Talk:Central East Africa

Southeast Africa v African Great Lakes

A user just blanked the entire page while stating it should be in the African Great Lakes article and not this one. I think anyone with rudimentary geographical knowledge of Africa knows these areas are not coterminous: most obviously because the African Great Lakes Region most importantly includes DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo in case this user does not know what that stands for) while Southeast Africa does not. But who knows? Perhaps this needs to be debated. I have requested we have a discussion about this before this user blanks the entire page again (without transferring any of this material to the AGL page, interestingly). Regards, Andajara120000 (talk) 04:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

In the lead you state that Southeast Africa is a major region of Sub-Equatorial Africa that is comprised of the countries of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi; which is quite odd since there are other that countries that are in this region.

The map you proved also does not even mention "Southeast Africa": it in fact an old map of the East African Community. While the original map prior to you edits does. All you did was change the description that would be seen on the Southeast Africa page. This very misleading.

The reason why I stated that it should be on the African Great Lakes is because the info on this article is only the countries of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi; countries that are all in the African Great Lakes region. If anything it should be there than here. Not only that, but almost every single word you added on this article is already stated on the East Africa page so there's no need to even have a page where all of the info on it can be found somewhere else making it a duplicate. All this together are my reasons for blanking most of the page and not moving it to the Great Lakes page.

Also how did I forget the Democratic Republic of Congo, like you said it's in the Great Lakes region? I never said it was in Southeast Africa, mentioned it, or even said that Southeast Africa and the Great Lakes region are the same thing; which is what you requested to discuss. AcidSnow (talk) 03:54, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

You are right AcidSnow. I also detected some odd edits by this editor (Andajara120000). On his page, but also on other Wikipedia articles. His redefinition of Southeast Africa, is part of a larger scheme from him involving redefining many African regions like Middle Africa (because of South Sudan independance, he/she says), as well as East Africa, SouthEast Africa and African Great Lakes, possibly among others in Africa. If you go to the Middle Africa you can see that he rewrote almost the whole page (see history) and he's the one who replace the top picture (before that I guess it was the UN definition of Middle Africa). This United_Nations_geoscheme is usually the classification of African regions (although it can change in certain domain, but only with reliable sources). Suffice to say that his redefinition of African regions is unsourced and unjustified. Which is enough. (it's also illogical, it doesn't cover Africa completely as some countries are left out while others are in two categories, but that's beside the point). The real point is that his redefinition of African region is unsourced and unjustified. I think his personal redefinition of African regions doesn't even satisfy basic WP:V. DrLewisphd (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your response DrLewisphd. Shall I continue with the deletion of the Middle Africa page by redirecting it to the Central Africa and the reediting of Southeast Africa (this user also accused me of blanking the entire page which I clearly did not do) or should we wait for him/her to explain them self? Although, there's not much to say it seems fair to do so. AcidSnow (talk) 20:11, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

In fairness, Andajara has done a lot of good faith work around the website. But I agree here that the Middle Africa and Central Africa pages are essentially covering the same region. The former is the geoscheme's official appellation for the area. However, Central Africa is definitely the commonname, so that's probably the page into which Middle Africa should be merged. Southeast Africa, on the other hand, is more complicated because while it largely overlaps with the already extant African Great Lakes page, not all nations in the region are Great Lakes countries (which are basically the Swahili-speaking lacustrine areas). Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe are examples. I therefore recommend waiting to allow Andajara the opportunity to explain what he thinks would work best. Middayexpress (talk) 20:38, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Ok, something should also be done about the Islands of Africa page since there really is no need for this too. What do you think DrLewisphd? AcidSnow (talk) 21:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello, first, I have requested help about your stalking my wikipedia edits. Second, if you are not happy with the definition of Southeast Africa then make edits to the article in expanding or detracting coverage of the countries you think are southeast Africa. But East Africa and Southeast Africa are not the same. The Great Lakes Region and Southeast Africa are not the same. There was a separate article for Southeast Africa that had a list of countries from Southeastern Africa (Southeast Africa and Southeastern Africa are not the same). So this is clearly a topic that needs coverage. If you do not like the definition put forth then do the hard work to construct an article around the definition you think is accurate. But you have presented no argument that there should not be an article about Southeast Africa. You are vandals, plain and simple, vandalizing articles on Africa and I will not sit down and watch you do that while contributing nothing constructive. Regards, Andajara120000 (talk) 02:17, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

But you have presented no argument that there should not be an article about Southeast Africa, that is true. Why? Because I never said that there should be no article or ever made such actions regarding this.

