Talk:Rome/Districts

district borders
Original discussion moved here from Talk:Rome

It's clearly time to reach some consensus on district borders for Rome (see Project:Geographical_hierarchy for some background): agree which districts to list; for each district clearly write the streets that make up its borders.

IT.wikipedia article was mentioned above. Also, I've just found something in EN.wikipedia--for some it even defines streets that border specific district.

Opinions, please? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:51, 13 December 2007 (EST)


 * I think we need more than just firmer borders&mdash;the districts are right now an overlapping & overflowing mess. Here's a suggested re-ordering to move ourselves in the right direction (hopefully). I'm pretty unsure of some of these names, hopefully someone will help come up with better ones.


 * Centro:
 * Modern Center (or Downtown Rome): combine Via Veneto, Quirinale, Castro Pretorio, Repubblica, & Trevi
 * Old Rome: combine Navona, Campo de' Fiori, & Pantheon (and include the Ghetto)
 * Campo Marzio: combine Villa Borghese, Campo Marzio, Parioli, & Spagna
 * Borgo: combine Vaticano & Prati, rmv Vatican City from the districts list, since it is for our purposes contained by Vaticano, & add Monte Mario (kind of shameful that we have no information about this now!)
 * Coloseo: leave as is, with the Forum & Palatine Hill included
 * Trastevere: leave as is
 * Aventino-Testaccio: combine Testaccio & Aventino
 * Esquilino-San Giovanni: combine Esquilino & San Giovanni, naturally
 * Nomentano: combine Nomentano & San Lorenzo (the same as Municipio III)


 * Then there's a bunch more area in the city, perhaps we should have a couple big districts to encompass less-dense areas like:


 * Rome South: EUR, San Paolo, Via Appia, Beaches (like Ostia), Municipi 5-13
 * Rome North: Salario, parts of Municipio 2 not included above, & Municipi 4, 15-20


 * All administrative division lists should, of course, be removed.


 * That would give us 11 districts, which I think is a healthy number for a city of Rome's size & density. But we can always subdivide them later when we have more content, or when a local joins the discussion with some deeper knowledge of these areas. I'm not an expert on Rome, just a fan, and I haven't found any very good sources of information for this, so I'm very open to suggestions & criticism. I'd like to hear some support before changing anything too drastically, and I'll try to put up a draft map soon to show how these districts would relate to one another. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 15:44, 11 April 2008 (EDT)


 * I'm not any kind of expert in Rome at all, but having as little as 11 districts is alone a great idea, whatever division is used. And I look forward to hearing experts supporting your division. Thanks for your proposal, Peter! --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:09, 11 April 2008 (EDT)


 * To my opinion the above district division is much better for tourists than the formal administrative division list.--(WT-en) Aklyuch 22:23, 13 April 2008 (EDT)


 * OK, here's a map  showing the district borders (not all the borders, but this does show all the crucial ones). I can't upload it to Wikivoyage, because it is a copyvio, but it should demonstrate what I understand the borders to be. Again, this is bound to be imperfect, since I don't know Rome very well, and would benefit a lot from a native Roman's perspective. So, does this look right?


 * To see how the big North & South districts divide, take a look at this image, which shows all the Roman municipi, identifiable by number. Again, its most of Municipio 2, & Municipi 4, 15-20 in the North, and Municipi 5-13 for the South.


 * I decided to switch names from Borgo to Vatican, since that is a more famous, if less accurate, name for the area of that district. I also think it's fine to drop the hyphenated "-San Giovanni" to just Esquilino, since that district is basically all within the official rione of Esquilino. I'm also inclined to move Parioli to Rome North, unless anyone thinks that's a bad idea. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 13:41, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

I am on board with all of this. The districts section is way to large and I like the way Peter has suggested handling this problem. I also support making this change sooner rather than later. (I don't have any wikivoyage authority, but I thought I would chime in anyway) (WT-en) Carson 19:59, 26 May 2008 (EDT)


 * Fantastic! And don't worry, there's no such thing as "authority" here&mdash;we're all equals in making decisions. If you're up to the challenge of overhauling the districts, I'd encourage you to plunge forward as soon as you feel like it. (It is a big task, though.) We've got a pretty solid consensus for this new districts organization, and we can always revise it in the future if it seems worthwhile to do so. Please also see the discussion here&mdash;I think we're ready to also do away with the Vatican City article and merge all that content into the new "Rome/Vatican" district article.


