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It was suggested that this article should be renamed Regions of Bulgaria. The vote is shown below:

Right, But the word oblast exists not just in "Russian-English" or "Bulgarian-English" dictionaries, but also in the major dictionaries of the English Language, such as Webster, Oxford, etc, which makes it also an English word, albeit of the foreign origin. --Irpen 05:12, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is a case of shoehorning a specific term of foreign origin into a poorly-fitting English expedient. Does oblast really mean region, and not province or district? And what Irpen wrote. —Michael Z. 2005-07-12 19:28 Z
Naturally you always lose something in translation. The German "Kreis" is translated as "district" here, although it means "circle". That doesn't mean that we have to call all the German districts Kreis here, or circle. I don't know the difference between a region, province, or district, do you? If oblast really is a word that's used in English, then all articles of the Bulgarian oblasts/regions should be moved to X Oblast as well. Markussep 20:18, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
And "all other articles" are called Oblasts in UA and RU subdivisions. Of course this in itself does not prove the correctness of this particular way. Difference between region, province and district is subtle and context dependent. "Oblast" is a specific form of national subdivision. Whether its closest match is a province in nation X, region in nation Y, canton in nation Z, county in nation ZZ, etc., is very hard to tell. Anyway, its being a dictionary word makes a "non-englishness" argument moot. If it is clear to the majority of the voters that region is the best translation, then so be it. It is not clear to me, that's why I voted "oppose" above. --Irpen 20:33, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
and they are NOT called "X Oblast" outside RU, UA. Even on "subdivisions of Ukraine" in the translation table it says English wide-spread: province. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:38, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
To answer the question of exact translations:
  • rajon=region (sometimes admin unit, typically when it consists of smaller subdivisions; also concrete region e.g. a mountainous region)
  • provincija=province (rarely admin unit, typically a larger one; also a traditional geographic unit)
  • oblast=district (usually admin unit; also abstract region e.g. a scientific field; literally ~= "domain")
  • okrug=district (usually admin unit, typ. a smaller one; this is probably the best candidate for "county")
  • kraj=no exact english translation, closest is probably -land suffix (sometimes admin unit, typically larger; usually old-fashioned traditional geographic unit)
canton and county have no good native equivalent. These usage notes are common to all slavic languages, as far as I know, although some of the words would be quite rare in some languages. ObsidianOrder 10:19, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I am not a native speaker of English but I don't see why above translations are optimal. Not that I can propose a definite set of names, but this is exactly the reason why use the original term, if possible. For oblast it is possible because one can click on the oblast article and get the clue. It won't hurt, of course, to improve the oblast article, but this will happen with time. --Irpen 02:35, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Some further notes: the oblasts of Bulgaria are rather different from the provinces of Canada, but (I believe) analogous to the counties of some English-speaking countries or the departments of France (but neither "county" nor "department" would be suitable translations); the Balkans were divided into provinces under the Roman Empire, and modern Bulgaria would correspond to two or three of those, otherwise there is just one "provincija" in Bulgaria—all of it except the capital; "district attorney" is (or at least used to be) translated as "okruzhen prokuror", i.e. "prosecutor of an okrug"; historically, there was also "okolija" (literally, "surrounding part"), a subdivision of an oblast and a superdivision of a municipality. —141.150.23.3 (talk) 10:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Oppose. on the one hand, English Wikipedia. on the other hand, other countries which have that type of unit are listed without it being translated, and it is a dictionary word. on the third hand, if there's a dictionary word nobody knows or uses, this is surely the one. The deciding thing for me is that there can be (simultaneously) both X Oblast and X Okrug, how the hell are you gonna translate that? (probably not in BG but almost certainly in RU). In any case keep it consistent with UA and RU. ObsidianOrder 10:19, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. violet/riga (t) 19:26, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

naming

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would like to harmonise, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Subnational entities#Current use