But East Africa and Southeast Africa are not the same. The Great Lakes Region and Southeast Africa are not the same., I have not said and neither has Midday or DrLewisphd.

There was a separate article for Southeast Africa that had a list of countries from Southeastern Africa, where is this article?

while contributing nothing constructive, how have I contributed nothing constructive to Wikipedia?

My main issue is not with your definitions but mostly how you copied and pasted almost everything from the East African page on to Southeast Africa. All you have done is create an almost exact article of the East Africa page; which is not what I would call constructive but rather lazy. Not just this but you constantly put words in my mouth in both of these discussions. As for me creating my own definition I had already done that, see here. AcidSnow (talk) 18:04, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

So are you telling me the Southeast Africa and East Africa article are identical? And in terms of the article being a list of countries of southeastern Africa I am confused what your question is. Your revert issue clearly shows you returned the article to its previous state before my edits where it was a list of countries of southeastern Africa. Are you disputing this? This is extremely clear in the revision history. You are incoherent about what your point is. Southeast Africa is a region-if you dispute what countries are included you need to add information about those countries in this article, you do not delete the article wholesale. Can you please make a list of your points supporting your deleting this entire article and returning it to the state of where it was a list of countries of southeastern Africa. I cannot follow exactly what you are arguing, sorry. Regards, Andajara120000 (talk) 08:46, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay let me see you have continually changed your position but now you are stating:"My main issue is not with your definitions but mostly how you copied and pasted almost everything from the East African page on to Southeast Africa. All you have done is create an almost exact article of the East Africa page; which is not what I would call constructive but rather lazy." Okay my questions are three:

1. Are the Southeast Africa and East Africa pages identical? I think a simple glance at both pages will show they are not. There are significant differences between both pages. Are you disputing otherwise? 2. Are Southeast Africa and East Africa identical regions? 3. Are you justified in therefore deleting the entire article and returning it to the state where it was a listing of southeastern (and not even Southeast as these terms are not identical) African countries? Please feel free to direct any questions you have because it is difficult to follow your specific arguments about what exactly you want to be done to this page. Do you want to return the article to where it was a list of southeastern African countries? because let us not forget the point of this talk page discussion is to reach consensus as to what the article should look like today. So how do you envision this article looking and what changes need to be made between that vision and what it looks like today. And does deleting all the content on the page and returning it to a list of southeastern Africa countries bring us towards that vision. This talk page discussion is not about your personal feelings or opinions but about presenting evidence and arguments as to what direction this article should take. I think we can all agree that southeast Africa is an important region of article that deserves solid treatment in an article on Wikipedia. Or do you contest this as well? If not, the question now is what form the article should take and what we can do to get to that level. I think your deletion of every bit of content in the article except a list of southeastern (not even Southeast) African countries was completely unjustified and brought this article back to the stone age of its development and was malicious. But that is the past. What I am interested in hearing is what help you need in editing the article as it is right now to get it to whatever vision us editors on this page have for it. I am no longer interested in hearing your justifications for returning the article to a list of southeastern (not southeast) African countries. I do not think you've provided one argument (please correct me if I am wrong) showing that is better than keeping the article as is and editing it from this form now in terms of including additional countries if justified, editing the sections to address any issues you have identified, etc. Regards, 08:49, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Even though you wont be able to respond to this I think you should know that I am no longer having this discussion with you (even if you could I would not respond to you and would have gotten you banned from editing this article and similar ones) and that it is now over. Whether you like to admit it or not you have wasted my time and those who have been involved in these discussions. However I will respond to your last message.

So are you telling me the Southeast Africa and East Africa article are identical?, *sigh*, can you please stop purposely miss quoting me? We will not get anywhere if you keep doing this.

Okay let me see you have continually changed your position but now you are stating, I have been saying this from very beginning (All of this should be moved to the African Great lakes page not here). PLEASE stop lying, through these discussion you have insulted me, put words in my mouth, miss quote me on purpose and threatened to report me. I have yet to change my position on anything in this discussion. Since you continually did this we have gotten nowhere in this discussion.

You are incoherent about what your point is., *sigh*, please stop trying to speak for me.

This talk page discussion is not about your personal feelings or opinions, *sigh* I have yet to say or do anything that supports what you have just said.

