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Archive 1Archive 2

old comment

not meaning to be sound thick but why does it say the bahama's is part of north amercia it's not a state it's a country maybe that needs to be reworded cause it sounds like it's part of amercia.Veggiegirl (talk) 20:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Map

The island that contains Matthewtown southwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands is missing from the map on the right. It should be extended to the south.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.102.186.52 (talk) 03:14, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The map on the right is inaccurate, it's missing Inagua. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.135.60.87 (talk) 19:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Government Section Addition?

I found in Places and Peoples of the World: Bahamas by Patricia E. MacCulla, that the House of Assembly has 43 members and yet in the CIA World Fact book, it indicates there is only 40 seats in the House of Assembly. Is there any explanation for the discrepancy? Ruishi 05:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

FACT: Each election may bring a different number of MPs to the Bahamas Parliament. The number of MPs is determined by the number of constituencies, which can change prior to an election due to the jerrymandering of the ruling party. In the 2007 election there were 41 constituencies, thus, there are currently 41 MPs. BTW - Three of the constituency results are being contested by the PLP party in election court. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.75.121.18 (talk) 19:43, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

I recently commented on the UBP and FACT (that all Bahamians know) that the UBP party was racist and against pro-Bahamian Blacks. I further commented on what many Bahamians believe to be a fact, that the UBP puts money (just as corporations and the rich put money behind parties they think will support their financial agendas). However, my posting was removed from Wikipedia.

Now, when we allow FREEDOM of SPEECH and TRUTH to shine let me know!

Language in History

The language in the history section is in need of improvement. I have made some alterations to the first paragraph but am hesitant to make any further changes without citations that back up the factual basis of the material (i.e., I don't know if whats there is accurate, and I don't want to make it sound better if it's not). Could a subject matter expert weigh in with some citations? Robbins 02:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

more vandalism

some one has vandilised this page, 'islands of humping for fun?' islamic conference links? or did someone confuse us with bahrain?


What's with the edit war around the Commonwealth links. The Bahamas is part of the Commonwealth, right? -- mjlodge 03:44, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Names

This article and some that it links to need to be updated to incorporate the correct forms of the country's names. 'The Commonwealth of The Bahamas' and 'The Bahamas / Bahamas, The', not 'the Bahamas' or 'Bahamas'.

That's not the way English is typically written. Can you provide a link showing that the official name uses the capitalization you recommend? -- Cyan 16:31, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

http://www.bahamas.gov.bs/bahamasweb/home.nsf and the Queen's title explicity calls it the 'Commonwealth of The Bahamas' -- Chrism 16:32, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC) (The person above wasn't me btw)

Infobox

Why isn't template:bahamas infobox used?--Jerryseinfeld 20:42, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Is there an added value of using template:bahamas infobox? Just asking. Alister 03:03, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Why were 84.66.195.243's edits deleted with no explanation? mjlodge 03:46, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Territorial Waters

At United States, we say that the Territorial waters of the United States border the Bahamas and Russia. Since territorial waters extend 12 miles from a nations coast, and since the bodies of water seperating the US from each of those countries seem to be bigger than 24 miles, I am uncertain of this claims veracity. However, it is possible there is some little bitty island that does not appear on my maps, which would push out the limit. Can anyone find worthwhile sources? Johntex 21:27, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I believe Caribbean nations now regard in 12 miles as territorial, however like the USA, they consider up to 200 miles as that country's EEZ. In most cases the EEZ's in the caribbean overlap and in that case they usually just go by a mid-point/equidistance. CaribDigita 13:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Redirect?

Does anyone know why BAH redirects here? There is no discussion on that page, and there are no instances of the acronym BAH here. — THOR =/\= 19:27, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

The only reason why someone would of done this is because at the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games and other major international sporting events, The Bahamas compete under the code of BAH. Cheers -- Ianblair23 (talk) 22:30, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


Vandalism

Hello. I noticed that someone has vandalised this page, writing: "The Cuban Government along with Homer Jay Simpson" which is obviously vandalism. I tried look into what we should do in that case, but being new to wikipedia I couldn't find a good explanation. If anyone knows what to do please do it. Thanks.(Toritaiyo 14:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC))


More vandalism

Hi people, I have just noticed that this page is still a victim of vandalism by some lunatics. In the first line of History, writing :The Bahamas is an Isand duh. Why are you even on here it is not a realyible sorce. You ARE A DUMB ASS!!!!! "..I am really suprised that why did anybody even bother to clean it up for so long? I hope wikipedis folks would do a better job of keeping an eye on these anti wikipedia folks!!!! Thanks ([User: Puruhsotham |purush_79]) 7:31, 10 May 2007 (IST)) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Purush 79 (talk • contribs) 02:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC).


History of the names: Bahamas versus Burma

Does anybody know that Bahamas was named after "Burma (Bermah, now Myanmar)"?

I have read an article somewhere a few years ago, that during Columbus time, India was hot in Europe for its spices, gold, and precious stones. That's the main reason that gave a push to Colubus and his collegues finding India. At that time in history, location and direction to go to India was kept secret to the best merchants of Europe, with the intension to monopoly its commerce.

Burma was well known to Portugese and Burma already was its major European trader partner at that time. Many Europeans have heard that Burma is located next to India. It is a well known accepted fact that those who discovered America thought it was India, so they named the natives "Indian", whom were later called "American Indians".

It could be a fact, or at least a theory that when Portugese passed by Bahamas Island, they recorded that it must be Bermah, existing next to the land of Indians. After all these years, Bermah (or Burma) was spelt differently from what we know Burma and now known as 'The Bahamas'.

There are so many problems with this "theory" that I'm not sure to where to begin. The Portuguese never passed by the Bahamas. The Portuguese sailed east around Africa, and were forbidden to do otherwise by the treaty of tordesillas. Also Portuguese contact with India began in 1498, thats 6 years after Colombus' firt voyage. So the Portuguese angle is wrong. Could there be a Marco Polo angle? since it was from him that most of the information about india came from? The land was refered to as Bramadesh in sanscrit, And Marco Polo did in fact visit what is today Burma (Myanmar) but there needs to be more than this speculation to make a theory. If Columbus had thought this was Burma he would have cited it in his journal as proof of reaching the East. but he doesn't. So I would leave this in speculation not encyclopedic material, unless you can site an academic dispute in journals or other material over the matter.Mad05963 06:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

"Baja mar" doesn't mean "shallow sea", but "low tide". Berto C 22:46, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

"Grand Bahama is the most northerly island in The Bahamas. Ignored during early times because of its shallow waters and the treacherous Little Bahama Bank, Grand Bahama is now the second most populous island in The Bahamas, and its major city, Freeport, is regarded as the nation’s second city. Grand Bahama is believed to have been originally settled by the Siboney Arawaks followed by the Lucayan Arawaks, who called the island Bahama. Later it became known as Grand Bahamas."
See also

CaribDigita 04:32, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposed WikiProject

There is now a proposed WikiProject for the Caribbean area, including The Bahamas, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Caribbean. Interested parties should add their names there so we can determine if there is enough interest to start such a project in earnest. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

school

the schools are nice with a lot of butt on them. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.61.224.198 (talk) 19:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

where?

