Talk:Durango (state)

Cities and other destinations

I'd like to update the Durango page and bring info up to date while also focusing on traveler needs. I'd like to start with the city list. I have no idea why there have to be 9 cities here since Durango as a state is VERY sparesely populate with almost nothing of genuine tourist value. It's a reach sometimes to even make the case that the state capital is "interesting". There are currently six cities listed here that have no content associated with them. I'd like to cut somewhere from 2 t 6 of these cities and to replace them with Mapimi and Nombre de Dios, both of which are declared as "Pueblos Magicos" and do have some tourist infrastructure to talk about. Mapimi is also a site on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, so might be able to glean a little more info off the UNESCO web page.

I'd also like to add some "Other Destinations" but can't really think of anyplace worthwhile in Durango. There are no national parks in the state and I can't think of any significant "natural wonders" there.

Any opinions on cities that should or should not be on the list? How about other destinations? Got any ideas? Mrkstvns (talk) 18:11, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I would definitely want to keep La Quebrada as an "other destination".... Mrkstvns (talk) 18:13, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Usually the problem is the other way around, and we follow the guideline that a list of 7±2 is easy to grasp for most people, which means nine when there are many places people want on the list. For lowest-level regions like this, simply all cities should be listed, i.e. all articles about towns (which might include significant villages), and perhaps also articles that should exist.

If there aren't many interesting cities, one should perhaps have articles on "rural areas" instead, which together with the city articles (and possible park articles) should cover all the state. The rural area articles could go into the city list or to Other destinations. Individual major sights without their own article can also be in Other destinations, but they could as well be in See or Do. I assume the two national parks (listed in See) should be moved to Other destinations at latest when they get their articles. I assume also La Quebrada should have a park or rural area article.

I don't know the area; don't take my word for the final truth.

–LPfi (talk) 13:45, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The problem is that Durango, as a state, is a lot of wide open dusty semi-desert. The only city of any touristic value is the state capital (Durango). Even the second-largest city (Gomez Palacios) has absolutely zero tourist value. In fact, it's a poor community that serves as an industrial suburb of Torreon and is generally best avoided by travelers who value their lives and property.

Looks to me like someone just read an article in Wikipedia about Durango, picked a handful of larger communities and put redlinks in the City list. Not really useful. I'm pondering how to make this into a travel article that is actually useful to a real traveler. Hard to say something about nothing...

Thanks for the feedback. I will continue to ponder.

Cheersǃ Mrkstvns (talk) 16:47, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

If some town is uninteresting per se, then include a wide enough surrounding area in the article. I assume travellers will want to visit the town for shopping food and fuel if nothing else. If nobody from the outside is going to visit the area at all, then ... I don't know. The article now says that El Salto has places to practice rappelling, mountaineering and zip-lining, which hints that there is some tourist business, and thus tourists, coming for something.

w:es:Durango (state)#Turismo says:

"Durango se ha convertido en uno de los estados turísticos más importantes por sus paisajes y lugares turísticos para visitar es un lugar perfecto para disfrutar de alguna aventura, para personas que gustan de emociones fuertes, [...]"

I suppose that means that there are areas that attract visitors, not only Victoria de Durango and El Salto. Those travellers probably want services in towns they travel through, so also some towns that otherwise are boring might be of interest – especially in 2024, with the eclipse.

Feel free to remove boring towns without description (does Pinos Altos even exist?), but all the state should be covered somehow, so that a traveller who finds a pearl in the dust can find a page where to write about it. However a metropolitan area of a million inhabitants, like Gómez Palacio, is bound to have something interesting. If it is dull and dangerous, it is better to tell that, and perhaps how to visit the city safely. It could be redirected to Torreón if that makes more sense (with appropriate comments in that article).

Regardless, I suppose the most important thing to make the region coverage valuable for our readers, is to bring articles about interesting places to usable or guide status, and to tell about the things people come here for, and things they need while here. Whether some boring dusty corner of the state redlinks or isn't even mentioned is a lesser problem.

–LPfi (talk) 18:08, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I believe I contributed some of the content of these articles so I should add a comment here. A friend of mine is from this region and visited some of the towns in this state, and I thought it would be a good idea to add articles about these places. Similarly, in U.S. states such as Nevada or Montana, we have articles on small towns with limited content. The Wikivoyage:Canada Expedition by Ground Zero has shown that upgrading these articles to better status is entirely possible, even without visiting the towns in question in some cases. That said, I'm not opposed to merging some of the towns such as Pinos Altos which are unlikely to be tourist destinations in their own right. My understanding of Durango's geography is that it is dominated by valleys, and perhaps each of the valleys could receive its own rural area article. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 20:32, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate the comments you guys made and took these points into account as I updated the articles for the state of Durango. I researched the state and its cities and towns. As a result, I removed a couple of the previous red link cities that proved to be of little touristic interest, but also added some places that were more interesting and had more available info. As a result, the list is just as long as before, with an equally nice geographic distribution across the state, and all of the articles have what I consider to be sufficient good content to warrant a usable status. I'm pleasantly surprised to discover that Gomez Palacio is far more interesting than I assumed. Even when I've visited Torreon, I never did more than just drive through Gomez Palacio, dismissing it as little more than a dull industrial complex. I've added quite a bit of content to that article and could it see it evolving into a very nice guide status article with more time and effort. Again, thanks all for the comments and insight! (And feel free to change anything that you think I didn't get quite right...) Mrkstvns (talk) 16:20, 23 March 2023 (UTC)