I think and was malicious, currently your opinion means nothing and I had no desire too bring "harm" to this article.

Questions:

1. No, I said "almost exact article of the East Africa page", this has also been said by several different user not just me. As for you claiming there is a "significant differences" could you please prove this since you seem to think we are all wrong?

2. No, I never said this? How many time most I tell you that?

3. Yes, I do believe that I am justified for my edits and I am sure other editors will agree with me. Also I never deleted the entire article.

I am no longer interested in hearing your justifications for returning the article to a list of southeastern (not southeast) African countries., did you not just ask me to answer your questions?! This contradicts two of your statements: "Can you please make a list of your points supporting your deleting this entire article and returning it to the state of where it was a list of countries of southeastern Africa." and "Are you justified in therefore deleting the entire article and returning it to the state where it was a listing of southeastern".

I do not think you've provided one argument (please correct me if I am wrong) showing that is better than keeping the article as is and editing it from this form now in terms of including additional countries if justified, editing the sections to address any issues you have identified, etc., I will not waste more of my time on this since I have answered it several times already.

RFC-Does Southeast Africa deserve full article coverage or just a list of the countries in the region due to its inconsequential nature?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Does Southeast Africa deserve its own article with full coverage of history, economics, demographics or should there just be a list of the countries in the region (which in fact was incorrect as it included countries in southeastern Africa which is not the same as the region of Southeast Africa, but this is an additional separate issue) as the article was before. Again this question does not concern what countries are included in Southeast Africa - that is clearly up for debate. But here the request for comment is whether Wikipedia should have any kind of fleshed out article on this region at all or is this region and its peoples and histories too inconsequential for such a page? If not, should the article be kept as is and coverage of countries argued to be in the region and not yet included subsequently added to it or should the entire effort be discarded in the waste basket?Regards, Andajara120000 (talk) 02:58, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

The way I see it, East Africa is an extremely large region composed of sub-regions, including Southeast Africa. Therefore, the fact that East Africa has info on Southeast Africa is fine, as Southeast Africa is one part of East Africa. Of course more work must be done to the Southeast Africa article but the page as it is definitely should exist and should not just be a list of the countries in southeastern (and not Southeast) Africa. This is just like the fact that Africa is made up of different regions, and although info on those regions is also found in the Africa article this does not negate the need for separate fleshed out articles on the different regions. This is my take and it seems pretty obvious and uncontroversial to me (one reason why I view the virtual blanking of this page and reversion to a list of countries in southeastern and not even Southeast Africa as malicious and vandalism) but I just wanted to spell this out, and other editor thoughts are highly welcome. Regards, Andajara120000 (talk) 10:18, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved, but moot, since consensus has been found to merge this article into East Africa. See Talk:East Africa#Proposal to merge (permalink). --BDD (talk) 22:07, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

• Central East Africa → East Africa
• East Africa → Eastern Africa

– east africa is one region of Eastern Africa which is the eastern right side of the continent I see there are pages on the Horn of Africa but not East Africa. east africa is a well known name for kenya uganda tanzania now expanded to include rwanda and burundi indeed the East African Communitywhich is the most important regional organization in Eastern Africa is made up of KUTRB millions of articles and books support this definition of East Africa. Although some confusion is found between East Africa and EastERN Africa it is generally no more than the confusion surrounding South Africa and SouthERN Afric. With the coming federation of the East African Communtity clear and precise wording for this page and this excellent article is needed Eastafricancommunity2050 (talk) 01:35, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Note by User:Amakuru - I know this is a bit unorthodox, but I have refashioned this as a multi-move, including the existing East Africa page because I don't think we can reasonably just obliterate that. If anyone seriously objects to my action in this regard, please let me know and we can revert it back to the original single move discussion.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:44, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