 * By the way, I replaced that flickr map & updated the link, since it accidentally called Aventino-Testaccio "Nomentano." --(WT-en) Peter Talk 20:29, 26 May 2008 (EDT)

(request: The ghetto/jewish ghetto region(s) is mentioned on the page and in other guide books, but I don't know which of the districts listed would include it, thanks, Aaron) —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 69.250.79.152 (talk • contribs)

The jewish ghetto is in the rione Sant'Angelo and its borders are more or less in the area between the Tiber river, Largo Argentina and Piazza Venezia. Rome is a very big city and its division in district is mainly the following: 11 rioni which are all togehter considere the histroical center of rome: * R.I - Monti * R.II - Trevi * R.III - Colonna * R.IV - Campo Marzio * R.V - Ponte * R.VI - Parione * R.VII - Regola * R.VIII - Sant'Eustachio * R.IX - Pigna * R.X - Campitelli * R.XI - Sant'Angelo * R.XII - Ripa * R.XIII - Trastevere * R.XIV - Borgo * R.XV - Esquilino * R.XVI - Ludovisi * R.XVII - Sallustiano * R.XVIII - Castro Pretorio * R.XIX - Celio * R.XX - Testaccio * R.XXI - San Saba * R.XXII - Prati

35 districts or quartieri: * Q.I Flaminio * Q.II Parioli * Q.III Pinciano * Q.IV Salario * Q.V Nomentano * Q.VI Tiburtino * Q.VII Prenestino-Labicano * Q.VIII Tuscolano * Q.IX Appio Latino * Q.X Ostiense * Q.XI Portuense * Q.XII Gianicolense * Q.XIII Aurelio * Q.XIV Trionfale * Q.XV Della Vittoria * Q.XVI Monte Sacro * Q.XVII Trieste * Q.XVIII Tor di Quinto * Q.XIX Prenestino-Centocelle * Q.XX Ardeatino * Q.XXI Pietralata * Q.XXII Collatino * Q.XXIII Alessandrino * Q.XXIV Don Bosco * Q.XXV Appio Claudio * Q.XXVI Appio Pignatelli * Q.XXVII Primavalle * Q.XXVIII Monte Sacro Alto * Q.XXIX Ponte Mammolo * Q.XXX San Basilio * Q.XXXI Giuliano Dalmata * Q.XXXII EUR * Q.XXXIII Lido di Ostia Ponente * Q.XXXIV Lido di Ostia Levante * Q.XXXV Lido di Castel Fusano

There are also other districts which are called "suburbi" and "Zone" which are part of Rome but are more or less outskirts of Rome. I published a web site which has useful information and maps about rome and its division in districts as well as north east west south division: 00100 Roma. historical center of Rome North East Rome North west Rome South west Rome South east Rome

Unfortunately it's in Italian but I'll be translating it soon in english and enhancing it with detailed google maps. Hope this can be useful--(WT-en) yehudi


 * Thank you, that is useful, especially your website's division of the regions outside the city center. Wikivoyage's needs are a bit different, since we need to break apart the city center into smaller articles, and need to combine the larger, but less touristed areas outside the city center into less articles (I think). Do you think that the districts I proposed above make sense? Do the borders within the city center look accurate, or do they need adjustment? And do you think the proposed combination of non-city-center municipi (Rome North: 5-13; Rome South: parts of Municipio 2 & Municipi 4, 15-20) looks appropriate? I'd really appreciate hearing your advice on this issue. Thanks!  --(WT-en) Peter Talk 12:57, 29 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Well, I would prefer to hear from a local before implementing this district hierarchy, but it's been a very long time waiting; we can always adjust it in the future. Since openstreetmap.org now has good coverage of Rome, I can create a districts map of the city that we can use here. So I'll work on that, and then I'd like to finally see this new scheme implemented. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 20:12, 9 October 2008 (EDT)


