Talk:DE

Delaware

DE is the postal abbreviation for Delaware, so why do we need to make a redirect for it? Do we really want to have a disambiguation of postal abbreviations? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:36, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

DE unambiguously refers to Germany/Deutschland outside the US. It's for the same reason why NL redirects to the Netherlands and isn't a disambig page listing the Netherlands and Newfoundland and Labrador. To put it into simple words, a country such as Germany is clearly more famous and well-known than a tiny, insignificant US state. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 08:48, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

But who would know DE but neither Deutschland nor Germany? Why not make the redirect from Deutschland? I don't think we should create unnecessary redirects that might confuse someone. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:59, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Because ISO 3166 codes are generally well-known and are easier to type in urls than the full name. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 09:02, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I think if we use postal codes of states and provinces, especially of rather high-population countries, we have to create some kind of disambiguation, which bugs me. For something maybe upwards of 320,000,000 people, DE is short for Delaware. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:17, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Then we get into more complex situations. OR is not an initialism, but it can refer to either Odisha (pop. 42m) or Oregon (pop. 4m). I think countries should almost always take precedent over a subnational jurisdiction. VA is probably a discussion for another day, though. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 09:23, 18 September 2022 (UTC)