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• Support Although there is a little ambiguity (e.g. Mozambique could probably be included as part of it), "East Africa" is reasonably established as a distinctive geographical monicker for that area. It rarely, if ever, includes the Horn of Africa, which is distinct in its own right. "Central East Africa", by contrast, is a term I've never heard used. Walrasiad (talk) 04:07, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Comment there's a different article currently at East Africa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), so you'd need to move that article to Eastern Africa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), so this is necessarily a multimove, and should be reformatted to be as such. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 04:47, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment the article currently at East Africa used to reside at Eastern Africa -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 04:49, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Comment this article was situated at Southeast Africa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) until earlier this week when ti was renamed to "Central east Africa" -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 04:47, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
  • comment at the very least the recent move was wrong, as "E" should be capitalized, so the very minimum should result in a move to Central East Africa if no decision comes about. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 04:58, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• NOTE there is a related requested move at talk:East Africa that this move is dependent on, so this is disjointed, and should be fixed as a proper multimove request -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 04:51, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose this if the proposal is to replace the existing article here with some narrow article limited to Kenya/Uganda/Tanzania (agree if the intention is just to create a sub-seciton there and merge the contents here into there while keeping the other existing stuff already there). The reason is because this is not Kenyan Wikipedia or Ugandan/Tanzanian wikipedia but English Wikipedia, and in that respect "East Africa" has no separate primary meaning from "Eastern Africa" in global English language usage and it would amount to invention or WP:Original research to claim otherwise. And it is also erroneous to pretend as if the horn of Africa is not a sub-section of East Africa, a region that was once officially called "Italian East Africa". And one more thing: there is no comparison with South Africa where the only reason why the alternative "Southern Africa" is used is because the first option ("South Africa") is taken - notice also that there is currently no entity officially called "East Africa" - there are only "East African bla bla bla"). In other words "East Africa" is an available directional term that, in the English language and in global context is used in the same manner as "North Africa" and "West Africa". —Loginnigol (talk) 05:14, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

We're not playing pin the geographical label on the donkey. We're playing WP:COMMONAME. And common usage of the term "East Africa" (capitalized), in English, refers to these places, e.g. 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6 etc. I'll tell you what isn't common. "Central East Africa". It's a term invented by Wikipedians for this article. Nor does the term "Southeast Africa". Evidently some editor got overexcited looking at a map and started inventing names he liked. Walrasiad (talk) 06:27, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

That's not WP:COMMON but just 5 selected usages out of "google books". I can list 5 other books you skipped or better yet, ignore the random obscure books and focus on the (more than 40) reliable scholarly sources that are already existing in the reference section on the "East Africa" page).

In other words, the focus here is the global primary context - and that extends beyond random or local material printed in Nairobi, where the term "East Africa" may indeed have a traditionally narrower meaning. There is another solution to this: in fact it is common in such multiple meaning cases on Wikipedia: that is we use brackets - in other words this page could be moved to something named "East Africa (...)" with something (anything) mentioned between the brackets, for example "East Africa (community)" or something like that. That's the proper way of solving this, cuz it means the already existing page (East Africa) is not violated, as that remains reflective of the primary global usage of the term. —Loginnigol (talk) 09:20, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

*shrug* It was the first random things that showed up when I plugged the term in the search. The selection happens to be from a variety of places and topics, most of them general titles, not specialized, a reasonably good indicator of the commmon usage of the term. Would you prefer me to list a thousand sources? I can. So can you. Indeed instead of arguing with me here, why don't you try taking a walk through it yourself? You will realize it quickly enough. "East Africa" is a proper term, usually capitalized. It is not an arbitrary compass direction, but a meaningful proper term commonly used to refer to this collection of countries, give or take a couple. It is not an invented term, and we shouldn't be imposing novel definitions of it, and inventing geographic terms used by no one else. Walrasiad (talk) 13:39, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

You're right @Walrasiad. "So can I". And here is your wish list: I found these exactly the same place where you found yours: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... etc and so on and so forth. And I don't know what you mean by "arbitrary". There is nothing arbitrary about the general application of "East Africa". It is applied in the exact same way as "North Africa" and "West Africa". Nothing more nothing less. —Loginnigol (talk) 14:30, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

@Loginnigol: please could you provide us with some reliable sources referring to "East Africa" that include Ethiopia or any other countries outside the EAC? You mention the sources in the East Africa article, but of those that are clickable on the internet I haven't yet seen one that uses the term as you claim.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:40, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea what "but of those that are clickable" means. In any case it is an irrelevant concept. The scholarly references are there for you to look up by the provided means (book number or whatever). You can't just nitpick and choose which ones you like and invent excuses for the ones you don't like. That's not how it works. —Loginnigol (talk) 14:30, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

