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Infobox U.S. county/doc

wikipedia:Category:Template documentation pages

{{Infobox U.S. county}} is the standard infobox used for all county articles in the United States.

Other templates that are helpful for U.S. County articles:

  • USCensusPop - lists the population of the county per decade.
  • Coord - a cool template that displays the coordinates of the county. Notes about this one:

View Template:Infobox U.S. county/Sample to see how this infobox is rendered.

Usage

This blank template excludes some optional parameters that must be omitted if not used (will not work properly if left blank), plus some older parameters that still work but have been replaced by newer parameter names. It also excludes square kilometer (km2) parameters that are automatically calculated (replace "_sq_mi" with "_km2" to enter square kilometers instead and have the square miles calculated). See the parameter documentation below for more details.

The parameters are listed in the order displayed by the infobox. The exception is latitude and longitude which are not placed in the infobox, but are displayed on the upper right side of the page via the {{coord}} template.

{{Infobox U.S. county
| county             = 
| native_county      =
| state              = 
| seal               = 
| founded year       = 
| founded date       = 
| seat wl            = 
| largest city wl    = 
| motto              = 
| area_total_sq_mi   = 
| area_land_sq_mi    = 
| area_water_sq_mi   = 
| area percentage    = 
| pop                = 
| census yr          = 
| census estimate yr = 
| density_sq_mi      = 
| time zone          = 
| district           = 
| district2          = 
| district3          = 
<!-- up to: district18 -->
| web                = 
| named for          = 
| flag               = 
| logo               = 
| ex image           = 
| ex image cap       = 
| footnotes          = 
| lat deg            = 
| lat min            = 
| long deg           = 
| long min           = 
}}

Parameters

The parameters below are listed in the order displayed by the infobox. The exception is latitude and longitude which are not placed in the infobox, but are displayed on the upper right side of the page via the {{coord}} template.

Name

These parameters specify the name of the county and state and are displayed in the infobox title as "County, State" (IMPORTANT: do not WikiLink these with [[ ]] because they are used for other purposes in the template code).

county  
the county name including the word "County", i.e. Dorchester County
state  
the state name, i.e. Maryland

County seal

An image of the county seal can be displayed near the top of the infobox, immediately below the title. Use only the file name, without the Image: or File: prefix.

seal  
(optional) County seal image (name only), i.e. Dorchester County md seal.png
seal size  
(optional) Allows changing image size from 75px default (IMPORTANT: omit this parameter if not used; leaving it blank will cause the image to display full size)

Location maps

The infobox automatically displays two maps based based on the names entered for the county and state parameters.

  1. A map of the state highlighting the location of the county. The infobox template provides the correct map for each county; the image names use the format "Map of (state) highlighting (county).svg". The image size defaults to 200px, with the following exceptions: 110px for New Hampshire; 120px for Alabama, Mississippi, New Jersey, Vermont; 130px for Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Nevada; 180px for Ohio.
  2. A map of the United States highlighting the location of the state. The infobox template provides the correct map for each state, most of these are in the format "Map of USA XX.svg" where XX is the two letter state abbreviation (i.e. MD for Maryland).

Date founded

The old way of specifying this was via the founded parameter. Although that still works, the new method is via the following parameters.

founded year  
syntax is: 1894
founded date  
(optional) syntax is: February 1
founded title  
(optional) text to replace the default heading "Founded" (IMPORTANT: omit this parameter if not used; leaving it blank will cause a blank box to left of year)

County seat

The old way of specifying this was via the seat parameter. Although that still works, a new method that automatically generates the WikiLink is shown below.

seat wl  
name of county seat; the wikilink is created for you: "City" results in "[[City, State|City]]"

Largest city

The old way of specifying this was via the largest city parameter. Although that still works, a new method that automatically generates the WikiLink is shown below.

largest city wl  
(optional) name of largest city; the WikiLink created for you: "City" results in "[[City, State|City]]" (unless this is the same as county seat, in which case no link is created)
city type  
(optional) text to replace "City" in the heading; i.e. "Village" results a heading of "Largest Village"

County motto

motto  
(optional) the county motto

Area

Enter all numbers (except percentage) in raw format (i.e. 10000 not 10,000).

area_total_sq_mi  
total area in square miles; km2 will be calculated automatically
area_total_km2  
(optional) if specified, the square miles will be calculated automatically
area_land_sq_mi  
total land area in square miles; km2 will be calculated automatically
area_land_km2  
(optional) if specified, the square miles will be calculated automatically
area_water_sq_mi  
total water area in square miles; km2 will be calculated automatically
area_water_km2  
(optional) if specified, the square miles will be calculated automatically
area percentage  
(optional) the percentage of water, i.e. 2.4% (no automatic calculation at this time, so manually divide the water area by the total area)

Population

Enter all numbers in raw format (i.e. 10000 not 10,000).

pop  
the population of the county
census yr  
the census year for the given population, i.e. 2000 - the year is linked to the U.S. census article in the format "United States Census, (year)", i.e. "United States Census, 2000"
census estimate yr 
(optional) to be used in place of census yr for years when no U.S. census was taken; i.e. 2006 - this displays "Est." next to the year and avoids a "red link" since there is no article for "United States Census, 2006"

Population density

Population density is the number of people per square mile or km2. Must be entered manually, as the template does not currently support automatic calculations based on population divided by area.

density_sq_mi  
population per square mile, i.e. 5000, which displays "5,000/sq mi (21/km²)"; population/km2 will be calculated automatically
density_km2  
(optional) population per km2; if specified, the population/sq mi is calculated automatically

Time zone

The template generates standard headings for U.S. time zones.

time zone  
Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, or Hawaii. If entering anything else, use the old UTC offset and DST offset parameters. There should be no reason to choose other options, as currently those are the only time zones used in the United States.