Are the Bahamas considered to be in the Caribbean Sea? Are the Bahamas considere3d to be part of the West Indies? Or what? Hmains 23:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Great Harbour Cay

Just directing some attention to the above page. Bennelliott • Talk • Contributions 18:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the link because it does not meet the eligibility requirements for external links. It is the homepage of a school located in the Bahamas. The site is not actually about the Bahamas; external links are meant to give users more in-depth info about the article subject. This link does not do this, so I have deleted it. Placing the link in this article qualifies it as linkspam: you are trying to promote your school on a WP page that is marginally related to it. Carl.bunderson 22:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair point. I'll exercise a little more care in future. Catherineskii 15:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment on "royal" residence of the Governor-General

Editors of this article may wish to comment on the edits being made at Official residence, advancing the unusual view that the official residence of the Governor-General of the Bahamas, and those of his equivalents in other jurisdictions, are "royal" residences (i.e. official residences of the monarch), and that this aspect (assuming for the moment that it exists) deserves mention in a list of official residences, alongside "vice-regal", the somewhat opaque term being substituted for "Governor-General" and the like. -- Lonewolf BC 19:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: User:Lonewolf BC is here omitting the point that the edits at Official residence are part of a broader cleanup of the article to create a uniform standard; "royal" and "vice-regal" in place of the specific Bahamian Monarch and Governor-General of The Bahamas brings the Bahamas section into line with others which use (by other editors' contributions) "royal," "vice-regal," "presidential," "prime ministerial" and the like.
Comments are certainly welcome at Talk:Official residence to improve the article as a whole. --G2bambino 19:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

In regard to G's comment, I trust that you folks will forgive me for focussing on the issue. For your information, though, the "general cleanup" only began after the "royal" issue had arisen, though the two spread to the "Bahamas" entry at the same time. Please judge for yourselves which actions have brought about which. (The "cleanup" is also making the article worse in some other ways, in my opinion. You may wish to look at that, also, but those are separate, or at most indirectly related issues.) -- Lonewolf BC 20:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Deletion vote

Please see the deletion vote at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Bahamian Americans. Badagnani 03:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Map

The map shown above the Capital etc in the right listing of the screen marks the island Inagua as not being part of the Bahamas, while the map in the Geography section of this page marks it as being part of the Bahamas. I'm pretty sure it's a Bahamian island, it would be good if someone could correct this. 81.233.251.27 13:10, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

removed

"...and the highest in the Caribbean, excluding the dependent territory of the Cayman Islands..." as it is not in the Caribbean per the intro paragraph and other articles on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary Joseph (talk • contribs) 05:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Income Category

The economy section here lists the bahamas as an upper middle-income developing country, but the world bank lists it as a high income country. What is the source used here and is i out of date? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.163.81 (talk) 15:50, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Spyda89's contributions

Spyda89 (talk · contribs) has recently contributed a fair amount of material to this article, most of it highly non-neutral. I propose reverting these edits, if there is no objection. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 15:35, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bahamian British Badagnani (talk) 04:13, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Result

As usual in these cases, the entire text of the article was deleted rather than merged. See Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Bahamian_British. Badagnani (talk) 00:41, 27 December 2008 (UTC)


Is The Bahamas just a Realm?

Some UK article editors feel that it is important that countries like The Bahamas are descirbed as "Commonwealth realms" while the UK should be described as a "Constiutional monarchy". The below is the UK discussion replicated. As regards The Bahamas, do you have a view?

The article currently has this sentence:

The UK is a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state. (the "Constitutional Description")

Should it read as follows: The UK is a Commonwealth realm with Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state. (the "Realm Description").

Which description should be used - the Constitutional Description or the Realm Description? Whatever is decided needs to be applied consistently to all 16 "Commonwealth realms" - after all, they have the same constitutional relationship vis-a-vis the Monarch as the UK has. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 11:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC) --

Constitutional monarchy comes first in the history of the state, and its more important in terms of understanding the constitution. Non WIkipedia sources uses phrases like "The UK is considered to be a commonwealth realm". --Snowded (talk) 12:01, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Sorry. I cannot understand your answer - which description do you support using (the Realm Description or the Constitutional Description) - I've added a simple list-type response to make it simpler for Users. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 12:15, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
I think Constitutional Monarchy is the most helpful description however the article should mention that the United Kingdom is a commonwealth realm. At the moment the Commonwealth realm is only linked to Queen Elizabeth II, it doesnt say the UK is one. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Support use of Constitutional Description:

  1. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
  2. The two are not mutually exclusive. The constitutional monarchy phrase has primacy, much as the UK's membership of the EU comes further down. Kbthompson (talk) 14:13, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
  3. One of the silliest issues we have had here. Agree with Kbthompson. --Snowded (talk) 14:15, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
  4. Constitutional monarchy is my choice. GoodDay (talk) 22:47, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
  5. It depends on the context; however, if it is the lead we are specifically discussing, then I'd say keep it as "constitutional monarchy". "Commonwealth realm" is an unofficial descriptor. I've undone those changes Redking made (prematurely, I think) to the various country articles; those that weren't undone by others already, that is. --Miesianiacal (talk) 10:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
  6. Redking7 (talk) 12:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
  7. Constitutional monarchy. Any "Commonwealth realm" must be a monarchy, but Constitutional monarchy is the more precise and descriptive term. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:55, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
  8. I am agreeing with the majority -- Phoenix (talk) 09:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
  9. Agree with the silliness mentioned by Snowded. Leave as constitutional monarchy. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 10:07, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Support use of Realm Description:

  1. [insert your user name]