You have included the term "Ethiopia" in your search. That's not the search I recommended you. The search is for the common usage of the term "East Africa". You gimmied your search to find quirky articles that fit your unusual definition. I was hoping for a more earnest and honest approach. Walrasiad (talk) 14:57, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support - The area covered by the term "East Africa" in common usage is narrower than that covered by "Eastern Africa". Evidence for this includes the Michael Hodd citation from the current East Africa article, (Michael Hodd, East Africa Handbook, 7th Edition, (Passport Books: 2002), p. 21: "To the north are the countries of the Horn of Africa comprising Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia.") the Lonely Planet East Africa which covers only Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and the eastern DRC,[1]  — Amakuru (talk) 14:00, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

  Merge into East Africa and then rename that to Eastern Africa or Expand and support I'm changing my vote. I've just compared the content of this article with what's in the East Africa article and they're nearly identical, word for word in many cases (which I think must be a violation of the attribution requirements at WP:COPYWITHIN, since I don't see any mention of this in the page history). I actually don't see a lot of value in treating the five countries concerned in a separate regional article. It's not like the region is homogeneous or has fixed boundaries (as the addition of Rwanda and Burundi shows). Furthermore, there's little that could be covered there that wouldn't also be covered in Eastern Africa, East African Community or the articles for the individual countries. Finally, I do still support moving the merged article back to Eastern Africa because I think that avoids the problems we're having with "East Africa" being sometimes (but not always, as demonstrated by @Loginnigol:) associated with a smaller subset.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:51, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

  If, as User:Walrasiad hints below, we can find reliable sources describing this area as a homogeneous unit, and the article is expanded to match that, (i.e. not just a cut down copy of the other article as it is at present) then I would still also be happy to have it as a dedicated "East Africa" article. That is better than the made up or highly ambiguous terms such as "Southeast Africa" or "Central East Africa".  — Amakuru (talk) 17:43, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Those ambiguous terms are not the only options we have - I have already mentioned a third option: there is a common Wikipedia solution used in such cases: the secondary definition gets the same title as the primary definition but coupled with something between brackets. So in this instance that means "East Africa (community)" or "East Africa (Swahili area)" or whatever keyword is chosen. —Loginnigol (talk) 20:04, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

In case I was misunderstood, the whole region is not homogeneous - just the coasts. The interiors have much greater variety. Although Swahili traders did penetrate the interiors historically and trade routes linked up to the Great Lakes, the interior regions retained their own local cultures. (although governments have recently been promoting the spread of the Swahili language throughout, so they may yet become so). That said, I raised it only as a point of historical curiosity, not as a justification. It should be not be a defining criteria. We are not ethnographers any more than we are geographers. The only concern here should be the usage of the term "East Africa" (capitalized) as it is commonly used in English-language sources. The current situation ("Central East Africa") is definitely intolerable. If bracket disambiguation is the path chosen, then I'd plop for East Africa (region) as the well-defined region contained here, as commonly used and referred to, and move the bigger article to a generic "Eastern Africa". What should definitely not be done is invent new unusual terms based on our compass hunches or ethnic ideas. Walrasiad (talk) 22:58, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

@Walrasiad: I raised the issue of "homogeneous" only as a possible justification for why we should keep an "East Africa" article separate from "Eastern Africa", which covers the wider territory of the Horn of Africa and possibly Mozambique, Malawi etc. Yes, "East Africa" in many cases is a concept used originally to denote Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda (particularly in the days when those territories were more united than they are now) and is now used to denote the five countries of the EAC. But if that common usage is the only reason for keeping the region article, rather than because it represents a genuine historical or cultural single zone, I don't think there's a lot of value in it. The article can only ever be a hodge podge of information already succinctly covered in the individual country articles and in the East African Community article. Just as we don't have a separate article for Territory of the European Union, we don't per se need one for the East Africa. Again, unless your theory about the Swahili empire and its inland tendrils is actually based in historical fact. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:51, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

What is all this "capitalized" chatter? It is always capitalized. Because we're always talking about regions with recognizable borders, not just some abstract direction. East Africa is always capitalized just as North Africa is always capitalized just as West Africa is always capitalized. I'm repeating myself here (for the third time making the point that the primary status of "East Africa" is no different from "North Africa" and "West Africa" in its global context. So just keep your hands off of the "East Africa" page title - leave that as it is and just concentrate on coming up with a proper name for this article. That one is fine as it is - it was moved from "Eastern..." to "East..." for a good reason: taking into account the global English language usage and context (as opposed to local and narrow, Nairobi-centric point of view which absurdly regards Ethiopia as not part of East Africa). —Loginnigol (talk) 00:19, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

