Talk:Administrative regions of Greece

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Untitled[edit]

Is a periphery the same as a province or nomos? -- Oliver P. 23:16, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

According to Greece#Peripheries, nomoi are subdivisions of peripheries. I've seen "province" as translation of both nomos and perphery on WP. I just googled now, and saw that Greek eparchies are translated as "province" as well. --Menchi 18:49, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Very odd - I thought "periphery" meant "around the edge" but it does seem to be used for the 13 parts of Greece. Even odder, Eurostat seems to use it for "region" in a general sense: compare [1] with [2] and you get κανονιστικές περιφέρειες for normative regions (I would say "administrative regions" while the Greek suggests "canonical regions") and αναλυτικές περιφέρειες for analytical regions. --Henrygb 20:38, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Where does Eurostat use 'periphery' to mean 'region'? The search "site:eurostat.ec.europa.eu periphery greece" finds nothing, though 'regions' does. In fact, Eurostat seems to use 'region' consistently for the periferies of Greece. I am even more convinced that the name of this article needs to be changed. --Macrakis 19:12, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I do not think "periphery" is a correct translation of periferia in this case, though of course they go back to the same root. The National Statistical Service of Greece seems to use the word "region", which makes much more sense. As for 'kanonistikes' vs. 'analitikes' -- I haven't looked at the Eurostat source document, but my guess is that these mean exactly what you expect: 'kanonistikes' would mean 'as defined by regulations' i.e. administrative regions; 'analitikes' is 'as used for analysis/statistics'. (cf. the US Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs) which do not correspond to administrative/legal areas. I suggest that this article be renamed as Administrative Regions of Greece. --Macrakis 06:25, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Where do you see the translation at the Statistical Service page? "It's all Greek to me" (like you haven't heard that about a jillion times :-) ). "Administrative region" is kind of a mouthful - "region" alone would be OK if one could establish sufficient precedent. " Category:Subnational entities includes a variety of examples; in some cases you can see people using untranslated terms when there is not an agreed-upon translation into English. Stan 14:22, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you search "site:www.statistics.gr periphery" or "peripheries", you will find 11 results, but 0 for periphery or peripheries. If you look at some of these documents, you'll see that they use "region" to mean precisely a "periphery"; they also use "geographical region" which merges some of the peripheries, e.g. Central and West Macedonia into Macedonia, North and South Aegean into Aegean. In fact, if you look at Greek sites in general (site:gr peripheries vs. regions), you'll find that 'peripheries' is not very common, and is mostly used with the English sense. By the way, if you want the Statistical Services site in English, click on the word 'English' in the upper right hand corner of their home page. --Macrakis 19:07, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My Greek is non-existent. My English is rather better. I cannot believe that "periphery" is the correct translation of periferia. The purpose of translation must be to convey meaning. Surely the meaning of periferia is something like "region", "district", "province" &c.? The peripheries are on the edge and every area of Greece cannot be "on the edge", surely? Avalon 12:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

'Periphery' is not an English translation of the Greek word, it is merely a simplied transliteration. 'Peripheries of Greece' is complete nonsense. I am changing the title of this article to 'Regions of Greece', and all instances of 'periphery/peripheries' to 'region/regions'. Timothy Cooper (talk) 10:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Lists[edit]

There should be more on the role that these units actually play in Greek government, and proportionately less space for trivia lists... AnonMoos 15:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm wacking the pure-trivia lists. The Monster 16:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course, at least in this article there should be more on the role that the peripheries play in Greek government but on the other hand e.g. the lists in the set of articles about prefectures are an excellent resource to access information about all municipalities, communities and settlements in Greece, I really wouldn't like to lose it!

Sivullinen (talk) 16:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Administration of the 'Peripheries of Greece'[edit]

Considering the statement "After the legislative reform of 1994 most of the administrative duties of the prefectures were transferred to the peripheries" in the article about prefectures, it's surpising how little (in fact, nothing at the moment!) this article tells about administration of the peripheries!

Sivullinen (talk) 14:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Grenglish[edit]

Wow, I realize I'm responding to some old comments (the ones below mine), but let me try to straighten this out. The main problem here is that administrative units in English-speaking countries tend to be quite different from those in Greece, and hence the vocabulary associated with them is inadequate in translation.

The Greek periféries are more correctly translated as "regions", and this is the trend in official sources in Greece, as one user mentions below. However, I do not advocate a renaming of the article to "Regions of Greece" because that would create confusion with the ever-important non-administrative regions of Greece (Epirus, Macedonia, Thrace, Thessaly, Peloponnese, Sterea Ellada, Ionian islands, Dodecannese islands, Cyclades, Crete. Did I miss any?!). Indeed, the article alludes to these entities, and it is important not to create confusion about them. So I have taken a middle position and put an explanatory note at the beginning of the article, while leaving the title intact.

One person below mentions "eparchies" as a possible translation of periféries, but this is incorrect. Eparchies might be considered to be counties, except that they have no political power, unlike counties in English-speaking countries.