Miesianiacal - Why have you undone my changes...No one has so far even supported the Realm Description? I disagree with you and think my changes clearly should be left as they were. Do you think the articles should be inconsistent...some using the "Constitutional Desciription", others the "Realm Description"....That does not appear to make much sense to me. Regards.Redking7 (talk) 11:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Redking, so far NO ONE supports your "realm" proposals (not even you). I don't even accept it as an either or, and I note you did not attempt the change on Canada or Australia. I hadn't realised you had made the changes elsewhere or I would have reverted before Miesianiacal tracked them down. --Snowded (talk) 11:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Snowded - I think there is confusion. My view is the same as yours. I support the "Constitutional Description". Oddly Miesianiacal supports the "Constitutional Description" but not for the other "relams" where I had changed them so that the "Constitutional Description" would be used. Apparently, Miesianiacal thinks it is appropriate on these articles (countries like Papua New Guinea etc) to say "Papua New Guinea remains a Commonwealth realm". I disaagree and think what has emerged from this discussion is that they should be described in the same was as the UK, i.e. "Papua New Guinea is a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state." They should not be described in some sort of "lesser" way than the UK. Do you agree with me about this? Regards. Redking7 (talk) 12:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
There is always confusion on articles on constitutional status. SO let me be clear, I do not think consistency is appropriate. Some of these nations were created by empire for example against naturally occurring local boundaries. Oh and by the way I don;t think either description has more intrinsic value than the other. --Snowded (talk) 12:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Re.: Some of these nations were created by empire for example against naturally occurring local boundaries - what does that have to do with anything? Does it have any relevance to their current constitutional status? Do these countries have a different relationship to the Crown vis-a-vis the UK? Please give reasons for why, in the opening paras, you think it is appropriate for them to be described as "Commonwealth realms" but not appropriate for the UK? Why should consistency not be applied. It is a core Wiki principle. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 12:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
I can't understand why you should think the manner of a countries creation has nothing to do with its constitutional status. In the case of the UK its status as a constitutional monarchy came way before any notion of being a commonwealth realm. In the other cases the countries concerned were created as commonwealth realms (in the main). Its not an issue of consistency. --Snowded (talk) 13:18, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Agreed with snowded on this although i do think we need to mention the fact the UK is a commonwealth realm somewhere in the introduction. At the moment that is not said, but we dont need to remove "constitutional monarchy" to be able to include that. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
My intent was to restore all the articles to their status quo until discussion here was finished. It may only be my opinion, but I think Redking making such wide reaching edits before hardly anyone had even responded here was bad enough, but re-reverting (sometimes more than once) is generally poor form. I agree with Redking in that there is no difference between the UK and the other realms in terms of their presently being Commonwealth realms or constitutional monarchies; however, my position, for the record, remains the same as above: context decides what is best. I would say that "constitutional monarchy" (a more concrete and official term) is best for the context of the lead, and "commonwealth realm" (a non-official descriptor) should be mentioned somewhere else in the article. --Miesianiacal (talk) 17:09, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
That all sounds very grand indeed. Such a desire to uphold consensus but advance no arguments against the change nor any arguments to as to why the principle of consistency should not apply. It seems the majority here are happy to apply the "Commonwealth realm" tag to the "ex-colonies" but not so keen as regards the UK...I am simply going to apply the smell test and it smells like politics to me. I'm bowing out. I expect you, my fellow editors, will leave the "ex-colonies" with their "Realm tags". I will leave it in your collective hands. Hope you surprise me. Redking7 (talk) 21:15, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Coming up: The United Kingdom is an Olympic realm... Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Why consistency? UK existed before Commonwealth. Was its constitutional status changed? 131.111.164.219 (talk) 17:24, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


Furthermore this is not an either/or situation since all the Commonwealth Realms are constitutional monarchies, a situation which is extremely unlikely to change. Therefore stating that a country is a Commonwealth Realm currently, and for the foreseeable future, implies that it is a constituional monarchy. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:35, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
As to "Why consistency?" Why not? Its a Wiki principle. Explain how the UK is not a "Commonwealth realm" and the others are? That would seem to be the only reason not to be consistent. UK existed before Commonwealth. Correct. Relevance? Are you saying it is not a Commonwealth realm? Are you saying the others are not Constitutional monarichies? Pick one description and be consistent. "Was its constitutional status changed?" No. The sentence that the others "remain Commonwealth realms" is incorrect too - It implies they have always been "Commonwealth realms". They have not. They have only been "Commonwelath realms" since they became separate realms.
As to it not being an either/or situation - If you are happy to call the UK a "Commonwealth realm", do so and be consistent with the others "ex-Realms". As it stands, Users prefer "Constitutional monarchy" for the UK and the "Commonwealth realm" tag for the "ex cololnies". Explain the inconsistency please? After all there is no constitutional difference in their position. Please explain why you differentiate between the two. The description concerns their current status - it has nothing to do with whether (as in the UK's case) it has been a Constitutional monarch for centuries or (as in the case of Barbados) merely for decades. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 08:05, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I actually agree all Commonwealth realms should say (country name) is a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state. They are all equal in the eyes of the monarchy and in constitutional standings so they should be treated as the same. Its a very logical argument to make. -- Phoenix (talk) 10:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Phoenix. I am glad I am not alone. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 19:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I was blocked for trying to make these changes. It seems I am alone because no one else is bothered to do anything about it. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 21:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

So what is your view as regards The Bahamas?

response

Actually you are wrong, the UK page made a decision for the UK, its up to each other page to make its own mind up. And Why or WHY do you have to reproduce the whole talk page? Heard of pipelinks? --Snowded (talk) 22:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The question of which description to use is the exactly the same for The Bahamas as it was for the UK - so the above discussion is relevant. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 06:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
"Heard of pipelinks" --Snowded (talk) 07:34, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The Bahamas owned your face. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.175.68 (talk) 00:07, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

What would be the consensus to have both descriptions consistently for all commonwealth realm articles:" "[Country Name] is a constitutional monarchy. It is also one of 16 sovereign Commonwealth realms, with Queen Elizabeth II as head of state." I think both are important as there are countries in the Commonwealth that are monarchies without EII as head of state.Gary Joseph (talk) 12:37, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Economy Sectoion

Why does the economy section stop around 1986? Was somebody copying from an old encyclopedia? Do we have anything interesting to say about Bahamanian economics in the last 20 years?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.241.32.160 (talk) 17:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the following text from the Culture section of the page as a copyright violation:

Junkanoo is a street parade with music, which occurs in many towns across The Bahamas every Boxing Day (December 26), New Year's Day and, more recently, in the summer on the island of Grand Bahama. The largest Junkanoo parade happens in Nassau, the capital. Junkanoo is a Bahamian cultural expression, which has been derived from Bahamians' ancestry. In theses parades, the locals showcase a wonderful part of their culture in three forms: Music, Art and Dance.
There is a huge controversy about the origin of Junkanoo, as many historians have offered explanations for the origins and beginning of this festival. The most accepted one is that the word “Junkanoo” comes from the name John Canoe, who was an African prince and slave trader operating on the Gold Coast in the seventeenth (17th) century. He was said to have outwitted the English and subsequently gained control of Fort Brandenbury. Therefore, the Dutch and English alike feared him. However, to the slaves, he was a hero and was worshipped and idolized by them. Those slaves who were brought here to the Bahamas kept up this distinct form of worship.
In the pre-Emancipation era, the slaves were allowed three (3) days off during the year: 1st January, 25th December and 26th December. On the 1st January and the 26th December, they were allowed to perform their Junkanoo festival. The 26th December was the day for exchanging gifts and visiting friends. After Emancipation however, the festival continued, and individual characters such as Neptune and Amphitrite portrayed John Canoe. On the entertainment and arts side, the Bahamas is well known for having talented songwriters, vocalists, actors and had its' first movie produced and released in 1996.

