Talk:Brega

Separation

Should the article on the city, Brega be separated from the article on the bay? Brega is a new city having been proposed, designed and constructed after World War II. The bay Marsa al Burayqah or Marsa al Brega has a longer history. The entry at The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (2002) "Sector 1.Coast of Libya" Sailing Directions (Enroute) for Eastern Mediterranean (tenth edition) National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Bethesda, Maryland, page 8 says:

Marsa al Burayqah, a bay, lies 22 miles ENE of Al Uqaylah and is entered between Khashm Aritu (Ras al Magdar) and a point, 3 miles SW. An important oil terminal is situated in the SW part of the bay and consists of a harbor, protected by breakwaters, and several offshore berth.

--Bejnar (talk) 19:35, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

When there's enough about both places in the article, we can look at splitting off one or the other. At the moment it's a small enough article to hold both places comfortably, and as the city presumably exists to house the oil and seaport workers, they're not that distinct. So for now I think they can stay together. Totnesmartin (talk) 12:51, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Name?

The articles name should either be Brega or Marsa El Brega. (مرسى Marsa) means "seaport" in Arabic and if you want to combine it with the name of the settlement (Brega) then you have to add (AL/El) in between. The current name sounds as confusing as "Ciudad Mexico City" imho, I suggest renaming it to Brega since it is the most common in western media.-- Rafy talk 17:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that, my Arabic amounts to about three words so I didn't know! The namespaces Brega and Marsa Brega are taken,so we can't do the move ourselves, (an Admin has to). I suggest you take up the matter at Wikipedia:Requested moves. I'll support your request. Totnesmartin (talk) 21:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

It was known in the west (until recently) mainly for the WWII battle, which I have always seen named as "Mersa Brega". For instance here and here etc. This is how the Italians wrote it, I guess. But if it's wrong, it's wrong. I suppose the "Mersa" vs "Marsa" think is a matter of taste with no right-or-wrong answer. There is also Marsa El Brega vs. Marsa el-Brega, and I see Google also gives me Marsa El Breiga and Marsa Al Burayqa, while Brittanica goes with Marsā al-Burayqah, which I guess is the direct transliteration from Arabic, and then this seems to indicate that there is a place called "Marsa El Brega" which contains an entity called "Mersa Brega Seaport"... Do we have a Wikipedia transliteration rule for Arabic? We do for Russian, where there are also various schemes to pick from...

That being said, I don't care, and if "Marsa Brega" is actually wrong then either "Marsa El Brega" or "Brega" would be fine with me, as long as there are redirects from the other likely cases, and I'll support whatever Totnesmartin or whoever makes the move request suggests. Herostratus (talk) 23:43, 29 March 2011 (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: move to Brega. Consensus here is that this is the term used by English sources. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 09:01, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

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Marsa Brega Seaport → Marsa El Brega — Should either be Brega or Marsa El Brega. Seaport should be dropped as (مرسى Marsa) already means "seaport" in Libyan Arabic. Furthermore the definite Arabic article (AL/El) sould be added between Marsa and Brega (Same rationale for "Ciudad de Mexico"). --Rafy talk 20:00, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support per nom. I'm taking nom's word that this is correct, and a Google search indicates that it is. A move to just Brega would also slightly preferable and I would prefer that if ppl prefer; either is better than the current name. Herostratus (talk) 21:02, 30 March 2011 (UTC) Changing my vote, see below. Herostratus (talk) 14:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support "Brega". This seems to be the common way nowadays to refer, in the English-language press, to the entity which comprises the town of "Brega", its harbor, its seaport, and its airport (all of which are or can be covered in this one article). "Marsa El Brega" (or Marsa Brega) seem to be limited and/or archaic. Herostratus (talk) 14:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support "Brega" but not per nom. Even if "Marsa" means "seaport", this is not the case in English, there are many instances where we have "x-foreign x-English" as names of things. "Marsa" has no meaning in English and cannot be used to indicate seaport. "Brega" should be used because that is the common form used by the press currently; "Marsa el Brega" is also acceptable. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 07:59, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support but not minded as to Brega or Marsa El Brega. Totnesmartin (talk) 13:06, 31 March 2011 (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.

re name

OK, the thing is, I'd always seen it as "Mersa Brega" -- that's how it's referred to in material about WWII, generally. Granting that Google hits have limited utility I get:

• "mersa brega" - 99,000 hits
• "mersa el brega" - 33,100 hits
• "marsa el brega" - 89,100 hits
• "marsa brega" - 35,200 hits

(N.B.: Google seems to take "el-brega" and "el brega" as being identical.) The "a" camp and the "e" camp are roughly tied, but amongst the partisans of "a" the version without the "el" predominates, whilst in the "e" camp the converse is true. This just about jibes with my personal anecdotal experience, which is that the place has attracted the notice of the world twice: in WWII, where it was usually called "Mersa Brega", and in the 2011 Libyan uprising, where it is usually called "Marsa el-Brega". Thus I have added "Mersa Brega" as place that Brega is also known as, in the opening sentence. Herostratus (talk) 17:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

it would be best to create all variant names as redirects, and possibly have a section listing all of them. Totnesmartin (talk) 19:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Attempts at clarification

I've added info and clarification notes on the different parts of Brega. This may help to understand the differences in reports in the media over "who has what and where" during the past months. Even more info would be welcome, as there exist some discrepancies between alternative names, "Area 1" vs "Area 2", Western Brega/Old Brega etc don't seem to stick on all maps.--Paracel63 (talk) 13:17, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Coordinate error

{{geodata-check}}

The following coordinate fixes are needed for Brega Coordinates show it in the water, quite a ways off shore

—Jeancey (talk) 19:25, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed — Moved onshore between Eastern and Western Brega with scale parameter set so both cities should appear on most people's monitors. — TransporterMan (TALK) 14:52, 27 September 2011 (UTC)