 * On second thought, never mind. The openstreetmap Rome project still isn't quite detailed enough for me to properly show the district borders. If only there were PD satellite imagery of the city... --(WT-en) Peter Talk 18:09, 12 October 2008 (EDT)

Well, I've now implemented the new districts hierarchy. Info in the main article still needs to be sorted into the districts, though. A map would be fantastic for showing the district borders, but I can't find any suitable source material to create one. (Europe, quit being so retrograde and get your PD mapping materials together!) --(WT-en) Peter Talk 16:36, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

Round II
Dear Peter, please don't merge the Roman districts into a few districts because Rome is so different and full of history that have to be explained in every part of it ! For example with the merged version the Trevi Fountain is located into the Modern Rome ?!?!? or Aventino and Testaccio are merged but they are completely different, the Testaccio one is a popular district of Rome meanwhile Aventino is a luxury district for diplomates !!! I could continue for hours...I was born in Rome and I live in Rome adn this week-end I'll make a rational work into this section and I'll add several information about every district. Ciao (WT-en) Borisgiulivi 10:39, 16 October 2008 (CET)


 * What a mess. I left this discussion up for 1/2 a year before implementing the new hierarchy; comments would have been appreciated before I spent 3 hours reorganizing the content. Please document and discuss your proposed changes to the districts hierarchy before continuing further. It's necessary that we work with consensus on this. I'm no expert on Rome, nor do I claim to be, but I do know a lot about how to organize content by Wikivoyage districts, and should be able to help with the task. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 20:39, 18 October 2008 (EDT)


 * Good Afternoon from Rome My name is Prof. Alberto Maria Raceli, I've been instructed to carry out this work on the neighborhoods of Rome by Boris , my grandson has asked me to fix this issue , because in his opinion this division is pretty weak compared to the rich history of Rome. Basically I agree with him, passionate student of urban planning, that the division should be optimized creating at least 7-8 large areas of the historical center and creating even 4 large areas outside the center and Ostia, with its magnificent ancient ruins. Let me know if you agree to be able to work. Dear Greetings Alberto Pasquino 19:34, 19 October 2008 (CET)


 * This sounds like a good start to reorganizing the districts of Rome, and would be interested to see your thoughts on where the boundaries should lie. I suspected that Ostia might be able to support its own article, so that sounds fine to me.


 * What's most important is that we have firm boundaries for each district, and that each district can support a well developed travel article, with information for all the article sections (see, eat, do, sleep, drink). Provided each of the four large areas outside the center will have entries for each of these sections, that sounds like a fine division, provided we can come up with clear boundaries for each of the four districts. Anyway, I look forward to seeing a detailed proposal. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 13:58, 19 October 2008 (EDT)

Round III


Round II died quickly for lack of interest, I guess. I have now uploaded a districts map (to the right), which closely follows the proposal outlined in the Round 1 discussion. The most noteworthy change was to fold Campo Marzio, Parioli, and Salario into one large "northern central neighborhoods" district. I'm not at all sure that this (or the rest of the structure) is optimal, so I'd be very happy to hear other opinions, and just as amenable to changing the structure. But the district defining process has been crawling along for about a full year, so it's past time to get all the listings off the overview article&mdash;they can be moved around if we shift the district boundaries/names.

The map is hard to read at thumbnail size, but if you download the (large) image file, you can zoom down to a level where you can read the street names and see the exact district borders. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 18:06, 9 March 2009 (EDT)


 * If anyone wants to play around with the SVG file for this map, let me know. Unfortunately you would have to get the SVG region borders and the OSM PNG image separately and combine them manually, since (to my knowledge), I cannot embed the image itself into an SVG using Inkscape. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 18:09, 9 March 2009 (EDT)


 * Looks nice. Quick question: is Aventino-Testaccio part of Rome/South now? Never mind. Looks great! (WT-en) PerryPlanet Talk 18:51, 9 March 2009 (EDT)


 * Oops, I meant to say "oops." Fixed now ;) --(WT-en) Peter Talk 00:21, 10 March 2009 (EDT)

