Template talk:Infobox German place

how exactly image_plan is supposed to work to get infobox mapframe?

The documentation is unclear, how does one activate a standard mapframe on a location that doesn't have a specific image file? --Joy (talk) 14:21, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Remove |image_plan= from the infobox in the article. You can test this at Aalen. Remove |image_plan= and its value without saving the article, and click Preview. You will see a mapframe map if you click "[show]". – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:36, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Oh, it's an either-or situation, I see now, thanks. Can we make it possible to see both? Sometimes the prepared map is nice, but sometimes the maplink zoom out function is also nice to better see context. --Joy (talk) 19:14, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I expect that it is possible, but I am not willing to try to figure out the code to make it work. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:07, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, the syntax is horrendous, looks like nobody made an effort to use better indentation. --Joy (talk) 10:24, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I took a stab at making it vaguely more readable with this edit.

It did add a little bit of extra spacing in the test cases, that could be eliminated with a more careful use of HTML comments <!-- -->, but I doubt anyone actually really cares for that. --Joy (talk) 13:00, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Small hiccup: the sandbox now fails at test cases#Test Kluse: "Error: No valid link was found at the end of line 2." -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:10, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Ah, thanks, I didn't notice it as it was hidden behind the [show] link. I'll look into it. --Joy (talk) 20:12, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Looks like the transclusion of {{Imagemap Germany district EL}} was too sensitive to the extra newline in the parameter, looks to be fixed now. --Joy (talk) 21:24, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

@Markussep is there any reason why your May edit seems to have reverted my April one? --Joy (talk) 01:18, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

I meant to remove image_seal and do some minor corrections. If I changed anything to the image_plan code, that was unintended. Feel free to revert that. Markussep ^Talk 21:06, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

URL error on Gemeindeschlüssel

The |Gemeindeschlüssel= parameter is causing some sort of URL error, i fixed some article including this and this, but many articles still have the error message.––kemel49^{(connect)(contri)} 15:38, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Similar incident also reported on Template talk:Infobox German district#Kreisschlüssel parameter.––kemel49^{(connect)(contri)} 15:51, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

I can't see any difference between the template-generated URL and your manually inserted one. I suspect some false error by the cite template. You should raise this at Help talk:CS1 errors. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 15:58, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

yes, no difference at all. But the url error message is gone. That parameter is having some issue.––kemel49^{(connect)(contri)} 16:01, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

@Michael Bednarek, I was discussing the same issue with Trappist the monk and they pointed out the root cause behind all errors.––kemel49^{(connect)(contri)} 19:23, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Use Wikidata as backup source for area and population?

Proposal --- let's use Wikidata to fill in area and population if not otherwise given in arguments to this infobox.

Current state --- Currently, German place populations are maintained in a database local to en, imported from de, using the {{Population Germany}} template. This requires a manual copying step. If a place population is not available in the database, the infobox falls back onto a value supplied in the article.

New state --- I just wrote Module:Settlement Wikidata, which robustly fetches both area and population from the corresponding Wikidata entity. It only returns a value if Wikidata has an external source for the value, per the community standard. The code produces a nicely formatted reference for the Wikidata source. The module also fetches the most recent value, if more than one is stored. The module is already used to supply area and/or population for more than 48,000 place articles in France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, and Romania.

The sandbox calls the module if the area or population is not provided to the infobox. This matches what editors expect: if you supply a value to the infobox, you expect it to show up and not be ignored.

Note --- if you look at the test cases, you will see that the sandbox values differ by a few percent from the existing values. That is because Germany actually maintains two different population numbers: the states (Länder) estimate population from residency registration, while the federal government performs a census. People in Germany do not always update their residency when they move, so a small inaccuracy creeps into the state-level estimates. Currently, {{Population Germany}} uses the state-level estimates while Wikidata uses the federal census.

Comments/thoughts? --- what do editors think of this proposed change? — hike395 (talk) 14:45, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

 Implemented --- no discussion, so went ahead and promoted change to main template. — hike395 (talk) 01:30, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

I totally missed this proposal, and I don't think it's a good idea. The template {{Population Germany}} is updated regularly with little effort (I've done it most of the time, and have just updated the remaining states to Dec 2024), Wikidata isn't updated that regularly. I've reverted the population part back to {{Population Germany}}, and left the area part as it was (using Wikidata, if nothing else specified). Markussep ^Talk 08:29, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

References

Notice of ongoing RFC

There is currently a discussion at Template talk:Infobox settlement regarding the removal of custom parameters from settlement based Infoboxes. The thread is RFC: Should we deprecate and remove the use of custom parameters. This RFC could directly impact this template therefore you are invited to participate!