The text appears to be cut-and-pasted from a blog entry dated 20 February 2009. The version of the Wikipedia article of that date shows that the text existed at the blog before it appeared at Wikipedia. I have not found the exact edit which added the text since that's a lot of edits to sift through, but I think the dates are reason enough to conclude that it is a copyright violation. I have written a brief line about Junkanoo to replace the copyvio text. — Saxifrage ✎ 16:41, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Further investigation of the Junkanoo article shows that the text was added to that page 16 Nov 2008, which is a few months before the blog post I thought it copied from. I've left my removal as-is on this article since the text copied from the Junkanoo article is just redundant, and three paragraphs is too long for this article anyway. (It also needs copy editing, as does much of Junkanoo, but copy editing that whole article is beyond what I can tackle right now.) — Saxifrage ✎ 17:01, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Aaaand with more research, I found a PDF on the history of Junkanoo published by Nassau (bahamas.gov.bs) which appears to be the original source of the text both here and at Junkanoo. So, it does appear to be a copyvio. — Saxifrage ✎ 17:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

My contribution today

I would like to contribute with an file should it ever be needed in the concept of relationship of the Bahamas to the world. thanks--Camilo Sanchez (talk) 06:08, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

File:Coat of arms of planet earth bahamas.svg
Coat of arms of Planet Earth with the name of Bahamas

Nassau Bahamas

In Nassau Bahamas there are a lot of things to see and do. There are for example tons of art museums and lots of gigantic sculptures. Please if you have the time and money to go to Nassau Bahamas, please GO!!!! Computer9781 (talk) 23:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC) Computer9781 and i think the bahamas is a very beautfiul island within the caribbean

BahamasLocal.com

BahamasLocal.com is a information portal regarding The Bahamas.

can i add the link to relevant pages on wikipedia?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Bahamaslocal (talk • contribs) 20:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Seems too commercial to me. But if you get no other comments against, add it and see what happens. The worst that'll happen is reversion, most likely. SamEV (talk) 00:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Capitalization of "The" in "The Bahamas"

The government website of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas [1] generally capitalizes "The" in "The Bahamas". So I'm applying that capitalization standard consistently across this article. This is in line with the Wikipedia Manual of Style, which uses The Hague as an example of proper capitalization of certain place names which include "The" as part of the proper name. ThreeOfCups (talk) 18:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It appears that the Colony of the Bahamas Islands ("the" lowercase) was the legal name prior to independence in 1973; but the current legal name is the Commonwealth of The Bahamas ("The" capitalized). ThreeOfCups (talk) 19:16, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't WP:COMMONNAME apply here? In general, no one else capitalizes the "the". It's the same reason we have North Korea rather than the official "Democratic People's Republic of Korea"; France rather than the official "French Republic"; Italy rather than the official "Italian Republic"; etc. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Caribbean Wikipedians' notice board

I would like to announce the establishment of the Wikipedia:Caribbean Wikipedians' notice board. Anyone with an interest in the Caribbean is welcome to join in. Guettarda 1 July 2005 03:40 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move. Although usage in reliable sources is inconsistent, the official form "The Bahamas" seems to be frequently used, in which case the current title conforms to WP:THE. It has also not been demonstrated that the proposed title is overwhelmingly more common, which would justify a move per WP:COMMONNAME. Jafeluv (talk) 17:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The Bahamas → Bahamas — Over the years, this page has been moved back and forth from Bahamas to The Bahamas and back again a number of times, to the point where the page is now move protected. As far as I can see, these moves have never been pursuant to a formal request, so it's about time we had one. The justification for including the "The" seems to be that the official name of the country is the "Commonwealth of The Bahamas", and that the country's government capitalizes "The" in laws and some government documents. I have 5 reasons that the article should be moved back to Bahamas:

  1. WP:COMMONNAME. The most common way for people to refer to this country in writing is "...the Bahamas", with no capitalization. (Unless of course, "The Bahamas" is the start of a sentence, in which case it is capitalized because it is the start of the sentence.)
  2. WP:THE. Definite articles at the beginning of article names are omitted unless the addition of the definite article changes the meaning. Here, there is no difference between "The Bahamas" and "Bahamas" as there is with Crown and The Crown. In light of #1, WP:THE clearly indicates that the "The" in the article name should be omitted.
  3. Other similar place names. Netherlands, United States, Soviet Union, Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, Maldives, Bronx, etc. all omit the "the", even though each of these are referred to as "... the [PLACENAME]" in writing. The only exception in country names is The Gambia, which is included under the exception of WP:THE apparently because of the potential for confusion with the river.
  4. Even the government of the country is inconsistent in its capitalization. For example, at http://www.bahamas.gov.bs/ newstories are given the dateline of "Nassau, Bahamas", not "Nassau, The Bahamas", and there is a headline that says "Bahamas Secures CDB Funding for Family Island Infrastructure Projects"—again, not "The Bahamas Secures...".
  5. The page was originally at Bahamas and remained there from 2001–2006, and as far as I know has never been moved to The Bahamas because of a consensus to do so. — Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:18, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Support per nom (#s 2, 3, 6). Read any map. It'll say "Bahamas" without an article. — AjaxSmack 01:12, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Against. A redirect is sufficient for the common name of Bahamas, but the official name, as noted, is "The Bahamas". The point about maps is inconsistent - The first one I checked, Google Maps, pops up with "The Bahamas" when I plug in "Bahamas" as a search query, and the map clearly shows "The Bahamas" (see here). As indicated by the nom, there is no risk of confusion between the two terms, so I'm not coming up with a real compelling reason to make this change. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 13:47, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Support per well-reasoned out nomination. --Polaron | Talk 14:48, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Against -
  1. "The" is almost always capitalized when used - thus indicating it's an integral part of their country's name.
  2. In addition to the CIA, the U.S. Department of State uses "The Bahamas", and those guys are all about diplomacy.
  3. The BBC also uses "The Bahamas", and those guys are fanatic about proper English.
  4. The main benefit to keeping the article name as "The Bahamas" is that it informs school kids that Bahamians capitalize the article when used as part of their name, unlike most countries, and if the don't want to look ignorant, they'll do the same. Rklawton (talk) 02:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
  • "'The' is almost always capitalized when used" -- by whom? I disagree with this statement. It is more commonly not capitalized. "The BBC also uses 'The Bahamas', and those guys are fanatic about proper English." No, they don't. The BBC uses "... the Bahamas". See this search. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose.
From Wikipedia:THE#General_usage:
When a proper name is almost always used with capitalized "The", especially if it is included by unofficial sources, we should include it. This includes the names of companies, where this has been widely discussed:
From WP:COMMONNAME:
Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article. In determining what this name is, we follow the usage of reliable sources, such as those used as references for the article.
  1. The Bahamas is a proper name and almost always used with capital "The", including by unofficial sources (BBC, CIA, Tele Atlas), so the above should apply.
  2. Of course you will find examples without The, even at the official sources. This is also true of The New York Times: "A New York Times reporter..." leads off this article, for example. The Beatles seems to be written The Beatles in Wikipedia, but I'd certainly expect to see phrases in writing like she covered a song by the Beatles or Beatles trivia.
  3. I agree with nominator's assertion (#2) that "...the Bahamas" is commonest. WP:COMMONNAME would support keeping the, not removing: the common English-language name. WP:COMMONNAME doesn't talk about the or about capitalization.
  4. United States is often used without the article (e.g. United States Senator). Netherlands is preferred by the CIA factbook. Maldives is officially Republic of Maldives, so why would "The Maldives" be preferable? Bronx was under lively discussion just days ago, with dissent.
-- Pnm (talk) 08:17, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Your #1 is not correct, in my opinion. Most unofficial sources do not capitalize the "The". For one, as mentioned above, the BBC does not capitalize the "The". As for your #2, if you agree "... the Bahamas" is the most common (as opposed to "The Bahamas"), that suggests the "The" should not be included. WP:COMMONNAME is read in tandem with WP:THE in making the decision. Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