In English orthography, capitalization is used to denote proper names, whereas cardinal directions aren't capitalized (e.g. you go "north", not "North"). Well-defined regions have proper name, e.g. North America, the Midwest, West Australia, etc. They are not geographical indicators, but very specific, well-defined regions. By contrast, terms which are merely geographical indicators aren't proper names and thus not capitalized e.g. you write "south Spain" or "southern Spain", and never "South Spain" (as that is not a well-established region with a proper name, the "south" is being used as a geographical indicator, so "south Spain" isn't capitalized). West Africa, North Africa and East Africa are well-defined regions with proper names. They are not geographical directions. They are specific, well-established regions defined as a particular set of states, just like "North America" and the "Midwest". It is a proper name, not a geographical indicator. "East Africa" is a proper name. It refers specifically to these states. "Eastern Africa" is a geographical indicator, indicating any states roughly cardinally in the eastern side of the African continent, and it is not capitalized in a phrase (e.g. "Ethiopia is located in eastern Africa", not "Ethiopia is located in East Africa"). Make sense? Walrasiad (talk) 01:06, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

No it doesn't make sense because Ethiopia IS indeed located in East Africa!!! There is no doubt or ambiguity of that. Ethiopia and Somalia (specifically those two) are 100% part of East Africa, not merely some vague "Easterly" area. At no time were the two countries not considered part of East Africa. Claiming that is historical revisionism (not allowed). —Loginnigol (talk) 07:50, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

"At no point"? "Historical revisionism"? You're funny. Here's a little tidbit of historical information that you are apparently unaware of: Ethiopia wasn't even considered to be on the African continent until the 19th C. or so! It was usually considered part of Asia, the "Orient". Up until the 19th C., the usual designated partition between "Africa" and "Asia" was the Nile river, not the Suez, thus placing Egypt, Nubia, Axum/Ethiopia, Somalia, etc. as part of Asia. In Arabic sources, even today, "North Africa", the Maghreb, ends in Libya, Egypt was, and still commonly is, considered part as part of the Mashriq. In European sources, you'll find Abyssinians often referred to as "Indians" (as per the Ptolemaic lingo, it was part of "India intra gangem", not "Africa"; Marco Polo (in his chapter on Abyssinia, Bk. 3, Ch. 36) explicitly places it in "Middle India"). You'll see this in all T-O maps (e.g. the Hereford Map), you'll see it in all portolan charts, you'll see in documents, geographies and rutters of the 14th-17th C., and much of the 18th. The transition only really begins after that.

Of course, our geographic definition has changed since, so this isn't really relevant. But since you made such a bold statement, with such indignation, and seemed so sure about it, I couldn't resist giving another little history lesson.

What is relevant is not what historical sources say, nor our ideas about them, nor our hunches about geography or ethnography, but what current common references use. "East Africa" (the capitalized region) is a frequently used term, and commonly refers to these countries. That's all there's to it. Walrasiad (talk) 14:40, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: "Southeast Africa" is an actual geographical entity. It basically comprises most of the African Great Lakes countries (i.e. the Swahili-speaking lacustrine territories), as well as some nations to the south, such as Mozambique, Zambia and Malawi. Its counterpart is Northeast Africa, which includes the Nile Valley and Horn countries [2][3]. On the other hand, "Central East Africa" seems to basically overlap with the well-established Great Lakes region. Based on geography, the Horn of Africa is sometimes included in "East Africa", but oftentimes not as well. The reason for this is two-fold: 1) it has a different ethnolinguistic composition (mainly Afro-Asiatic groups), with a generally separate history that is not associated with either the Bantu or Nilotic migrations; 2) "East Africa" in the colonial period was often shorthand for British East Africa, a territory that included Kenya and Uganda. There was also a second colonial territory nearby with a similar name, German East Africa, which comprised most of the other areas in the Great Lakes region. The East Africa page should thus perhaps be moved to "Eastern Africa" since it follows the UN geoscheme, while this page should probably be moved back to "Southeast Africa". Middayexpress (talk) 15:15, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• : Comment (to Amakuru) Actually, historically they are connected. The coastal area from the Somali borderlands of Kenya down to the bend of Mozambique is a single homogeneous cultural zone: "Swahili". They formed a single, common cultural, economic and often political zone for centuries, long before the first Europeans arrived. Granted, Swahili culture was limited to the coast, but Swahili commerce stretched deep inland (the coastal cities were not self-sufficient, but relied on highland cattle and grain farmers for their own sustenance and for India trade goods). Inland peoples up to the Great Lakes were plugged into that coastal trade, with the result that several pre-colonial market towns and localities by the Great Lakes areas were actually named after the Swahili coastal cities hundreds of miles away. There was an anomalous partition of the Swahili trade area in colonial times (Portuguese, Germans, English) but otherwise they were connected for over a thousand years. The Somali coast was a distinct and separate zone, rivalrous to the Swahili and excluded from East Africa since the 9th-10th C. While this is long ago, and history isn't everything, it is worth mentioning. This is not just an arbitrary collection of states assigned a compass point. Walrasiad (talk) 15:33, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Comment (@Midddayexpress). We shouldn't be making geographical names up. And we have an obligation, as an encyclopedia, to try to provide definitions of commonly used terms like "East Africa" (capital letters) which are meaningfully used as a proper name in many texts. It is not a rough indicator of geographical directions. While its exact boundaries are ambiguous, the point is the term "East Africa" is commonly used meaningfully - much like "Western Europe" or "Eastern Europe" is often used - frequently without specifically enumerating exactly which countries are meant, but left to the reader, as a generally and commonly understood meaning of which countries are implied. There is no doubt in common usage that, say, "Poland" is part of "Eastern Europe", however much it may be geographically protested that it lies closer to the Middle Europe (and can overlap with the definition of that too). But commonly, if the term "Eastern Europe" is used, Poland is implied to be included.