German parameters

I am in the process of a mass cleanup of infoboxes. This one is on my list... Is there a reason that this Infobox supports non-english parameter names? I want to make sure I understand before I deprecate and clean them up... Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 03:06, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

Supporting German parameter names makes it easier to copy infoboxes from DE that use de:Vorlage:Infobox Gemeinde in Deutschland. Aside: I don't understand why these templates are not linked via Languages/Wikidata: d:Q13562262 (Infobox German place) vs. d:Q5911677 (Infobox Germany municipality). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:18, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

This opens a disastrous can of worms... If you wish to copy code from a foreign language wiki, you need to convert it to English. Based on this logic we would need to write a version of {{Infobox settlement}} for ever other language.... Why does Template:Infobox French commune not support French params? Or Template:Infobox Italian comune support Italian params? Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 03:22, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

I didn't express myself clearly. I didn't state that having German parameter names is desirable, I just described why they exist: this template was created in 2006 as a straight copy from de:Vorlage:Infobox Ort in Deutschland, since moved without REDIRECT (they don't believe in REDIRECTS over there) to de:Vorlage:Infobox Gemeinde in Deutschland. I don't know how about the history of other countries' commune infoboxes. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:36, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

@Michael Bednarek: in re-reading my comment, I realize I came across way to confrontational. Sorry about that! I was just trying to get a better understanding. Did not mean to attack you personally. I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to explain the history here! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 02:11, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

No need to be sorry; no confrontation or attack perceived. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:17, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

Code refactor

Per the above discussion, I am working on a major refactor of this Infobox. The first step is to convert it to be a full wrapper of {{Infobox settlement}}. The only noticeable difference with this change will be that the image map is no longer hidden per MOS:DONTHIDE. More changes to come and I will keep this thread updated. In the event that errors stop appearing, please post below and {{ping|Zackmann08}} me. I will address any issues ASAP. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 03:20, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Code block mentioned below

| type        = {{#if: {{{City|}}} {{{Town|}}} {{{Municipality|}}} | {{#switch: {{if empty|{{{Art|}}}|{{{type}}}}} 
        | Ortsteil = [[Ortsteil]]
        | Stadtteil = [[Stadtteil]]
        | Ortschaft = [[Ortschaft]]
        | Quarter = [[Quarter (urban subdivision)|Quarter]]
        | Village = [[Village]]
        | Borough = [[Stadtbezirk|Borough]]
        | = Part
        | #default = {{if empty|{{{Art|}}}|{{{type|}}}|Part}}
}} of {{#if:{{{City|}}} | {{Link if exists|{{{City}}} }} | {{#if:{{{Town|}}} | {{Link if exists|{{{Town}}} }} | {{#if:{{{Municipality|}}} | {{Link if exists|{{{Municipality}}} }} }} }} }}| {{#if: {{{Art|}}}{{{type|}}}| {{#switch: {{if empty|{{{Art|}}}|{{{type}}}}} 
        | City | city = [[List of cities in Germany by population|City]]
        | Stadt | Kreisfreie Stadt | [[Kreisfreie Stadt|Stadt]] | Town | town = [[Town#Germany|Town]]
        | Ortsgemeinde | Gemeinde | Markt | Municipality | municipality | Flecken = [[Municipalities of Germany|Municipality]]
        | Unincorporated area = [[Unincorporated area#Germany|Unincorporated area]]
	    | Amt = [[Amt]]
        | Samtgemeinde =  [[Samtgemeinde]]
        | Verbandsgemeinde = [[Verbandsgemeinde]]
        | Verwaltungsgemeinschaft = [[Municipal association (Germany)|Verwaltungsgemeinschaft]]
	| #default = {{if empty|{{{Art|}}}|{{{type}}}}}
}} | {{#if: {{{Gemeindeschlüssel|}}} | [[Municipalities of Germany|Municipality]] }} }} }}

@Phuzion, Primefac, Jonesey95, and Hike395: as a couple of the best editors I know (and those who often catch my boneheaded edits) wanted to solicit some input... The next step here is to reduce the numerous conflicting parameters here as well as eliminating the non-English parameters. Many of them exist for the sole purpose of copying Infoboxes from the German wiki and pasting them with no changes. There are numerous massive switch statements (see lines 10-29 for |type= or lines 51-69 for |subdivision_name1= for examples) that should really (IMHO) just be replaced by a plain Wikitext on the individual transclusions... The question is how best to do this on nearly 14,000 pages with any loss of valid information... My inclination is to use a number of custom substitution templates that will sub in the resulting value of the switch statement to each transclusion during a bot run. But perhaps there is a better approach/solution? Open to any ideas! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 02:52, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Plonked the code above for convenience, will give thoughts after I've actually looked at it. Primefac (talk) 10:33, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