What happened to the links for the flag and coat of arms??? Fry1989 (talk) 07:07, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Other capitalization discussion

Please see Talk:The Gambia#RfC: The Gambia or the Gambia. __meco (talk) 16:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Map

The map currently being used is incorrect as it does not include the Inagua islands, which make up the countries Southermost part.

-IkonicDeath (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC).

Added "The Bahamas is the fifth most endangered due to flooding from global warming ..."

First is the Marshall islands, second Bahrain, third is the Maldives, followed by Kiribati. Ranking reflects percent of population at risk; University of Southampton UK source. resource: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BUE/is_5-6_144/ai_n58473630 published in November 14 & 28, 2011 The New York Times Upfront

99.181.148.5 (talk) 20:46, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

It's quoting a speech by the (then?) president of Nauru. I have no doubt that he said it, but I do have doubts as to exactly what came from the University of Southampton, and whether it is a real study, or the opinion of its authors. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:45, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
The numbers may perhaps come from the table in Part 8 of this book? It's not a source which I have studied. - David Biddulph (talk) 00:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
The table doesn't have risk or effect ranking. I don't think that's it. We're looking for a study from University of Southampton, whether or not it is by experts. It's possible that the analysis was of that data, but there's no analysis in the table. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:14, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
It looks to me as though Marcus Stephens presented his own analysis of the data in the table starting on page 110 of the Atlas of Cliamte change. As Stephens was writing in an op-ed piece, and is not an expert on climate change, he is not a reliable source on the subject. He reportedly listed "island nations" in danger, but apparently intended "small island nations" in some undefined sense of "small", as many other island nations have a larger population at risk than the nations listed. -- Donald Albury 13:58, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Corrected myself. It does say by percentage of population at risk, but that is another step in the analysis made by Stephens. I still agree that the cited source may be a reliable source of what Marcus Stephens said in his op-ed piece, but it looks like the op-ed piece presented a synthesis of material by a non-expert. -- Donald Albury 15:37, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

The Bahamas

The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is a country consisting of more than 3,000 islands, cays and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, north of Cuba and Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti), northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the U.S. state of Florida and east of the Florida Keys. Its capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence. Geographically, the Bahamas lie near to Cuba, which is part of the Greater Antilles, along with Hispaniola and Jamaica. The designation of "Bahamas" refers to the country and the geographic chain that it shares with the Turks and Caicos Islands. The three West Indies/Caribbean island groupings are: The Bahamas, The Greater Antilles and The Lesser Antilles. As stated on the mandate/manifesto of The Royal Bahamas Defence Force, The Bahamas territory encompasses 180,000 square miles of ocean space. From the Cay Sal Bank and Cay Lobos (just off of the coast of Cuba) in the west, to San Salvador, The Bahamas is much larger than is recorded in some sources.

Originally inhabited by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taino people, the Bahamas were the site of Columbus' first landfall in the New World in 1492. Although the Spanish never colonized the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera.

The Bahamas became a British Crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American War of Independence, thousands of American Loyalists and enslaved Africans moved to the Bahamas and set up a plantation economy. The slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in 1807, and many Africans liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy were settled in the Bahamas during the 19th century. Slavery in the Bahamas itself was abolished in 1834, yet still remains a political issue there. Today the descendants of slaves form the majority of the population.

In terms of Gross Domestic Product per capita, the Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the Americas (following the United States and Canada).[8] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.166.21.2 (talk) 15:55, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

PICTURES

Please change the picture for Nassau. A ultra luxury mega-yacht is not Nassau. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.244.12.217 (talk) 14:06, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Haitians

To read this Wikipedia article, and then this (cited) BBC article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8257660.stm

one gets the distinct impression that the issue of Haitians in the Bahamas is being inappropriately glossed over here.

The demographics section should break Haitians out as a separate ethnic group, maybe with "Native Afro-Bahamians", "Haitians and Bahamians of Haitian Origin", Europeans, Others.

The Haitian sub-section should basically summarize the BBC article in a few sentences -- early history as guest workers, subsequent illegal immigration, current Bahamian efforts to control illegal immigration. And then give the total Haitian percentage/number, and detailed percentages/numbers of Haitians who are Bahamian citizens, Bahamian legal residents, and Bahamian illegal residents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.1.49 (talk) 05:14, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Ecology

Why is there nothing on the native/endemic species of the Bahamas? Not even a link to a page.--71.113.238.96 (talk) 05:45, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1991/10/09/06columb.h11.html. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Diannaa (talk) 03:28, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Loyalist re-settlement

After American independence, the British resettled some 7,300 Loyalists and their slaves in the Bahamas from New York, Florida, and the Carolinas

Florida was neither a British colony nor part of the United States of America. It was a Spanish colony. Spain did not cede Florida to the US until 1819 & it was a territory, not a state, until it joined the Union in 1845. In the 35 yrs prior to the end of the AmRev, Great Britain was in the War of Jenkins' Ear, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Yrs' War (AKA the French and Indian War; Spain was France's ally in it), & the AmRev (Spain was a US ally in it) against Spain, so Florida was definitely not a hot spot for British emigration/settlement. Inclusion of Florida in this short list needs proof.

Also questioning New York in this. While of course a US state then, it hadn't been fully developed yet (pretty sure it would rank as the largest state were it not for Alaska and Texas joining the Union) & the overwhelming majority of the state population was still clustered around the Hudson River in 1783, in an area previously settled by the Dutch when it was their colony of New Netherland. The area was either commerical or residential for the most part, & the Dutch didn't bring in slaves to do their farming. In comparison to the Southern states, slaves in NY were few & far between, mostly personal/household servants, not field hands on plantations. Additionally, lot of NY Loyalists went to Canada, which was the closest British colony, re-settling in Ontario & Quebec, the 2 provinces that border NY.

