Talk:Geraardsbergen

City and towns of Geraardsbergen

The Wikipedia page on Geraardsbergen calls Geraardsbergen a city and municipality. It also mentions 15 towns.

The Wikipedia page on Zottegem, located close to Geraardsbergen, calls Zottegem a municipality, comprising the town of Zottegem proper and 10 villages.

According to Belgian law, both Geraardsbergen and Zottegem have the status of "stad", and as such, both places should be called a municipality (in the broad sense given by Wikipedia), comprised of a city (Geraardsbergen, resp. Zottegem) and a number of towns; or they should be called a municipality, comprised of a town (Geraardsbergen, resp. Zottegem) and a number of villages. It's one or the other.

It should be noted that the term municipality as used by Wikipedia is a rather broad term. It has a different meaning than the Dutch word "gemeente" in Belgian law. Wikipedia mentions :

A municipality is an administrative entity composed of a clearly defined territory and its population and commonly denotes a city, town, or village, or a small grouping of them

As such, "municipality" has a broader meaning, and covers "city", "town" and "village", which are 3 specifications of "municipality".

When it comes to the administrative status of Geraardsbergen and Zottegem, there is one clear difference between them, and that's the timing of their status as "stad" : Geraardsbergen received its charter of "stad" in the Middle Ages, while Zottegem was rewarded this title in 1986.

Personnally, I feel that both Geraardsbergen and Zottegem with a population of resp. 31,000 and 24,000, ought to be called town, and that the term "city" should be reserved for larger places such as Brussels, Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, etc. Consequently, I would also prefer to speak about the "15 villages", resp. "10 villages" belonging to Geraardsbergen, resp. Zottegem. Hence, I would like to propose to change the Wikipedia-page on Geraardsbergen in this way.

Could I ask my colleagues of the Wiki Geraardsbergen for their thougths on this proposal ? Anyone else is welcome to join the discussion, too. If no disapproval received by April 30, 2010, I'll make the proposed changes. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.Dideru (talk) 13:49, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Dubious tag manneke pis

The statue is 160 years older, which is tagged as Dubious. For citations:

1. page of the city of Geraardsbergen with the history: http://www.geraardsbergen.be/content/content/record.php?ID=1286
2. Dutch wikipedia article: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis_van_Brussel which states that the original one in Geraardsbergen was older, but got lost, after which the current one in Geraardsbergen would be a more recent replica.

All in all, both communities claim to have the oldest, althouth both agree there are documents 140 years before 1618, in 1459, that describe a statue like Manneken Pis delivered to Geraardsbergen. The disputed tag is hence about the fact if the current Manneken Pis in Geraardsbergen is that original one or not. Can bronze statues even be dated to resolve this?