there are two kinds of oblasts, the big one and the small one. big one would be like region small one like province. The old okrug would also be province. But as far as I see, oblasts are generally translated as regions. Therefore I favor to call them all X Region Tobias Conradi 22:10, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I thought "province" was a usual name for the Bulgarian oblasts, but a short Google inquiry showed me that "region" is used 50 times more than "province" (I tested Vratsa X and Shumen X). I think this page should be called "Regions of Bulgaria" (or "Administrative divisions of Bulgaria"), and the 28 provinces should be moved to X Region. BTW I'd rather not use "oblast", it is English wikipedia, and the Bulgarian government uses "region" on its English language sites. Markussep 10:02, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

plural?

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I just have to say this... the plural of "oblast" is now "oblasts"? Do you have any idea how awkward that sounds? Then again, "oblasti" probably wouldn't be the height of clarity either ;) ObsidianOrder 10:23, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

it's awkard to your biased ears. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:31, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Moving the oblast articles

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Since it has been decided that "oblast" will not be translated in this article title, how about moving the oblast articles from where they are now ("X Province") to "X Oblast"? Markussep 14:41, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

oppose. yes it is inconsistent. but the pro arguments to use Oblast in english WP where not that strong. No need to move back and forth. Of course in the longer run this should be solved. We dont use "X Kreis". So why "X Oblast"? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Like it or not (I preferred "region" myself), "oblast" has been decided upon. The arguments are valid IMO: oblast is a word you can find in a normal (not Russian-) English dictionary, and all Russian and Ukrainian oblasti are at X Oblast. You know there's little support for moving them to X Province. "Kreis" is not in the dictionaries (I checked www.onelook.com), neither are "département" and "provincia". Markussep 08:19, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be a diff between Oblast and Kreis, provincia etc with respect to translation, at least in this dictionary I know nothing about. Maybe there is also a dic that has none of them. And another that has both, Oblast and Kreis. The oblasts of other countries (not RU, UA) are at "X Province". Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:13, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
www.onelook.com links to various online dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, Encarta, Cambridge and Oxford. Oblast is in 5 dictionaries, see [1].
thx. already had a look at it. nice tool. not much Kreis ;-) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:09, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

* strong oppose. the discussion you cited and what you call "it was decided" was only a 3:2 decision. That's nothing with respect to move 28 or so articles. This is english WP. Don't look at it from a slavo-centric point. Even if I am german, since I am 12 I know what oblasts are. But the general audience will, as I assume, not know this. They can learn it, but no need to have this in article title. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:28, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This has nothing to do with slavocentrism. The only other country with oblasts is Kyrgyzstan, I think they're at X Province because you started Subdivisions of Kyrgyzstan. Apparently there aren't many Kyrgyz on English wikipedia, otherwise all those "provinces" would probably be at X Oblast as well. Cognates such as voblast and oblys are something different. One other argument you choose to ignore: X Province is virtually not in use for Bulgarian oblasts. Markussep 14:14, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
that's right. It's somehow an WP invention. Someone has to be the first on translating stuff. For RU-subdivs I once saw a term "section" for a low level entity on encyclopedia britannica. They probably had to invent something. People that write an encyclopedia are not just copy pasters, they also have to care about translating. If nobody did it well before, someone has to be the first. All other stuff is translated, only RU,UA oblasts are treated different. Chinese, Vietnamese, German .... all translated. It is states of Germany. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:09, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Too many tables

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Because the main wikitable is sortable by population, etc. I removed the other static (and redundant) tables - if a user needs to sort by a topic, they can simply sort that column now. I also removed the redundant list of the provinces since the list is in the wikitable... cleaned up the article. On to adding the municipalities now... :) Rarelibra 13:19, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New Law

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A new law was passed on 15 May 2008 for new subdivisions of BG, however, ostensibly only for "statistical" purposes. It is called the "Regional Development Act" (note: "regional" here does NOT refer to the administrative regions/provinces, but generally).

a couple of links here (in Bulgarian) :

the text of the Bill is here:

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