US with Canadian Ridings

[Hatman 🍁]

What, no names? That's half the fun!

[Hatman 🍁]

What, no names? That's half the fun!

^^^

And keep in mind the difference between Canadian and British naming conventions.

Yes. I am a harsh judge when it comes to these things.

BTW, another thing to keep in mind is that you can deviate over 25% in special "unique circumstances". For example, in Canada, Labrador is its own riding despite only being 30K. Kenora is another example at 65K.  An example (using US sized districts) would be keeping all of the UP in Michigan in one district.

[Hatman 🍁]

Here is Washington DC:



All five districts are extremely solid Democratic ridings. Obama won the blue district on the eastern side of the Anacostia River in 2008 98.8-.08 over McCain. 2 districts are big majority Black (blue and green), 1 is majority Black with a large Hispanic population (yellow), 1 is majority white with a large Black population (purple) and 1 district has a big white majority (red).

Some name possibilities:

Red: Washington West--Georgetown
Yellow: Washington North
Green: Washington Northeast
Blue: Washington Southeast (or perhaps Fort Dupont--Anacostia)
Purple: Washington--Capitol (or Washington Center)

[Hatman 🍁]

Here is Washington DC:



All five districts are extremely solid Democratic ridings. Obama won the blue district on the eastern side of the Anacostia River in 2008 98.8-.08 over McCain. 2 districts are big majority Black (blue and green), 1 is majority Black with a large Hispanic population (yellow), 1 is majority white with a large Black population (purple) and 1 district has a big white majority (red).

Some name possibilities:

Red: Washington West--Georgetown
Yellow: Washington North
Green: Washington Northeast
Blue: Washington Southeast (or perhaps Fort Dupont--Anacostia)
Purple: Washington--Capitol (or Washington Center)

I unfortunately didn't have time when I posted them last night.

Red: Washington Northwest—Georgetown
Yellow: Washington North—Howard—Pentworth
Green: Washington Northeast—National Arboretum
Blue: Washington—Anacostia
Purple: Washington—Capitol Hill—Downtown

Let me know if I did anything wrong.

"Downtown" is never used in a riding's name. The preference is for "Centre" or in this case it would be "Center".  I don't think "National Arboretum" belongs in a riding name either. "Capitol Hill" sounds nice, but may not be appropriate either. What about "Beltway"? Perhaps just calling it "Washington Center" would be best.

[Hatman 🍁]

As you can see on the map, only a tiny portion of the Beltway in the very south is actually in the District.

*Looks it up* Sorry, apparently I had no idea what the beltway was. I got it confused with the Beltline in Calgary, and I thought it was the region from the White House to the US Capitol.

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Remember, directionals almost always come after the place name. And are usually dropped entirely from county names. (eg Glengarry-Prescott-Russell is not Glengarry North-Prescott-Russell)

[Hatman 🍁]

RE: name order; there is no real convention, I think. I suppose typically you start with the most populous, and then go by geography.

[Hatman 🍁]

Wyoming


All five districts are very Republican and all are pretty white.

Some names:

Yellow: Jackson-Cody-Lander
Red: Sheridan-Gillette
Purple: Casper-Powder River
Green: Red Desert-Medicine Bow
Blue: Cheyenne-Platte-Goshen
 

[Hatman 🍁]

Wyoming


All five districts are very Republican and all are pretty white.

Some names:

Yellow: Jackson-Cody-Lander
Red: Sheridan-Gillette
Purple: Casper-Powder River
Green: Red Desert-Medicine Bow
Blue: Cheyenne-Platte-Goshen
 

Laramie would be in the Green riding's name. It's the 3rd largest city in Wyoming and home to their University.

I purposely left it out, because Cheyenne is in Laramie County.

[Hatman 🍁]

Wyoming


All five districts are very Republican and all are pretty white.

Some names:

Yellow: Jackson-Cody-Lander
Red: Sheridan-Gillette
Purple: Casper-Powder River
Green: Red Desert-Medicine Bow
Blue: Cheyenne-Platte-Goshen
 

Laramie would be in the Green riding's name. It's the 3rd largest city in Wyoming and home to their University.

I purposely left it out, because Cheyenne is in Laramie County.

So the idea would be to prevent confusion? Do you have a link to the rules for naming or would you mind giving an overview?

There's no real rules, just conventions.

[Hatman 🍁]

From Wikipedia:

Electoral district names are usually geographic in nature, and chosen to represent the community or region within the electoral district boundaries. Where a federal district's name includes more than one geographic designation, it is properly denoted with an em dash (—) between each distinct geographic name, for example Toronto—Danforth and Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale (but Cape Breton—Canso, not Cape–Breton–Canso, as "Cape Breton" is a single geographic name.) Where a single geographic name contains a hyphen, that is also not replaced by an en dash (e.g., Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, not Saint–Hyacinthe–Bagot; Saint-Lambert, not Saint–Lambert.) Where a district's name includes a geographic designation and an ordinal direction (e.g., Calgary Centre), there is generally no punctuation between the two words or phrases.