I don't doubt the Carolinas mention (& since neither state was mentioned in the article prior to this, it shouldn't have been written as just *the Carolinas* but with the names of the states IMHO). Maybe a few NY'ers, definitely not Floridians given the Spanish hostility toward the British. But since this entire paragraph has no citations at all, I waffled over removing it entirely or just removing the state names, & ended up doing the latter. If someone has a citation for this figure & rationale, please stick it in. If someone can offer proof for the mentioned state, by all means, put it back. But don't revert the edit just because you can, as so far the claims are unsubstantiated. ScarletRibbons (talk) 04:42, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not moved. After two relistings of this discussion, there are nine editors (including the proposer) in support of moving (including one barebones signature-only vote which merits little weight), and five against; this falls short of the level of support generally needed to find consensus for a page move. Turning to the arguments presented, supporters of the move note the existence of many titles omitting a preceding "the" in names of countries and island groups, despite the common inclusion of "the" for these things in publications about these places. One supporter also makes a proscriptive argument, that it would be more convenient for people generally if the leading "the" no longer needed to be used in everyday parlance. Wikipedia is in the business of reporting facts, not manufacturing them, so this vote must be discounted as well. Opposers note that other places (e.g. The Gambia) still retain a leading "the". Although consistency in titling is a laudable goal (and one supported by WP:CRITERIA), place names are often subject to including local oddities, such that it is not surprising or discomfiting to the reader to see an article on a place name with a leading "The" in the title. Therefore, although the arguments in support of the page move would be a sufficient basis on which to perform such a move is they had the clear consensus of the community, these arguments do not compel such a move in the absence of a clear consensus. bd2412 T 15:47, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The Bahamas → Bahamas – As per WP:THE, "If the definite or indefinite article would be capitalized in running text, then include it at the beginning of the page name. Otherwise, do not." In this case the WP:COMMONNAME does not usually contain a capitalized "The".

According to Google Ngram Viewer (which is case sensitive) [2], roughly 61% of the time an uncapitalized "the" is used, 12% of the time a capitalized "The" is used, and 27% of the time no "the" is used. (Note that the capitalized "The" figure will be an overestimate as it includes capitalizations due to "The" starting a sentence.)

A survey of recent sources finds that most major media publishers do not capitalized "The": BBC, Guardian, NYT, Washington Post, LA Times, Miami Herald, CBC, Toronto Star. Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 10:25, 13 August 2014 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 05:05, 5 August 2014 (UTC) TDL (talk) 19:55, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Oppose for now. Messing with the 'official' name of a country is something done very, very carefully, and I'd like to see more evidence before supporting. (Yes, yes, WP:OFFICIALNAME, but countries are a bit of a special case.) "Ukraine" is a bad example; there's an actual linguistic / nationalistic dispute there, where it was "The Ukraine" under the days of the Russian Empire in relation to them as "the borderlands", and modern-day Ukraine wants to emphasize it's just Ukraine (see Name of Ukraine). In the same way, Philippines / Maldives have just that as their official name, so they aren't relevant here. "Netherlands" / "The Netherlands" is more on point... but per the article itself, The Bahamas and The Gambia are the only two countries with "The" in their official name. Except the official longname is apparently "Commonwealth of the Bahamas" so who knows, I suppose we mean "official short name," but still, if The Bahamas is the name of the country, we shouldn't name it something else without amazingly powerful evidence that that name isn't used / isn't really legitimate / etc. a la Burma/Myanmar. SnowFire (talk) 15:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
What you are suggesting is not standard practice. We don't Democratic People's Republic of Korea, United Mexican States, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, or Kingdom of Spain. I also don't see dropping the from article's title is in any way similar to the Burma/Myanmar issue since that involves highly political issues that I don't see in this case.--67.68.22.129 (talk) 22:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Good, because using the long name ("Commonwealth of...") isn't what I'm suggesting. However, the proper "short" name may still be "The Bahamas." I'm merely going off our source in the article from the BBC:
"...according to several authoritative sources, such as the CIA World Factbook, the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World and the US Department of State, only two countries, The Bahamas and The Gambia, should officially be referred to with the article." SnowFire (talk) 05:08, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
If there is a consensus to move this page the case to move the Gambia to Gambia should be strong.--67.68.22.129 (talk) 20:40, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per SnowFire. Additionally, the common name of the country is "The Bahamas" not just "Bahamas", so by WP:UCN, moving to "Bahamas" would be incorrect. (This is even supported by the NGram provided by the nominator, who noted that no "the" is used only 27% of the time.) UCN is a policy, whereas WP:THE is merely a guideline. However, THE actually supports the name being at The Bahamas anyway: Besides the above-mentioned cases, "The" is sometimes used at the beginning of some other proper names. "The Bahamas" is a proper name. (This is not an argument for the OFFICIALNAME, since one of the given examples is The Hague, which is not the official name of 's-Gravenhage.) See also The Gambia, The Hague, The Bronx, The New York Times, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All of those have had attempts to move them based on THE, and all have been resisted, with move requests for The New York Times and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints having closed within the past week, and The Bronx supported by an RfC. Since the case for moving is based on "the" not being capitalized in the middle of sentences, but "the Bronx", "the New York Times" and "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" also commonly appear in the middle of sentences, it would suggest that this interpretation of THE is not supported by consensus. Egsan Bacon (talk) 02:29, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
The question we're trying to address is, is the "the" part of the name, or is it just a grammatical tool preceding the name? Just because "the" frequently precedes the name doesn't mean it is part of the name. The entire point of WP:THE is to offer guidance in situations where the subject's name is commonly preceded by a "the". If the name isn't commonly preceded by a "the", there'd be no reason to even consider including a "the" in the title. UCN offers no guidance on how to answer this question, only THE does.
THE does not say that article titles should include "the" for proper names. What it says is that the "conditions are sometimes met if the page name is" a proper name. So THE only supports "The Bahamas" if one of the conditions listed at THE is met, which is not the case. Proper nouns should be capitalized, so since the "the" is rarely capitalized that strongly suggests that it is not actually part of the proper name. I can point to many proper names where the "the" isn't included, even though the name is usually preceded by a "the", such as United States (88%), Netherlands (72%), Philippines (73%), United Kingdom (72%) Rocky Mountains (86%). The Hague isn't a valid comparison since a capitalized "The" is usually used, while for The New York Times THE says "For newspapers, the general rule is to follow the name of the publication as it actually appears on the masthead", so again not applicable here. TDL (talk) 05:47, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
It's actually quite applicable. "Name on the masthead" is roughly equivalent to "official name", and hey, look, we have sources saying that the official name is indeed The Bahamas. Alternatively, here's the masthead of the government website: The Government of The Bahamas. Capital The. No "Commonwealth of." It does not say "Government of Bahamas" (as Ukraine would). More generally, per the above, let's avoid a clickbait article into dramafest a la "Star Trek into Darkness" of someone writing an article about "Wikipedia renames country on its own volition, declares itself true source of country names" without really, really good reasons? SnowFire (talk) 16:39, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
You made the point above that countries should use WP:OFFICIALNAMEs because you believe they're a "special case" (for some unexplained reason), but that wasn't the argument I was responding to here. There's a consensus documented in the form of a guideline which says newspapers should go by their masthead name, but there's no guideline which says that countries should use official names. In fact, consensus and practice is quite the opposite. Off the top of my head, North Korea/South Korea/East Timor/Burma/Ivory Coast are not official names, short or otherwise. Evidence suggests that ~88% of the time sources do not consider the proper name of the country to include a "The", either by not capitalizing it or not including it at all. A ~7x larger usage share for the unofficial variant qualifies as good reason in my books.
We should be making titling decisions following policies and guidelines, rather than the perceived risk of negative external reaction. There's been no articles written claiming that we've "renamed" any of the numerous other countries which utilize unofficial names as far as I'm aware. The first words of the article would remain "The Bahamas", and it would continue to explain what the official name is, so there shouldn't be any confusion. And besides, many authoritative sources, including the United Nations and European Union, have already "renamed" them for us without any uproar. TDL (talk) 21:26, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose – Per SnowFire, and his link to the BBC. This is one of the view exceptions in the English language where the article is meant to be used with a country. "Bahamas" is not one entity, so refering to it as "Bahamas" doesn't make any sense. It is a group of islands. The nominator is being too nit-picky in his analysis of whether "the" or "The" is capitalised. The essential thing here is that no one would ever say "I'm going to Bahamas". They'd say "I'm going to the Bahamas", and that's the only way it can make sense in the English language, is the common way of speaking, and is the official name. Comparisons to Ukraine are moot, as there has been no such shift in usage here. RGloucester — ☎ 17:49, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
Comoros begins: The Comoros
Marshall Islands begins: The Marshall Islands
Philippines begins: The Philippines
Maldives begins: Maldives officially the Republic of the Maldives