U.S. Congressional Districts

Used to generate a list of United States congressional districts (U.S. House of Representatives) in the county. The article names are in the format "(state)'s (district) congressional district", i.e. Alabama's 1st congressional district or Delaware's At-large congressional district. The template handles proper placement of the apostrophe in the article name for states ending in the letter "s" (Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Texas).

district  
(optional) use ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, etc.) or At-large
district2  
(optional) same as above, used when county lies in more than one district
district3  
(optional) the parameter names continue in this format up to district8

Official county web site

web  
(optional) url for website, without "http://" and brackets, i.e. www.LaPorteCounty.org (template automatically generates external link)

Source of county name

named for  
(optional) text describing meaning of county's name

County flag

An image of the county flag can be displayed near the top of the infobox. Use only the file name, without the Image: or File: prefix.

flag  
(optional) county flag image (name only), i.e. Dorchester County flag.png
flag size  
(optional) allows changing image size from 100px default (IMPORTANT: omit this parameter if not used; leaving it blank will cause the image to display full size)
flag border  
(optional) set to no to remove the border from the flag.

An image of the county logo can be displayed near the top of the infobox. Use only the file name, without the Image: or File: prefix.

logo  
(optional) county logo image (name only), i.e. Dorchester County logo.png
logo size  
(optional) allows changing image size from 100px default (IMPORTANT: omit this parameter if not used; leaving it blank will cause the image to display full size)

Extra image

An additional image, depicting the skyline or other landmarks within a county, can be displayed near the top of the infobox. Use only the file name, without the Image: or File: prefix.

ex image  
(optional) extra image (name only), i.e. Dorchester County courthouse.jpg (articles transcluding this template, but without an extra image are placed in Category:U.S. Counties Missing Ex Image)
ex image size  
(optional) allows changing image size from 200px default (IMPORTANT: omit this parameter if not used; leaving it blank will cause the image to display full size)
ex image cap  
(optional) a caption displayed in small text below the extra image

Footnotes

footnotes  
(optional) text to display next at bottom of infobox (no heading)

Latitude and longitude

These parameters are used to place geographic coordinates in the upper right corner of the page (outside the infobox) via the {{coord}} template. The latitude and longitude must be whole degrees and minutes (displayed 38°25′N, 76°05′W). If entering degrees only, the minutes default to zero.

NOTE: These parameters do not currently support decimal degrees (displayed 38.42, -76.08) or whole degrees with decimal minutes (displayed 38°25.9', -76°05.4' or 38°25.9'N, 76°05.4'W).

lat deg  
(optional) degrees of latitude North, i.e. 38
lat min  
(optional) minutes of latitude North, i.e. 25 (defaults to zero if omitted)
long deg  
(optional) degrees of longitude West, i.e. 76 or 076 (do not prefix this with "-" as that will display latitude East)
long min  
(optional) minutes of longitude West, i.e. 5 or 05 (defaults to zero if omitted)

In some cases it may be preferable to omit the latitude/longitude parameters and manually add the {{coord}} template to the article. The following is an example that includes decimal degrees, displays them in D/M/S format, and notes the source of the coordinates:

{{coord|38.42|-76.08|format=dms|display=title|type:adm2nd_region:US-MD_source:UScensus1990}}

Microformat

The HTML mark up produced by this template includes an hCard microformat, which makes the place-name and location parsable by computers, either acting automatically to catalogue article across Wikipedia, or via a browser tool operated by a person, to (for example) add the subject to an address book. Within the hCard is a Geo microformat, which additionally makes the coordinates (latitude & longitude) parsable, so that they can be, say, looked up on a map, or downloaded to a GPS unit. For more information about the use of microformats on Wikipedia, please see the microformat project.

Sub-templates

If the place or venue has an "established", "founded", "opened" or similar date, use {{start date}} (unless the date is before 1583 CE).

If it has a URL, use {{URL}}.

Please do not remove instances of these sub-templates.

Classes

hCard uses HTML classes including:

  • adr
  • agent
  • category
  • county-name
  • extended-address
  • fn
  • label
  • locality
  • nickname
  • note
  • org
  • region
  • street-address
  • uid
  • url
  • vcard

Geo is produced by calling {{coord}}, and uses HTML classes:

  • geo
  • latitude
  • longitude

Please do not rename or remove these classes; nor collapse nested elements which use them.

Precision

When giving coordinates, please use an appropriate level of precision. Do not use {{coord}}'s |name= parameter.