Talk:Al-Darb al-Ahmar

Sources on administrative definition

Short response to the 'better sources needed' tag added to the administrative definition, there aren't any. One is from the official website of Cairo Governorate (Cairo.gov.eg) that states the main district (hayy) as Wasat al-Qahira, and the other is a well known geography scholar (in Egypt at least) who collects official maps (provided the administrative boundary of the district, which the governorate website did not). I have searched for the decree establishing the district, but did not find it. Even so, most do not have maps attached. A qism in Egypt is literally a police watd (qism bolees) and a hayy may be composed of one or more qisms. To make matters worse, the statistics agency, Capmas, mau collect information on the qism level and not the hayy level, giving no indication in the census which qisms belong to which ahyaa unless you can match it to admin maps or the names give them away. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ypedia1 (talk • contribs)

Hi Ypedia1, yeah that's understandable, I've often found it hard to find clear information from official sources in many countries. My main concern is that the citation to this link (government site) doesn't really show anything other than a district name, some contact info, and some links to local news. We should have something slightly clearer that a reader can check to reasonably verify this is right. I'll see if I can find anything in some recent books about Cairo. If there's nothing else for now, I'm also fine with removing the inline tag and replacing it with an invisible comment to note this discussion instead. Thanks for the reply! R Prazeres (talk) 21:29, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Actually, another concern is that the relevant Wikipedia article on this (Subdivisions of Egypt), but also some independent reliable sources (e.g. p.103 of this book, or p.10 of this older book) seem to clearly say that a hay is below the level of a qism, whereas the new wording in the lead here implies it's the other way around. Can you clarify what you meant? R Prazeres (talk) 22:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

• Unfortunately both the subdivisions page (which I nomitated to merge with Local Government in Egypt which I have tried to evolve), and the book are wrong. You can see here in the cairo.gov.eg page for the Western Area how it is subdivided into ahyaa. And Lo and Behold, found a decree showing qism al-Darb al-Ahmar as part of Hayy Wasat and having 13 shiakhas (non admin census blocks). Will be putting that in.Ypedia1 (talk) 01:46, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

  Ok, that looks clear enough for the purposes of this page. Not sure that per Wikipedia's verifiability policy we can dismiss two different books saying the same thing so easily, but that's something to be sorted out at Local Government in Egypt/Subdivisions of Egypt if needed. Thanks, R Prazeres (talk) 03:13, 21 February 2023 (UTC)