We could similarly have:

Bahamas beginning with: The Bahamas   this has nothing to do with WP:OFFICIALNAMES. Readers remember the use of the definite article but it may be confusing if "the" actually gets written just the once. Having the definite article on the title Bahamas affects list functionality re: Comoros, Marshall Islands, Philippines, and Maldives. Consistency is needed. Gregkaye (talk) 15:25, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
The examples you bring up are irrelevant. Why would country names be "consistent?" Every country picks its own name, there's no guarantee there's any pattern behind it. It would be equally ridiculous to propose a move to "The Canada" for 'consistency' with The Bahamas! Most of your examples - something many of the supporters seem to be missing - are basically equivalents to the "Ukraine" case - you can use a "the", but you don't have to, usage is split, and it's not the official short form. However, The Bahamas and The Gambia are different cases, per our source, so should be treated differently. SnowFire (talk) 15:37, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"The Bahamas" is correct, "the Bahamas" is not, when referring to the country.

I had to rollback some changes that people made with that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sipslice11 (talk • contribs) 16:12, 26 April 2015 (UTC) 24ccecode342

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Boriken

I'm fairly sure the taino name for The Bahamas is wrong. Boriken was the name they had for Puerto Rico, not the Bahamas. The link used as reference is broken. 24.48.217.170 (talk) 02:17, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Area of Great Abaco & Little Abaco

Please offer a help in Talk:Abaco Islands. Thanks. -✉ Hello World! 07:55, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello anonymous

Hello anonymous can you re correct the flag color of The Bahamas on your webpage... That's not the right color Thank you ! Keep up the good work ! Calvinck3 (talk) 06:00, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

I assume you mean the blue color. That seems correct. According to p. 18 of this book, the color should be Pantone 3145. Huon (talk) 01:49, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Name inconsistency

Note: The Constitution of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas uses the definite article "The" as an integral element of the short form of the name, capitalizing the "T", similar to the U.S. cities Las Vegas and Los Angeles (Los/Las = The). One can say "Vegas" in some informal contexts, while knowing that this is a technically-incorrect abbreviation. In view of that, the map that is used on the Wikipedia page for The Bahamas has two problems: (1) It incorrectly labels "The Bahamas" as "Bahamas". (2) The map has Colombia highlighted in red, which makes no sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.133.7.65 (talk) 17:49, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

It is funny how we are so hellbound on what's "official," but when other countries like Ivory Coast name their country Côte d'Ivoire, we go by WP:COMMONNAME with some editors going as far as making discriminatory statements such as "it's not their language," or "they do not have the right." It's ridiculous. To note we do have countries and territories in other languages such as Costa Rica, Puerto Rico etc.

And so the explanation as to why this page was not moved to "Bahamas," basically uphelding to support WP:OFFICIALNAME after a clear consensus for a move, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and just unveils the array of flaws of this online encyclopedia. Savvyjack23 (talk) 16:38, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Look at Archive.org's "Way Back Machine". Wikipedia did label this article as simply "Bahamas," but made the correction over ten years ago (circa January 2007) to "The Bahamas." It would not make any sense to return to the incorrect form... unless we want to change "Las Vegas" to simply "Vegas" (incorrect) or "Los Angeles" to "Angeles" (incorrect). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.133.7.65 (talk) 17:54, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Furthermore, let the record show that we use templates that read "Bahamas" and a WikiProject that simply uses "Bahamas" (See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Bahamas), while under the guise above from my understanding, this should all be changed to reflect its "official name" usage but is not, all except for one: {Template:The Bahamas topics}, which probably would have been the first to be moved. Savvyjack23 (talk) 16:56, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Olympic Games - Bahamas | FIFA - Bahamas | United Nations Human Rights - Bahamas | Human Rights Watch - Bahamas | GOV.UK Bahamas | U.S. Department of State Bahamas

How sure are we that The Bahamas is WP:OFFICIALNAME? Savvyjack23 (talk) 19:56, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I noticed today that the country's name was inconsistently used throughout the article, before reading this talk page. So, others think the same. I tthink everything should be changed to The Bahamas. This does not contrict wp:commonname because it is only the spelling that has changed 'Bahamas" (no article) is not common usage and is simply wrong. Savvyjack23, Costa Rica is English because we have adopted it as such, just like hundreds of other words borrowed from other languages. Cote d'Ivoire has not been adopted so we use the English word version: Ivory Coast. This article is in English so that takes precedence over any foreign language official name. I don't see any problem with that.Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:16, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Loyalist re-settlement

Replying here to the thread Loyalist re-settlement in the talk page archive. That thread looked at a sentence as it used to appear in the article:

After American independence, the British resettled some 7,300 Loyalists and their slaves in the Bahamas from New York, Florida, and the Carolinas.

