Fix Scandinavia card

[imdanique]

Please consider updating (or splitting) the Scandinavia card to avoid confusion.

The current description matches the Nordic countries, not Scandinavia:

Historical and cultural region in Northern Europe, which includes the countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and sometimes Finland and Iceland.

In fact:
• Scandinavia = Norway, Sweden, Denmark
• Nordic countries = Scandinavia + Finland + Iceland

Reference: Wikipedia – Nordic countries

[aplaice]

Thanks, but AFAICT the current description and map are correct.

Composition
Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Sometimes also:
Åland
Faroe Islands
Finland
Iceland

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia

[axelboc]

While Finland differs from other Nordic countries in this respect, some authors call it Scandinavian due to its economic and cultural similarities.[4][5]

I could hear the argument that "calling Finland Scandinavian" doesn't quite equal to being part of Scandinavia.

It can sometimes also refer to the Scandinavian Peninsula (which excludes Denmark but includes a part of northern Finland)

Same: saying that Scandinavia "sometime includes Finland" because of its Northern part also feels like a stretch.

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Since this is a geography deck, perhaps we should refocus the card to refer specifically to the "subregion of Northern Europe" and include only Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the list?

[aplaice]

I could see having a "Scandinavian Peninsula" card which would be a physical geography card and would have an unambiguous definition.

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However, Scandinavia itself is arguably a more "cultural geography" term (it's also not really political geography) — even the narrow definition (Denmark, Norway, Sweden) is based on the linguistic/cultural/historical ties, rather than physical geography (Denmark!) — whose definition is based on perception.

AFAICT in English, it is indeed the case that "Scandinavia" sometimes also refers to Iceland and Finland, like Wikipedia states, again based on the (slightly weaker) linguistic/cultural/historical ties. Given that, I think it would be about as wrong to unambiguously exclude Finland and Iceland, as to unambiguously include them (omit the "sometimes").

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There's also the potential issue that unlike with physical and political geography where we can (mostly correctly :D) say that there's a single unambiguous truth and hence we can defer to English Wikipedia (and use other language sources only for names) that here usage varies by language.

OTOH on a cursory look it seems that our country_info.csv for Scandinavia already seems to follow the Wikipedias in the given languages (e.g. French (though see): Région historique et culturelle d'Europe du Nord constituée de trois monarchies constitutionnelles, le Danemark, la Norvège et la Suède, et parfois de façon incorrecte l'Islande et la Finlande. or Norwegian: Skandinavia betegner Sverige, Danmark og Norge. Norden inkluderer nabolandene Finland og Island.) in a way that also makes sense of the map, so I'm not sure there is an actual issue.

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Some options:

1. Keep Scandinavia as-is.
2. Change Scandinavia to just Sweden, Denmark, Norway.
3. Remove Scandinavia.
   a. Add a "Scandinavian Peninsula" card.
   b. Don't add a "Scandinavian Peninsula" card. (Remove Scandinavia altogether.)

(Technically the addition of the Peninsula card is separate from the fate of the "Scandinavia" card, so we could also have had 1a, 1b etc., but IMO having two Scandinavian-related cards would currently be silly given the sparsity of coverage of other regions.)

As noted above, IMO 2 would be just as wrong as unambiguously including Iceland and Finland. I also think that a Scandinavian Peninsula card would be much less useful than a Scandinavia card. Given that Scandinavia is currently our only "cultural geography" card, just removing it might make sense, but I'd defer that until we have some criteria for geographical regions (many (e.g. peninsulas) are purely physical geography, but many others are just as fuzzy/cultural as Scandinavia). (I believe we currently just have Scandinavia and the Balkan Peninsula (which is physical geography).) Hence, I'm strongly in favour of 1.

[OlofHaglund]

Thanks, but AFAICT the current description and map are correct.

Composition
Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Sometimes also:
Åland
Faroe Islands
Finland
Iceland

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia

If we add Green land to this list we have The Nordics. So then it might be worth thinking about to change the card into the "Nordic Countries"? Also I think it is dependent on how pedantic and what we want to teach. Do we want to teach what is most scholar correct or what most people are using?