Some electoral districts in Quebec are named for historical figures rather than geography (e.g., Louis-Hébert, Honoré-Mercier); these contain hyphens between the words, not em dashes. Similarly in Alberta provincial districts mix geographic names with those of historical personages (e.g., Edmonton-Decore after Laurence Decore, Calgary-Lougheed after Peter Lougheed and James Alexander Lougheed). This practice is no longer employed in the other provinces and territories.[2]

Some ridings, especially ridings with large numbers of both francophone and anglophone voters, may be named or punctuated differently in English and French. The Manitoba riding of Saint Boniface, for example, is referred to in French as "Saint-Boniface", with a hyphen.

Depending on local convention, however, provincial electoral districts may use a hyphen instead of an em dash in this context.

[Hatman 🍁]

Would love a riding called "Huey Long"

There should be a few ridings in the outer boroughs of New York with geographical directions in their name that date from much larger iterations of the riding when the area was still rural and no longer make any sense at all.

FTR he is referring to riding names like York West, York Centre and York South-Weston in Toronto.

[Hatman 🍁]

Remember, directionals almost always come after the place name. And are usually dropped entirely from county names. (eg Glengarry-Prescott-Russell is not Glengarry North-Prescott-Russell)

I think I read somewhere (although I may be confusing it with over here, however I think the naming convention is generally the same for directionals), directionals always come after the place name. The only time it would appear to come first, is in the case where the place name already contains a directional... ie, "Beaches -- East York" is named after a place named "East York" as opposed to the Eastern part of York. That's my understanding, anyway, I could be wrong.

One exception is South Surrey-White Rock.

[Hatman 🍁]

South Dakota


Obama won the Blue and Red ridings in 2008, but probably not in 2012. South Dakota Democrats would probably be favored in both though. The remaining ridings  are solidly Republican, but the Teal Green district is 25.3% Native America.   

Possible names:

Forest Green: West River
Grey: Black Hills
Yellow: Aberdeen-Pierre-Huron
Red: Glacial Lakes
Purple: Mitchell-Yankton-Vermillion
Blue: Minnehaha
(Light) Green: Lincoln-Canton

[Hatman 🍁]

Perhaps to make this more Canadian, states should not have any fewer districts than they would have had in 1984. Anyone want to figure out what the districts would be like then?

[Hatman 🍁]

Why do Missouri and Iowa get 10? Wouldn't it make sense to give that distinction to eastern states?

I think if you want to emulate Canada, you have to divide the US into regions. In Canada, there are 24 Senators for the West, 24 for Ontario, 24 for Quebec and 24 for the Maritimes, plus 6 for NL which joined later.

Thus, every state that joined the union after the civil war gets 6 Senators.  You can give 100 Senators to the North, and 100 to the south and... let's say they give Washington six, Nevada 4 and California 10.

[Hatman 🍁]

How large do the second and third named communities need to to be part of the riding name? Is it based on the size of the primary community or just in relation to the whole district?

District names should be as representative as the whole riding as possible. If if it gets hard to decide on a name, a geographic feature will do.  But there are no rules at all in Canada for how big community sizes have to be.

I think there should be shorter names in general. Most Canadian ridings don't have dashes in their names.

This is true. It would be nice to have some geographic features in riding names as well. Some of the RI name suggestions are a bit awkward. Especially "Providence South—College Hill—West End"   

[Hatman 🍁]

Do the ridings have to be contiguous?  I'm working on Mississippi right now.

Within reason of course. Presently there is one riding in Canada that is not, but that is because the regional boundaries aren't:  http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/PopUpWindows.asp?ED=24039

[Hatman 🍁]

Train, your names sound more British than Canadian.

[Hatman 🍁]

I would be ditching the term "Baltco" from any riding name.

[Hatman 🍁]

You should be using county names first and foremost unless the riding is smaller than a county or contains too many counties.

[Hatman 🍁]

Names are getting better (some issues, but I'll leave you alone)

One thing I should note is don't try to avoid county directionals all together. If you have a county with tons of ridings, then yes- avoid them in place of city names, but if you have a count with 2 ridings and neither focus on a particular city, it's safe to go with "X West" and "X East" for example. It's rare these days to have a riding that fits this description in Canada (Simcoe North is one of the few examples), but it was very common in the past.  It seems that this type of situation would occur more often in the US.

Also, if a riding contains a county plus a part of a city outside that county, you don't need a directional on that city name. Your example of Toledo East-Oregon would best be named "Oregon-Toledo".

Also, Cincinnati West-Center wouldn't be a name chosen. Perhaps just Cincinnati West?