I won't copy it out here, as wiki etiquette probably demands I should, because it's three paragraphs long, but the original thread objected to the idea of large numbers of British slaves and slaveowners because (1) slavery was never widespread in New York and (2) Florida was never a British colony. I came across it in the archive a couple of years ago and it always rankled me, because both of those assertions are false. Florida was indeed a British colony from 1763–83 (in fact it was two separate colonies), and West Florida in particular was a thriving part of the British Empire's slave-based economy in that part of the world. West Florida's white population were mostly Loyalist during the Revolutionary War, which is of course why West Florida (like Bermuda and Nova Scotia) declined its invitation to the Continental Congress, so it makes perfect sense that it would have been a centre of emigration to other British colonies in the West Indies. And slavery was extremely well-established in New York; I've seen it described as having been as well-established there as in any Southern state, and archaealogists' estimates of ten to twenty thousand slaves having been buried in lower Manhattan make it the largest African burial centre of colonial North America. But more to the point, because New York was the British capital in North America throughout the Revolutionary War (except for 1775–76), it was the major centre for all Loyalist refugees, from all thirteen states (and also from the Floridas after they were captured by Spain), so it's unsurprising that a lot of Loyalist immigrants to the Bahamas would come from New York since a lot of the immigrants who arrived anywhere in the British Empire in the 1780s came from New York.

But as I say, the thread had already arrived in the archive when I read it, so I knew it wasn't worth reviving on the main talk page unless I was prepared to go and find citations, which, frankly, I was too lazy to do for something that is an extremely minor point as far as the main article is concerned. But as far as New York goes, I have just come across, in Father Knickerbocker Rebels: New York City During the Revolution by Thomas J. Wertenbaker, page 260, in the discussion of Loyalist refugees resettling from New York: "One large group made a settlement in the Bahama Islands, for whom Carleton requested of the army in the West Indies six months provisions for 2,000 persons." I'm therefore going to add New York back into the main article text, properly cited. Binabik80 (talk) 19:16, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I didn't post here at the time, but, for the record, I did add a bit with a citation about how many whites and black slaves were resettled from East Florida, and that many of the refugees resettled from New York had fled from West Florida when it was captured by Spain. - Donald Albury 15:17, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Re: the discussion about "The"

The Preamble of the Bahamian Constitution refers to the "Creation under God of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas," which obviously is using "The" with a capital "T". The name "The Bahamas" is thus comparable with some other names that also use the definite article, such as "Las Vegas" or "Los Angeles". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.133.7.65 (talk) 15:20, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

See Talk:Ukraine/Archive 1#The Ukraine about an argument in the opposite direction, in which "The Ukraine" was in common use (especially before the 1990s), but the government of "Ukraine" won out on eliminating "The". - Donald Albury 18:06, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:The Bahamas for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:The Bahamas is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:The Bahamas until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 22:28, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

The

I just reverted a change, correcting "The Bahamas" to "The Bahamas". Per MOS:THECAPS, "The Bahamas" should have a lowercase "the". I tried to make a change to MOS:THECAPS on two occasions, but both changes were reverted. I recommend discussing this at the talk page for MOS:THECAPS to gain consensus. —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 00:07, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Recent reversion

Hey @Eyer: Why'd you do that? SchreiberBike | ⌨  04:53, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

population size

Is the much lower figure on https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/bahamas-the/#people-and-society unreliable? --Espoo (talk) 15:36, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

You mean the one with an estimated population of 352,655 for July 2021? The citations in the article for the 2010 census and the 2018 estimate are opaque, leading to a UN site with no clear indication of where the figures for the Bahamas are listed. It looks like one would have to download some data tables to find that information, which I am not inclined to do. The World Bank estimates the population of the Bahamas to have been 389,482 in 2019.[1] The Britannica has an estimate of 381,200 for 2020.[2] I don't really think the population has been dropping that fast. I'm not sure which reliable source we should go with. Maybe some discussion will help. - Donald Albury 20:43, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Population, total - Bahamas". data.worldbank.org. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
  2. ^ "The Bahamas | History, Geography, & Points of Interest". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-04-08.

Need someone to fix grammar in a sentence - I'm not sure of original intent.

The sentence, "Subsequently, the Bahamas became a haven for freed African slaves; the Royal Navy resettled there the Africans liberated from illegal slave ships, North American slaves and Seminoles escaped here from Florida, and the government-freed slaves carried on US domestic ships that had reached the Bahamas due to adverse weather conditions." has a grammar problem. There are three phrases after the semicolon. The first two of them have verbs, whereas the final one does not. I can't tell if the solution is as simple as removing the hyphen between "government" and "freed" or if a verb needs to be added. I leave it to better editors than I. Techguy95 (talk)

Section on hurricane Dorian

I think there should be section about hurricane Dorian in the history section in the article since hurricane Dorian was a significant event in the history of the Bahamas.

Discussion of capitalized "The" in the official name

A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization of The on whether a capital "T" is allowed in the phrase "Commonwealth of The Bahamas" when used as the official name of the Bahamas. - Donald Albury 14:39, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Of course it should be the capitalised "The". It's a part of the official name of the country. James Ker-Lindsay (talk) 11:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
This discussion has been open for quite a few months, and it appears that a consensus has been reached. If anyone else wants to comment there, please do so. Heddy10 (talk) 03:36, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

It's not clear that we have consensus to cap "The" when referring to the country, but it is clear that we have consensus to not cap "the" when it's not. So I downcased a bunch of instances that refer to pre-1973 things about the Bahamas. More downcasing might still be in order, espcially where "the Bahamas" refers more to the islands than to the commonwealth. And as shown at the linked discussion, even in the "Commonwealth of the Bahamas" lowercase dominates in books, so WP style would be to use lowercase for all. Dicklyon (talk) 06:31, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 6 February 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not Moved. Per previous RMs, the discussion in this RM and WP:Deadhorse the next RM and beating will most likely occur in February 2026 Mike Cline (talk) 17:39, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

The Bahamas → Bahamas – "Bahamas" redirect here. This already recognises that this is a WP:COMMONNAME. Therefore there is no point to include "the" article in the title. The same as with the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. Heanor (talk) 14:52, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://www.britannica.com/place/The-Bahamas
  2. ^ https://www.britannica.com/place/The-Gambia
  3. ^ https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/bahamas-the
  4. ^ https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/gambia-the
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rename page?

The titles of the articles for the Netherlands and the Philippines are just "Netherlands" and "Philippines" respectively, without a "The". Maybe the "The" should be removed from the title of this article as well as The Gambia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.196.12.156 (talk) 05:51, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Please see #Requested move 6 February 2022 immediately above. SchreiberBike | ⌨  06:15, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
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