So are you proposing that if someone enters |type=Ortschaft, that the value will display "Ortschaft of ..." instead of "Ortschaft of ..."? What is the value of removing that link? I don't know what an Ortschaft is, or how it is different from an Ortsteil, and I'm a pretty educated person. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:45, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Huh, good point. Complex code in an infobox isn't a terrible thing if it makes the output more useful for the reader. Primefac (talk) 14:25, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

The issue Jonesey95 identified above can always be fixed with {{autolink}}... That being said, Primefac's point is a valid one. If the code helps and works (which this would seem to)...

To be clear, my primary concern is the presence of so many parameters that violate MOS:INFOBOXNAME (both capitals and non-English params). My initial thinking was that many of these parameters could simply be removed from the template if the code was substituted, but I could achieve the same end goal by just renaming the parameters.

Thoughts? Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 15:07, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

I recommend renaming and simplifying the parameters, removing the German-language parameters as much as possible. I suspect without doing any actual research that this template was created before decent translation tools were created on Wikipedia, and copying an infobox from de.WP to en.WP is now considerably easier without having to support parameters from other languages (we do it only in a tiny handful of templates). – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:24, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Indeed. I think the only hangup here is what to simply to. For example, above we have |City=, |Town=, and |Municipality= which set the descriptor "X of <name>"; people get really fussy when we have a term that "isn't right", e.g. if we use |city= if the place is actually a town (gasp!). What would we name this three-in-one parameter? Primefac (talk) 15:30, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Rather than creating a giant substitution template, I could also use Primefac's infobox code and a mapping of {{{old_param}}} → {{{new_param}}} to mass-update this infobox. This is how I have handled most of the more recent infobox parameter cleanups. phuzion (talk) 15:26, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that's part of the debate, the debate is how many params to keep, how many to merge together, and how many to get rid of entirely (i.e. this is about setting things up, not implementing the changes). Primefac (talk) 15:30, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Prime is dead on. Definitely going to use the mass updating of param names. Params like |City= and |Town= are easy. Just lowercase them.... The question is what to do with parameters like |Gemeindeschlüssel=? My inclination is to just use google translate to come up with an English version of the parameter. In this case |Gemeindeschlüssel= → |municipality_code=. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 15:34, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Got it. Unfortunately, I don't have much in terms of useful input here. I am all for what I've seen so far, though. phuzion (talk) 15:39, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

For the record (and I'm technically german by heritage so this is nothing against the german people), but this language is INSANE! Words with like 47 letters in them?! schenfreude.... Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 17:41, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 and Primefac: Ok back to being serious, I am keeping all of the logic and just replacing param names with their English equivalent. There is a collection of parameters for subdivision_type4/subdivision_name4 that I'm at a loss as to what to do with. |Gemeindeverwaltungsverband=, |Samtgemeinde=, |Verwaltungsgemeinschaft=, |Amt= and |Verwaltungsverband= exist for the SOLE purpose of picking how to link the level4 subdisivion. My thinking is that this is the one place where it would make since to do my original subsitution idea... replace this complicated logic with just a simple |municipal_association_type= and |municipal_association= as shown here:

<!-- CURRENT -->
| subdivision_type4  = {{#if: {{{Gemeindeverwaltungsverband|}}} | [[Gemeindeverwaltungsverband|Municipal assoc.]] |
  {{#if: {{{Samtgemeinde|}}} | [[Samtgemeinde|Municipal assoc.]] |
  {{#if: {{{Verbandsgemeinde|}}} | [[Verbandsgemeinde|Municipal assoc.]] |
  {{#if: {{{Verwaltungsgemeinschaft|}}} | [[Verwaltungsgemeinschaft|Municipal assoc.]] |
  {{#if: {{{Amt|}}} | [[Amt|Municipal assoc.]] |
  {{#if: {{{Verwaltungsverband|}}} | [[Verwaltungsverband|Municipal assoc.]]
  }} }} }} }} }} }}
  