In sum, we aren't geographers, we are not here to divvy up Africa into neat geographic terms of our choice. We are writing articles for the general public,a public that might come across the term "East Africa" without enumeration in a text, and come here to Wiki to look up what is meant. And it is our obligation to provide the commonly-used meaning of it. In the same way that the terms "Mitteleuropa" and "Eastern Europe" exist and overlap in common usage, we are not compelled to decide what is "Middle" and what is "Eastern". We are obligated to provide the common definition of each. And if Poland is contained in both definitions, so be it. Similarly, "East Africa" exists as a proper term. It is a meaningful and commonly used term, and we cannot simply obliterate the article. Do what you want with "Eastern Africa" - you can be flexible there, as it's not a proper name, you won't normally find it capitalized. But "East Africa" is. Walrasiad (talk) 16:11, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Coming in cold, I see at United Nations geoscheme that "Eastern Africa" is a defined UN sub-region, although we instead describe it in an article called East Africa. Should we not take this series of official UN definitions as the basis for naming our various articles, and then merge all the articles that overlap into a series of articles named after the officially defined UN sub-regions? Would that not make more sense than the endless duplication across endless articles that might otherwise result? Wdford (talk) 14:37, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't change the need for an article on "East Africa" as a commonly used term outside of the UN. It can certainly be used in the greater article on "Eastern Africa". However, I am always a little wary about institutional designations, as they are often made for internal bureaucratic reasons (e.g. to ensure that each region is "equally big", so that the staff and budgets are equally distributed, and departments aren't oversized/undersized relative to others). Walrasiad (talk) 14:54, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough, but in terms of content, what would really be the difference between an article for East Africa vs an article for Eastern Africa? Obviously we could consider one to be a sub-set of the other, and thus smaller but with a huge amount of direct overlap - would that be a good thing? Or should we rather have a bigger article with everything included, merge all the duplicating articles and use redirects to bring all the various seekers in? In other words, is there really a valid rationale for keeping both articles side by side? Wdford (talk) 15:39, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, the major purpose of the narrower article would be as an encyclopaedic reference for casual readers who come across that term "East Africa" (capitalized) in the literature and look it up here for clarification on what it means, like any established region article (e.g "the Midwest", etc.). It could include a brief survey of common aspects, e.g. history, culture, institutions, etc. The more general article would be just an overarching geographical article overview I guess, more open-ended, serving primarily as a pointer to the more detailed specific region articles (East Africa, Horn of Africa, etc.) At least as far as I can see it. The larger article shouldn't be titled "East Africa" (as that will likely cause confusion with the capitalized region) but merely "Eastern Africa" (UN-style). The rationale for not merging would be much like "the Midwest" not being merged into the "North America" article. Walrasiad (talk) 18:16, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Mmmmm, I don't think this case is actually equivalent to your Midwest example. I can clearly see the need to separate the Midwest article from the North America article, as I can see a clear need to separate East Africa from a general article on Africa. But I don't see a need for separate articles on East Africa and Eastern Africa - what is actually the difference, and how would the content of these two articles differ? Please see also the article on Northeast Africa, for a potentially useful comparison, and well as the article for Southeast Africa, which should be treated the same but is not. (In fact it redirects seriously inappropriately, which needs to be fixed as well.) I am happy to make Eastern Africa the sort-of guide-to-nations article that Northeast Africa currently is, and to make East Africa our main article here, provided we eliminate the duplication. What do other people think please? Wdford (talk) 22:09, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