Image:Rome districts test.PNG

Per your suggestion, I messed around and remade the map into a smaller scale which has the districts, major roads, and railroads. What do you think? (WT-en) PerryPlanet Talk 00:02, 12 March 2009 (EDT)


 * Looks good --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) Talk 00:11, 12 March 2009 (EDT)


 * Looks good to me! Just a couple of suggestions (mostly per various discussions at Project:Regions Map Expedition): 1) de-bold the district names; 2) give a different color to the most principal roads (mustard is good); 3) darken the rail lines&mdash;I missed them on my first glance; and 4) give the map a Wikivoyage-style title (a la Project:Regions_Map_Expedition). All totally optional suggestions of course ;) --(WT-en) Peter Talk 00:12, 12 March 2009 (EDT)

Image:Rome districts test2.png

Good suggestions, Peter. How about this? (WT-en) PerryPlanet Talk 01:03, 12 March 2009 (EDT)


 * Looks good with one exception, I was thinking you should try to distinguish between the 2-3 big roads and the rest, by using a mustard like this one (which shows up more prominently), and leaving the rest white, and slightly thinner. One last thought&mdash;the river is the defining geographical feature, so it's probably best to make it stand out more. More opacity, a deeper blue, etc. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 01:23, 12 March 2009 (EDT)



Ah yes, how could I forget about the river? I'll link the last two maps, to ease the bandwidth load on this page. (WT-en) PerryPlanet Talk 02:41, 12 March 2009 (EDT)


 * Looks great! --(WT-en) Peter Talk 03:00, 12 March 2009 (EDT)

Another question: I just noticed that Rome/South has info on Lido di Ostia. Are we planning to merge Lido di Ostia into Rome/South? (WT-en) PerryPlanet Talk 17:01, 12 March 2009 (EDT)


 * No, Ostia should be a separate article. I know absolutely nothing about that area, though. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 19:32, 12 March 2009 (EDT)

Round IV
As a newcomer to this discussion I'm amazed at how much there is here. Anyway, I just feel that Campo Marzio-Parioli-Salaria is a bit of a mouthful. Also, I am familiar with Parioli and Salaria but Campo Marzio is not normally used as a locator. Following a suggestion of Peter, would "North Center" be better? Sorry if it means reworking the map.

Re Ostia, I'm gradually removing references from Rome/South but Ostia is not really my area. Hope someone else can develop it. (WT-en) Shep 07:39, 24 April 2009 (EDT) Talk


 * (FYI: wikipedia:Campo Marzio). --(WT-en) Peter Talk 13:33, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

I don't deny it exists. But you would say "I am going to Parioli to see some friends" but never "I am going to Campo Marzio.....(WT-en) ShepTalk I also find Nomentano a bit confusing. Seems to me that Via Nomentano provides the northern border of this zone on the map. Would not Eastern Rome be better? (WT-en) Shep


 * Well, I do think North Center would be an improvement, since the current name is awkward. If there are no objections to this in the next week, I say we go forward and make the change.


 * As for Nomentano, though, it is a correct name for Municipio III . Eastern Rome runs into the problem that there is much of Rome to the East not included. East Central would be a fine description, Municipio III would also be clear, but I'd prefer we use something more vernacular and less bureaucratic or purely directional and ahistorical, even if it is not in very widespread use. And since we can simply state that it is coterminous with Municipio III in the main article's description, I think it should not be too confusing, even for people unfamiliar with the old quartiere name. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 15:25, 25 April 2009 (EDT)

OK. Thanks.(WT-en) Shep 13:04, 26 April 2009 (EDT)

Vatican City
I'm sure that this is a nobrainer for you guys, but not for me! I have just seen that there is a dispute on Wikipedia about whether Vatican City is an enclave within the city of Rome or adjacent to it. I assume that modern-day Rome is meant, not Ancient Rome, since the Vatican is a relatively recent entity. Several online sources have been cited in support of the enclave argument, but there is also evidence from maps for the "adjacent" claim. Any help would be much appreciated.(WT-en) Puzzler001 09:14, 23 July 2009 (EDT)


 * Let's keep this on Rome/Vatican, please. (WT-en) Jpatokal 12:09, 23 July 2009 (EDT)