]] ([[User talk:Logoshimpo|talk]]) 09:37, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

:agreed [[Special:Contributions/&#126;2025-36333-31|&#126;2025-36333-31]] ([[User talk:&#126;2025-36333-31|talk]]) 05:21, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
:{{u|Logoshimpo}}, any thoughts on how this should be merged? The European Union article seems to have more information on each urban area that the Europe article doesn't accommodate. '''[[User:Thebiguglyalien|<span style="color:#0c4709">Thebiguglyalien</span>]]''' ([[User talk:Thebiguglyalien|<span style="color:#472c09">talk</span>]]) 01:09, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
::[[Urban areas in the European Union]] only lists urban areas over 500,000 inhabitants but this list lists all entries.  In other words, this list is exhaustive and comprehensive.  There is a section of Important notes which might have pertinent material which could be retained.  I haven't read all the citations and both articles thoroughly so I don't think if I were to merge the articles that the outcome would be satisfactory. [[User:Logoshimpo|Logoshimpo]] ([[User talk:Logoshimpo|talk]]) 07:21, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
:::* [[Urban areas in the European Union]] lists urban areas over 500,000 inhabitants in EU only, and features 70 entries.
:::* This article ([[Urban areas in Europe]]) lists urban areas over 1 million in Europe (EU and non-EU), and features 69 entries.
:::I wouldn't say that one of them is more complete than the other. Furthermore, since various definitions of what an urban area is exist, I wonder whether any such list could ever be called "exhaustive and comprehensive". [[User:Dżamper|Dżamper]] ([[User talk:Dżamper|talk]]) 18:59, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
::::What sort of definitions do you have in mind?  I'm aware of [[functional area]] and the nordic countries have their own definition of urban area as defined by their statistical bureaus.  I think we could merge the articles together if european union is treated as a section. [[User:Logoshimpo|Logoshimpo]] ([[User talk:Logoshimpo|talk]]) 11:46, 18 March 2026 (UTC)
:::::Functional areas are areas that are functionally dependent on a city. Urban areas are areas that are connected with a city by a contiguous urban fabric. So, two related but different and parallel concepts. But even for the definition of the urban area alone, there will always exist different delimitation methods of how big that area is. What is the threshold to be considered urban. Are parks, industrial areas, waterbeds "contiguously urban", etc. And actually, there is currently no source provided which would do that comprehensively. The UN list doesn't (has definitions that vary on country-by-country basis due to lack of data), neither does the EU (Eurostat has only functional areas, Copernicus could, yet provides figures only for "(dense) cores (of) urban areas", not the whole urban areas). Demographia is IMO the closest, but is not generally considered a truly reliable source. [[User:Dżamper|Dżamper]] ([[User talk:Dżamper|talk]]) 17:09, 18 March 2026 (UTC)
:'''Oppose for now''' - I took a quick look at the articles, I think they use different statistical bases that would be difficult to merge well, also it looks like the data in the EU article is more up to date than proposed destination article, but I'm not sure if more recent data is available for all of the non-EU cities. [[User:ScrubbedFalcon|ScrubbedFalcon]] ([[User talk:ScrubbedFalcon|talk]]) 11:05, 18 March 2026 (UTC)
::Does my reply to Dżamper change your mind? [[User:Logoshimpo|Logoshimpo]] ([[User talk:Logoshimpo|talk]]) 11:47, 18 March 2026 (UTC)
:::You mean having a separate section for the EU data? If that was the proposal then I wouldn't see how the merge would serve readers better than having a separate article. I thought the purpose of the merge in this case was to eliminate [[WP:OVERLAP]], but if the data is different enough that it needs its own section, I think its clearer for readers to just have the separate articles. I agree that there is some overlap in these lists, but I think it needs to be clearer how they would be merged without making the information difficult to parse. [[User:ScrubbedFalcon|ScrubbedFalcon]] ([[User talk:ScrubbedFalcon|talk]]) 11:56, 18 March 2026 (UTC)