@Wdford: I have to admit I'm a bit undecided on this whole thing. My instinct is that whatever links exist between East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania etc.) and the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia) are more tenuous than the links between countries that exist within those zones. It's complex, however, because there certainly is a Somali population in north-eastern Kenya, and the outlook of South Sudan arguably looks far more south to Uganda and Kenya than it does to Ethiopia or northern Sudan. But probably on balance I slightly favour having Eastern Africa as the guide-to-nations article, and keeping this article as the narrower socio-political unit surrounding the present countries of the EAC, along with (maybe) the culturally linked zones of South Sudan and north and south Kivu provinces of the DRC, is the way forward. This would have the added benefit that we would not then have extensive overlap with what's in Horn of Africa.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:10, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Makes sense. I have provisionally split off the article Eastern Africa once again, as a draft of what that guide-to-nations article could look like, keeping it as small as possible. East Africa and Central East Africa could then be readily merged, and called East Africa. Wdford (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Related discussions

• Comment on possible sockpuppetry I believe this has been raised by a sock of Andajara20000 (talk · contribs),him/herself a probable sock. In any case I've move-protected the article. Dougweller (talk) 17:06, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Understood and agreed. Wdford (talk) 17:18, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

Now that this has been protected due to the sockpuppetry... -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 01:31, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

1

Please add the protection template to indicate the level of protection -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 01:31, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Done --Redrose64 (talk) 17:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

2

Please add the complementary merge tag to accompany the merger discussion in the section below -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 01:31, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

{{Merge to|East Africa|discuss=Talk:East_Africa#Proposal_to_merge|date=January 2014}}

Done --Redrose64 (talk) 17:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Proposed merger

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

RESOLVED AS:

Merge Central East Africa to East Africa

10:40, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

{{Merge to|East Africa|discuss= Talk:East_Africa#Proposal_to_merge|date= January 2014}}

I propose that the article Central East Africa be merged into East Africa, as there is a huge amount of duplication between these two, and because I see no clear rationale why we need two articles for this material. Please discuss? Wdford (talk) 17:29, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

That seems to be the best solution. Basically we're wasting time here because this wikipedia article is a fork needlessly created by copypasting a section from the "East Africa" page. Why did that happen? What informative purpose did that serve that would not be served by the original piece? So a merge would instantly restore and solve the problem created by that unnecessary forking (no more silly deliberations about what the title of a Wikipedia page should be). —Loginnigol (talk) 20:09, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Moved to Talk:East Africa § Proposal to merge

Cool. We seem to have a fair amount of support for the merger, and no opposition yet voiced. Please can somebody who knows how to do it, take the next step for us? Wdford (talk) 10:40, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Two contributors does not constitute "a fair amount of support"; also, your conclusion is misplaced - please discuss the merge proposal at Talk:East Africa#Proposal to merge, not here. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:58, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

We have waited quite a while now, and all the editors who have expressed any interest in the proposal (mostly at the East Africa talk page) have thusfar voted in support of the proposed merger of the article Central East Africa into East Africa, as there is a huge amount of duplication between these two articles with no apparent rationale to retain both. The article Central East Africa appears to have started life as a list-of-nations article, which seemingly was expanded quite recently into a full duplicate article by an editor now banned. Unless there is a compelling last-minute objection, could we conclude the discussion and implement the next step? Wdford (talk) 16:58, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I think User:EdJohnston will close this. Dougweller (talk) 19:43, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

A note on merging

As an uninvolved administrator assessing the situation, there appears to be little to no content from this article to be merged into East Africa, partially due to pre-merge trimming. Thus, I will be redirecting Central East Africa there without merging any content. Any users who wish to merge content may do so using the history of this page. This permalink shows the page as it was prior to the redirect. You need not notify me to make such a merge. --BDD (talk) 22:10, 30 January 2014 (UTC)