Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Puerto Rico/Archives/2015/December

Barrio/Ward

Is there any standard consensus on whether to translate "Barrio" into "Ward" for the English Wikipedia or to use the Spanish word? It does appear that we generally translate "Municipio" into "Municipality". Thanks. — Ipoellet (talk) 07:11, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

• Forget "Ward". "Barrio" is the term commonly used in the United States when describing and area highly populated by Latinos/Hispanics. Tony the Marine (talk) 20:53, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• Well, yeah, I get that's how "barrio" is used on the mainland. But in Puerto Rico it seems to mean something slightly different: a specific geographic (and governmental?) subdivision of a municipality that may or may not have anything to do with being a community/neighborhood itself or its ethnic composition. I have been using "barrio" rather than "ward" so far, but I've seen lots of both usages on the English Wikipedia. — Ipoellet (talk) 21:06, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• It depends what you are talking about. Puerto Rico doesn't have wards in the sense of representation. Puerto Rican "wards" are simply municipal subdivisions with very specific demarcations but with no administrative power whatsoever. They are not even used for elections; they use precincts and districts instead. Regarding composition, barrios do have to do with community--people from barrio A are different than people from Barrio B socioculturally. HTH, —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 00:45, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• That improves my understanding - thank you. So here's another question from an ignorant mainlander: When I see references to a pueblo distinguished from a barrio (for example Mayagüez Pueblo on this map), is the pueblo functionally the same thing as a barrio - just the "main" or "core" barrio? — Ipoellet (talk) 03:51, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• Pueblo is simply an urbanized area in a municipality, something like saying town in English. In that map there is a barrio named "Pueblo", but some pueblos contain several barrios and some municipalities have more than one pueblo. Many municipalities inherited pueblos from mergers. I would use barrio over ward due to common use. 166.172.187.27 (talk) 05:22, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• Sounds like a consensus to me: barrio rather than ward on the English Wikipedia. Thank you all for the feedback. — Ipoellet (talk) 05:26, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• In that particular context/map 'pueblo' is simply the downtown barrio where the municipal government is seated. Historically this was the place where Spaniards settled and controlled the municipality. The municipal 'pueblo' typically has a cathedral, a plaza and the mayor's office. What the other user is describing is a completely different thing. You have two different kind of municipalities on the island: cities and non-cities. Non-cities are referred to as 'pueblos' locally. However, this other meaning of 'pueblo' refers to the barrio within a city/non-city that hosts the municipal government. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 09:13, 3 December 2015 (UTC)