| subdivision_name4  = {{Link if exists|{{#if: {{{Gemeindeverwaltungsverband|}}} | {{#ifexist: {{{Gemeindeverwaltungsverband}}} (Gemeindeverwaltungsverband) | [[{{{Gemeindeverwaltungsverband}}} (Gemeindeverwaltungsverband){{!}}{{{Gemeindeverwaltungsverband}}}]] | {{{Gemeindeverwaltungsverband}}} }} |
  {{#if: {{{Samtgemeinde|}}} | {{#ifexist: {{{Samtgemeinde}}} (Samtgemeinde) | [[{{{Samtgemeinde}}} (Samtgemeinde){{!}}{{{Samtgemeinde}}}]] | {{{Samtgemeinde}}} }} |
  {{#if: {{{Verbandsgemeinde|}}} | {{#ifexist: {{{Verbandsgemeinde}}} (Verbandsgemeinde) | [[{{{Verbandsgemeinde}}} (Verbandsgemeinde){{!}}{{{Verbandsgemeinde}}}]] | {{{Verbandsgemeinde}}} }} |
  {{#if: {{{Verwaltungsgemeinschaft|}}} | {{#ifexist: {{{Verwaltungsgemeinschaft}}} (Verwaltungsgemeinschaft) | [[{{{Verwaltungsgemeinschaft}}} (Verwaltungsgemeinschaft){{!}}{{{Verwaltungsgemeinschaft}}}]] | {{{Verwaltungsgemeinschaft}}} }} |
  {{#if: {{{Amt|}}} | {{#ifexist: {{{Amt}}} (Amt) | [[{{{Amt}}} (Amt){{!}}{{{Amt}}}]] | {{{Amt}}} }} |
  {{#if: {{{Verwaltungsverband|}}} | {{#ifexist: {{{Verwaltungsverband}}} (Verwaltungsverband) | [[{{{Verwaltungsverband}}} (Verwaltungsverband){{!}}{{{Verwaltungsverband}}}]] | {{{Verwaltungsverband}}} }}
  }} }} }} }} }} }} }}

<!-- REPLACEMENT -->

| subdivision_type4 = [[{{if empty|{{{municipal_association_type|}}}|Municipal association (Germany)}}|Municipal assoc.]]
| subdivision_name4 = {{{municipal_association|}}}

I just don't see any other logical way to do this without keeping German langauge parameters... Thoughts? --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 18:01, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Actually don't have to do a substitution template... Can just do a complicated regex and simplify it that way. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 18:48, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Deprecation of parameters

As part of a larger effort to eliminate conflicting parameters, I will be refactoring multiple aspects of this template and deprecating a number of parameter aliases. This is also part of an effort to make things consistent across Infoboxes. As part of this cleanup, I am also going to fix parameter names that fail to conform to MOS:INFOBOXNAME. Note that this follows a long list of similar clean ups that I have done on countless other Infoboxes. The parameters I plan to replace are the following:

Deprecate	Replace with
|Name=	|name=
|German_name=	|native_name=
|image_photo=	|image=
|image_skyline=
|imagesize=	|image_size=
|image_caption=	|caption=
|Website=	|website=
|Vorwahl=	|area_code=
|PLZ=	|postal_code=
|Kfz=	|registration_plate=
|licence=
|pop_urban=	|population_urban=
|pop_metro=	|population_metro=
|pop_demonym=	|population_demonym=
|demonym=
|area_metro=	|area_metro_km2=
|Höhe=	|elevation_m=
|elevation=
|Partei=	|leader_party=
|party=
|Fläche=	|area_total_km2=
|area=
|Art=	|type=
|Wappen=	|image_coa=
|year=	|founded=
|year_of_first_mention=	|first_mentioned=
|dissolved=	|disbanded=
|Gliederung=	|subdivisions=
|divisions=
|Bundesland=	|state=
|Regierungsbezirk=	|region=
|regbzk=
|Landkreis=	|district=
|Kreis=
|City=	|city=
|Town=	|town=
|Municipality=	|municipality=
|Lageplan=	|image_plan=
|Lageplanbeschreibung=	|map_caption=
|plantext=
|Einwohner=	|population=
|Stand=	|population_as_of=
|key=	|municipality_code=
|Gemeindeschlüssel=
|Gemeindeverwaltungsverband=	Merge all these to |municipal_association_type=
|Samtgemeinde=
|Verbandsgemeinde=
|Verwaltungsgemeinschaft=
|Amt=
|Verwaltungsverband=

Please chime in below with any questions, comments or concerns about this cleanup. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 02:55, 27 September 2026 (UTC)