OTOH on a cursory look it seems that our country_info.csv for Scandinavia already seems to follow the Wikipedias in the given languages (e.g. French (though see): Région historique et culturelle d'Europe du Nord constituée de trois monarchies constitutionnelles, le Danemark, la Norvège et la Suède, et parfois de façon incorrecte l'Islande et la Finlande. or Norwegian: Skandinavia betegner Sverige, Danmark og Norge. Norden inkluderer nabolandene Finland og Island.) in a way that also makes sense of the map, so I'm not sure there is an actual issue.

I don't speak french so I can't comment on it but the the Norwegian is not translated as you think. (Does not match the English wiki)

The Norwegian wiki says Scandinavia denotes Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The Nordics includes the neighboring countries Finland and Island.

[aplaice]

So then it might be worth thinking about to change the card into the "Nordic Countries"?

I'd be in favour of keeping Scandinavia. Based on my general impressions and Google trends, Scandinavia is the more useful (frequently used) term (compared to both "Nordics" and "Nordic Countries".)

Also I think it is dependent on how pedantic and what we want to teach.

True!

Do we want to teach what is most scholar correct or what most people are using?

I'm not sure how one defines "more correct" in a case where the name isn't really descriptive (for comparison one could try to argue about what definition of, say, West Africa is a more accurate description, but here it's just a name) (or one could maybe use a definition based on the peninsula, but that would exclude Denmark (and besides I suspect that the "Scandinavian Peninsula" is a later term than "Scandinavia")).

For a scholarly source that uses a mixture of the more inclusive and more exclusive definitions compare here. (I was trying to find a source that would discuss how the use of the term changed over time, but unfortunately couldn't.)

(I agree that given that the name Scandinavia originally comes Old Norse and given that in most of the languages descended from Old Norse (though apparently not in Icelandic...), Scandinavia has the more narrow definition, the narrow definition was likely the original usage. However, that doesn't directly determine which usage is currently more correct, in English.)

(Also: I, English Wikipedia and AUG do agree that the narrower usage is "more correct"; it's just that we don't consider the wider usage to be incorrect.)

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I don't speak french so I can't comment on it but the the Norwegian [...]. (Does not match the English wiki)

OTOH on a cursory look it seems that our country_info.csv for Scandinavia already seems to follow the Wikipedias in the given languages [emphasis added]

Norwegian Bokmål Wikipedia describes Scandinavia as "en [...] region som består av Norge, Danmark og Sverige", so the Norwegian country_info.csv and the corresponding Wikipedia seem to match.

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(Edit: This type of thread is why we try to offload definitional matters to Wikipedia, but I failed my self-restraint and went into a deep-dive...)

[axelboc]

The French country info also matches French Wikipedia — it says that Scandinavia sometimes incorrectly includes Iceland and Finland.

I'd tend to agree with making some sort of change to clarify the meaning of "sometimes". After all, in the intro, Wikipedia does say:

In English usage, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym for Nordic countries.

Perhaps:

Historical and cultural region in Northern Europe composed of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Sometimes used as synonym for Nordic countries, which include Finland and Iceland.

[zenon21]

Reviving this issue in support of replacing the "Scandinavia" card with a "Nordic countries" card. The "Notes" section might include that parts of the region are sometimes ambiguously referred to as "Scandinavia".

This came up for me as I was reading about the Nordic cross in the flags of the Nordic countries. The term "Nordic countries" helps better reinforce this grouping and might aid with the memorization of flags.

As I was reading through the Wikipedia page for "Scandinavia", I was also seeing the term is used ambiguously and inconsistently within and outside the region whereas "Nordic countries" refers unambiguously to a consistently defined group of countries that are members of the Nordic Co-operation. Referring to this political body for the definition would also enforce consistency between languages (e.g. French and English) and bring ambiguous/erroneous outside terminologies in line with the officially accepted definition within the region.