The English word that creates the most trouble is "province". There is technically no provincial equivalent in Greece, yet both periféries and nomoi are often translated as provinces. The word "province" seems to me interchangeable in everyday language among English speakers discussing Greece, but it really has no place in a formal discussion like in this article.

So, to conclude: Nomoi are prefectures, and periféries are regions. Provinces do not exist in Greece. Nojamus (talk) 19:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

'Periphery' is not an English translation of the Greek word, it is merely a simplied transliteration. 'Peripheries of Greece' is complete nonsense. I am changing the title of this article to 'Regions of Greece', and all instances of 'periphery/peripheries' to 'region/regions'. Timothy Cooper (talk) 10:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Merge discussion[edit]

It seems to me that the Peripheral units of Greece section has information that would be useful to include here, and I think the distinction between Peripheries and Peripheral units is confusing and shouldn't really be made. I would say it's better to have the two as one article. Stever Augustus (talk) 05:48, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

The "peripheral units" article is definitely not complete, and should be cleaned up and expanded, for instance with an explanation of the difference in powers between the old prefectures and the current peripheral units. And the "peripheries" article should mention the peripheral units of course. We're still discussing what to do with the Kallikratis reforms on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Greece. I don't think merging the two is the best way. Markussep ^Talk 08:34, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

It may now be time to remove the merge template, don't you think? Clearly peripheries and peripheral units are not the same subject. Place Clichy (talk) 11:42, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

As nobody objected to the above comment and since both pages have been renamed since then, I'll remove the now outdated merge template on both pages. Place Clichy (talk) 09:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Use the transliteration in the title?[edit]

I don't know Greek. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the English word periphery's history is:

[L]ate 14c., from O.Fr. periferie, from L.L. peripheria, from Gk. peripheria "circumference, outer surface," lit. "a carrying around," from peripheres "rounded, moving round, revolving," peripherein "carry or move round," from peri- "round about" (see peri-) + pherein "to carry" (see infer).

So, should the article's title use the *transliteration* peripheria (if it's the same transliteration from the Modern Greek), as other articles have done to name concepts, etc., from other languages that do not share the Latin-based writing system? Plus, in the article, we could help the reader place the word a bit better by saying something like, "Peripheria is also the etymological ancestor of the English word periphery, which is sometimes used to the Greek regions in English." If it's a different word, call it an etymological relative via the ancient word peripheria.

Sorry that all I can do is propose this here. I'm kinda limited randomly by an auto-immune illness, but it does make me happy if I can help out just a little here and there. HTH and if so, thanks to the person who follows through on this!

--Geekdiva (talk) 08:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Ps. We've got so many useful words from Greek and Latin, that we sometimes try to find a cognate because it seems to be the "same word," when a true translation and/or transliteration would be better. Be careful of those false friends when working with other languages! Although it's not exactly a false friend situation, is it... More of a reverse false friend or maybe... A false translation? We're not using a word in the other language, but in our primary language, so... Anyway, thanks! --Geekdiva (talk) 11:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Official terminology?[edit]

We have all this discussion and debate about what the proper translation/transliteration is, but it doesn't look like anyone has addressed what these administrative divisions are officially called in English by the Greek government. The Japanese government, for example, consistently uses the word "prefectures" and never "provinces" or "states" when discussing the 都道府県 in English. What do the Greeks call the Περιφέρειες in official English-language versions of official documents? LordAmeth (talk) 22:26, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The Official Terminology[edit]

We can bring the debates about translation of the Greek "periferies" to an end. The official Greek government translations are given in this document: http://www.ypes.gr/UserFiles/f0ff9297-f516-40ff-a70e-eca84e2ec9b9/Structure_and_operation_Greece_2012.pdf . This was circulated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the European Union member states in 2012, meaning AFTER the Kallikratis plan was brought in. The document explains everything in crystal clear language.

The CURRENT sub-national levels of government are Municipalities (lowest level), Regions, and Decentralized Administration Authorities (sometimes mentioned simply as "Administration Authorities" in the document). This throws a big wrench in the discussions for the article. The word "region" can no longer be used to translate "periferies". Instead, the term "Administration Authorities" must be used. In other words, according to this document, the present article should be renamed "Administration Authorities of Greece".

I can't do all the editing right now, so I put this information out there for someone else to deal with. It would be a good idea for all interested editors to read the linked document, because it explains a lot of other interesting points about government organization. For example, it indicates that Administrative Authorities are part of the central government, whereas Regions and Municipalities are part of local government. It also goes into detail about the leaders, councils, and duties of the various levels of government.

Clarity at last! 206.248.130.172 (talk) 14:38, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. However, the term regions is indeed used in the document for peripheries/Περιφέρειες. The term decentralised administration authorities is used for the higher level, known in Wikipedia as Decentralized administrations/Αποκεντρωμένες διοικήσεις. So frankly I don't see anything to change. Place Clichy (talk) 13:01, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

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